intertwined that what happens in Iowa can hit Shanghai like a
tsunami. With the economic dominoes stretched around the
globe, greed and wrongdoing in one quarter can cause trouble
anywhere. And so, when unscrupulous manufacturers in China
contaminated milk with an industrial plastic, the first, most
tragic victims were Chinese babies whose kidneys were dam-
aged. But because the tainted dairy products were distributed
worldwide, chocolate bunnies tainted with melamine were
soon being pulled from Easter baskets in Europe and the
United States.
In recent decades, Americans have rarely had to face such
grim evidence that their leadership had failed. We were
shocked at the fragility of the economy and shaken in our con-
fidence that our leaders could fix the problem. The economic
mess alone would explain why most of 2008 was an unusually
pessimistic time in the world and especially in the United
States. In the months before the landmark 2008 presidential
election, many had a growing sense that the so-called Ameri-
can Century was fast coming to an end. Thoughtful people
were not troubled by some jingoistic fear that the United
States was losing its status as the world’s sole superpower.
Rather, many had an uneasy feeling that the country’s best
days were behind it. Those feelings were understandable. The
dollar had become so weak against the euro that many U.S. cit-
izens were foregoing European travel. Once a badge of honor,
a U.S. passport no longer guaranteed a friendly welcome
almost anywhere. And Americans were battered by nonstop
criticism from European and other allies, most of it directed at
policies of the Bush administration, but distressing nonethe-
less. The criticism surged as our meltdown proved contagious.
In an op-ed piece in the New York Times, British writer Andrew
On Becoming a Leader