We have already stressed optimism as a key element of leadership. It stands to reason that only fanatics follow pessimists and that positive leadership improves the odds and optimizes the possibilities. People would rather be led by someone who appeals to the brighter side of things than to the negative. This is not to suggest that good leaders avoid negative realities. When Churchill led the British during World War II, he had plenty of negatives to deal with, not the least of which was the almost daily bombardment of London by the Germans. He did not ignore the horror of the bombing, while appealing to the strengths of his fellow Londoners, as he did on Britain's darkest day in the last half-millennium, when British soldiers were driven into the sea at Dunkirk in June 1940, the same month that France came under Nazi control. His talent for recognizing the negative while betting on the positive is epitomized by what he said to his fellow Britons.

In Britain's darkest day, Churchill essentially said, “We will prevail, though it's far from over and it requires an all-out effort.”

If optimism is essential in any leader, we should look for that characteristic and demand it of our political leaders.

Out with naysayers, complainers, and those who obsess over problems instead of pursuing and proposing solutions. New York's mayor did not complain when the Trade Towers were destroyed; he told the world that the city and the nation would overcome the problems created by the disaster. America would recover, and the city and country would be better for it. As individuals, we have an obligation to look for the positive side of things, for opportunities to support improvements, to volunteer and take part. We know how corrosive negative attitudes can be in our lives and at work. If ever there was a time to put them aside, this is it.

Particularly in tough times, we need leaders who face facts in what they do and what they say. Double-talk and false promises create doubt, which only compounds the uncertainty that everyone already feels in times of crisis. Stack makes a point of identifying himself as a realist— someone who “looks for the upside and manages for the downside.” In the 9-11 crisis, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld overcame misgivings about his leadership by not exaggerating successes or minimizing setbacks. As The Economist said of him approvingly: “He either speaks straightforwardly, or not at all.” The Wall Street Journal cited Churchill in reporting on the role of realism in times of turmoil:

To make a difference, leadership requires a commitment to action. Churchill's Dunkirk speech is full of resolution about what his nation had to do and would do. His eloquent statement left no doubt about his call to action— an all-out effort, his way of saying, “Let's roll.” Good leaders constantly emphasize their commitment to action. In a radio broadcast a month after commenting on Dunkirk, he said it again: “We shall defend every village, every town, and every city.”

“Doing something” is a formula for success in both war and peace, in any situation defined as competitive, in any confrontation where there are winners and losers. It is as American as the Washington Monument, and the examples are endless, like footnotes that overwhelm the main text of the American story. As a prototype illustration of what we mean, there is the Jack Stack story. In the early 1980s, he was about to become a leader without followers, faced with closing down the plant he managed for International Harvester and, thus, laying off 250 people. Stack takes such stakes personally, and his feelings emerge when he talks as the man in charge and responsible. The prospect of layoffs kept him up at night; he was “all tensed up,” he lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. Then he made his decision. He recalls what he said to himself, “Hell, leaders at least try to do something.” He proceeded to talk to all the plant employees—on factory floors, in the lunchroom, in bars— meeting the problem head-on: “Should we try to save the plant and not just sit there like a bunch of wimps?” The answer was a resounding yes to saving the plant by buying it.

Stack put together $100,000 and leveraged it to get an $8.9 million bank loan: “We were one of the worst-leveraged buyouts of the eighties. Our debt-to-equity ratio was 89 to one.” Starting February 1, 1983, the newly independent Springfield ReManufacturing Company (SRC) had a $90,000 interest payment to meet on the first day of every month. Not surprisingly, its stock was priced at 10 cents in a field crowded with competitors remanufacturing engines and their components and manufacturing power units, generators, starters, alternators, and electrical components. In 10 years, the $100,000 purchase was worth $25 million; by the early 1990s, the initial 10-cent stock soared by 20,000 percent to $20, with 80 percent of it owned by employees. They became more than stockholders and employees. They became fully informed participants, educated in what business is all about. They were taught how to read income statements and balance sheets, and they learned how their work and their on-the-job decisions contributed to the bottom line. The SRC approach became a heralded system for employee involvement, open-book management, that has been picked up by companies of all sizes.

Stack as SRC's president and CEO embodies leadership with his quintessential American approach of full employee participation and proactive leadership. His view of leadership in uncertain times gets down to basics:

In analyses of successful leaders, the skill of delegation comes to the fore, particularly in the memoirs of the people close to them. By sharing responsibility and distributing assignments, leaders extend their reach and multiply their effectiveness. In the process, they capitalize on the knowledge and know-how of others and rely on surrogate eyes and ears to stay on top of what is going on. Effective leaders set an example, show people what to do, inspire courage, and make sure the necessary wherewithal is provided. In Churchill's case, he translated the call to “fight them on the beaches” into a full-scale effort to raise, train, and equip a large British military force of naval, army, and air units to defend the country. He let his cabinet members figure out the details and deliver results. “It's amazing,” President Truman said, “what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.”

