This, then, was the context, at least until the election in
2008 of a young president promising change and renewed
hope. What those geniuses created in Philadelphia in the eigh-
teenth century and their rowdy successors embellished in the
nineteenth century, uninspired leaders and passive followers, in
both government and business, too often turned into a giant
machine, its wheels spinning frantically in the mud, going
nowhere.
Like the outsized American cars of the Eisenhower era,
America often seems too big and too awkward to work very
well, much less respond quickly and wisely to events. This be-
came painfully evident in the wake of 9/11 when Americans
discovered, to their shock and dismay, that our security appara-
tus was vast but dangerously inefficient. It seems that the F.B.I.
had been collecting information as assiduously as ever but
hadn’t bothered to update its computer networks so that infor-
mation could be shared, analyzed, and acted upon quickly and
effectively. The C.I.A. had failed to reinvent itself after the fall
of the Soviet Union and had failed to anticipate new threats
that would require new foreign language skills and other capa-
bilities. The security agencies had a history of turf wars, not
cooperation. And even when crucial information was flowing,
it could be blocked by a single preoccupied supervisor or one
with his or her own agenda. Combine those systemic flaws with
an arrogant belief that the unimaginable couldn’t happen here,
and disaster was inevitable.
But authentic leaders are able to analyze the context and
transcend it. Always an innovator, television producer/writer
Norman Lear has enjoyed astonishing success—financially as
well as creatively. When I talked with him, we discussed not
only his life and his work, but also his concern with what he
On Becoming a Leader