STRATEGIC Crisis Leadership- Part One

This is the first part of a four part series on CRISIS LEADERSHIP.
Whether we like it or not, the United States in a crisis… and it is just not a financial crisis.
This is good and bad news.
Obviously, the bad news is obvious… the financial markets are in turmoil. Companies and individuals are overly leveraged, companies can’t get credit, individuals are max-ed out on their credit cards and many are losing their homes.
But there is good news….the United States is a CRISIS society and only takes constructive, difficult actions when it is in crisis.

Let me explain
1. Why the crisis is more than what is happening on Wall Street and in housing.
2. How we have responded constructively to past crises and hopeful can respond to this one.
3. What type of strategic leaders we need and some of the actions required.

More than Wall Street and Housing
With the advent of television and cable there have been more coverage of the financial market and so the rise or fall of stock prices has been be the surrogate for the US economy. When the markets are going up, as they have been over the past five years, everyone thinks the economy is good and you should continue to spend. When markets decline, as they have been in the past few months, the "gloom and doomers" appear and everyone begins to worry.
But in recent months, the housing bubble has deflated, sub-prime mortgages have caused most the key financial firms to write off billions, take enormous losses, get funded by “foreign governments, billionaires”merge, change their legal status and even go out of business. Commercial and private foreclosures and deflates have increased and people are often walking away and are unable to pay.
So now there is panic and all of the politicians want to save us by “quick fixes”.
But it is just not these problems that are putting us in a crisis situation.
Our infrastructure has been “harvested” or milked and are not able to sustain their simple needs of people to commute to work, fly and even heat and light their homes. There is grid lock in major cities on its highways, airports are reporting more “near misses”, when it rains the electricity goes out, the railroads are almost non-existent and not a major factor in providing transportation or shipping. We could enumerate more problems in health care, education, water and flood control.
In short, we have a “third world infrastructure”.
But it is worse, we have become a debtor nation. Our balance of trade, weak dollar has enabled China, Dubai, Saudi Arabia to make major acquisitions of United States company and technologies. We have exported our manufacturing jobs and have become a service economy. Individuals are max-ed out their credit and can hardly afford to live. We have also decreased our security and ability to respond if attacked.
Students are graduating from our colleges heavily in debt and unable to find jobs that can allow them to pay their loans. The quality and rigidity of the educational system has declined. Some students can’t write, others have no idea of what is happening in the world. Colleges often have no classes on Friday and the students take a minimum work load.
More examples could be furnished but it is fair to say that there is a crisis is all phases of the United States economy and it is not just one problem, but the combination of these problems that put us in crisis.

Bill Rothschild author of two global best sellers:

• THE SECRET TO GE's SUCCESS



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• RISKTAKER, CARETAKER, SURGEON, UNDERTAKER- the four faces of strategic leadership.