A Nation in Crisis needs Crisis Leadership

Whether we want to admit it or not, the United States is moving into a crisis. In fact, it may already be in a crisis. I am not just talking about the "sub-prime mortgage/ liquidity crisis" but crises in all key aspects of the nation.

Let me explain.

1. First of all we are a "debtor nation". It starts at the top and goes down to the individual. The nation continues to rack up huge negative balance of trade each month. China, Dubai and other nations literally own the country and it gets worse, since we continue to be dependent oil and export our manufacturing and service jobs. The individual household is maxed-out on their credit cards and since their wages either remain stable or decline and cost of living increases, they are in jeopardy every month of going bankrupt.
2. Second, we have over extended our military and spend billions each month to keep Iraq secure and rebuild its infrastructure. We don't have enough military to respond anywhere else and can't afford to spend money we don't have.
3. Our infrastructure, roads, sewers, railroads, electricity etc have been HARVESTED and are being fixed in a piecemeal and shabby way. Everyday there is grid lock in the major cities. When it rains the electricity goes out and we get flooded.
4. Everything is for sale... we are willing to sell off our businesses and financial institutions. "greedy self serving" executives are willing to cash out and allow the highest bidder or most convenient investors to buy our assets CHEAP.
5. We have already exported our good jobs, given away our technology and open up facilities and R&D labs in China, India and other countries that are not secure and are not willing to honor our patents and copyrights. Even our financial service jobs are being exported.

I could go on and discuss our declining educational and health care institutions, but this has already been " beaten to death".

In short, even if we would like to ignore the reality...we are in crisis and need a new type of leader.

In my next blog, I will describe the type of leaders we need and why the current "presidential, senator and congressional leaders at the national level and the governors and their legislators at the state and local levels ALL LACK THE RIGHT TYPE OF LEADERS.

In addition, I will describe PAST situations when our country was in crisis and how the right type of leaders rose to the top and saved us....

Bill Rothschild (www. strategyleader.com)

Author of "The Secret to GE's Success" and "Risktaker, Caretaker, Surgeon, Undertakers- the four faces of strategic leadership".