even deeper recession, one that is being compared to the
Great Depression. In a pattern that has become distressingly
familiar, the current economic downturn followed a bubble.
This time around, houses, not tulips, were the object of the
public’s frenzied buying. After soaring to absurd heights,
prices of American homes are now in free fall, with sale signs
blighting entire neighborhoods. The prices of food and fuel
have jumped, even as American jobs vanish by the hundreds of
thousands. These problems were no act of God. They resulted
from lack of leadership at every level, including failures by
government officials and those heading the banking and finan-
cial services industries.
Crises reveal leadership as well as require it. The current fi-
nancial mess elicited a relatively swift and concerted effort to
address it. In the fall of 2008 lame-duck president George W.
Bush urged Congress to pass a $700-billion rescue package.
Action came after a false start or two, including treasury secre-
tary Henry Paulson’s initially using the toxic term bailout to
describe the plan. Government intervention did not stop the
stock market from going crazy in October, with the New York
Stock Exchange plunging hundreds of points every day for a
week, then surging a record 936 points in a single day. The
market turbulence coincided with the end of the fiscal quarter,
which meant millions of Americans received their 401(k)
statements in the midst of it. Many were afraid to open
them—with good reason, since the news inside the envelopes
was dire. According to the Congressional Budget Office,
Americans collectively lost $2 trillion in retirement money
between July 31, 2007, and September 30, 2008. Many feared
they would never be able to retire. Ever timely, the New Yorker
spoke to the national mood with a pointed cartoon by Roz
On Becoming a Leader