Delegation is a hallmark of American presidents in wartime (except for James Madison in the War of 1812). Lincoln, Wilson, Roosevelt, Truman, Johnson, and both Bush presidents delegated responsibility and considerable authority to their generals to lead the fighting. Anyone who has worked in an organization will identify the best managers as the ones who give everyone the space to do their work and get their jobs done. Micromanagers are the bane of men and women trying to do the best possible job in any organization, whereas managers who lead by trusting people and leaving them free to succeed get the best results. What America needs (and produces) is leadership that leverages the skill and initiative of individuals and organizations to do the work of the nation.

The entire process of delegation revolves around trust, initiative, and commitment. We must trust each other to do what's expected by drawing on our training, experience, and know-how to do what's needed. The heroism and individual leadership that emerged from 9-11 became a cumulative demonstration of initiative, a distinctive American trait that showed up on 9-11 in countless individual acts directed at the overriding goal of saving lives. In times of crisis, commitment is second nature when the cause is believed in, thereby producing the 9-11 effect. New Yorkers, then people from all over the country and even the world rushed to help, becoming followers or leaders, as circumstances required.

Jack Stack describes what he would do if suddenly made leader of another organization:

A positive attitude, coupled with a bias for action, is not enough. Leaders must articulate what is to be done in ways that build confidence and stir people to action. We demand of our leaders that they “speak” to us, and we have the responsibility to answer—by speaking up in our communities, attending city council hearings, writing letters to the editor, participating in community organizations. The more feedback and the more dialogue, the more effective the leadership.

Some of the greatest moments in the history of leadership center on effective communications. Kennedy's “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country” is classic. President Ronald Reagan is cherished as a leader because of his outstanding ability to get his message across on television and in person. There were many things he did not do well, but his limitations were set aside because he was “The Great Communicator.”

Churchill, one of the greatest communicators in European history, was a man in deep trouble politically for many years. He made many military mistakes in World War I that essentially kept him out of politics in the 1920s and 1930s. When he became prime minister in the early days of World War II, Germany was winning big, conquering all of Western Europe and driving the British off the continent at Dunkirk. London was being bombed and battered; the British Isles faced invasion. By all accounts, Churchill could be put down at that time as a loser leading a losing cause. Today, we honor him as a history-making leader. Why? He was determined, he was lucky, and the U.S. entered the war, but all along he was also a compelling communicator whose rhetoric became a powerful weapon.

Cold quotes do not do justice to the sound of Churchill's voice, to his cadence, to his rhetorical command. It was not only the words, but the way he delivered them. To the British public he said, “Let us…brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.'” To Americans he said, “Give us the tools, and we will finish the job.” After the war, to a world grappling with the rise of Communism, he labeled and influenced four tense decades of history with his statement, “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent.”

What better advisor on communication than Churchill: “If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it again with a tremendous whack.”

There is a very human reason why it is easier to follow than to lead. There is much less risk. Leaders are out in front, targets for everything from negative criticism to emotion-charged opposition, from vilification to physical attacks. So what should we do? When leaders take a risk on our behalf, in politics or business, we can get behind them or at least give them the benefit of the doubt. When we disagree, we can make a point of offering constructive criticism and search out alternative lines of action. If we agree, we can support the effort and find ways to help out. We can also take the initiative by standing up and speaking out, at the risk of facing criticism by taking an unpopular stand. All in all, the fewer the people on the sidelines, the greater the chance of sound decision making behind any risk.

In a time of uncertainty, our leaders must make decisions fraught with risk. If solutions were obvious and decisions incontrovertible, little or no risk is involved. But that seldom is the case in the real world. Between risks that are lottery long shots and those with high probabilities, there is a risk/return barometer. The higher the risk, the greater the return, also the greater the price of failing. So we all need to be realistic about risk taking. We cannot expect that our leaders will never make a mistake. But we can expect that they avoid repeating them and that we all learn—bystanders, participants, and leaders—by examining past mistakes to avoid future ones.

In a celebrated example of risk taking by a national leader, President Kennedy told the nation he wanted to put a man on the moon in 10 years, though many of his advisors urged him not to go out on a limb. However, he also had many in the scientific community inside and outside of government assuring him it was not beyond America's capability, though a great deal needed to be invented. So he took the risk. Earlier in his administration, he took another risk in which he had not done his homework. He approved the invasion of Cuba by exiles, which became the humiliating Bay of Pigs fiasco. In Kennedy's case, the Bay of Pigs happened first—and failed—while the commitment to the moon landing succeeded. After the Bay of Pigs, he might have decided not to stick his neck out again, but that would not have been the Kennedy that the nation admired and celebrated as a leader.

In response to 9-11, President George W. Bush faced up to the risks that suddenly confronted him. He risked a challenge to civil liberties to clamp down on America's enemies with his Homeland Defense initiative and risked that he could build and maintain a worldwide coalition long enough to win the war on terrorism. It would have been easier to bomb terrorist camps, inflict casualties, and declare victory—and he might have gotten away with it. Instead, he opted for the high road: reconstructing a nation devastated by two decades of war (an echo of the Marshall Plan to promote European recovery after World War II).

Optimism, a determination to take action, effective communications, ability to delegate, and a willingness to take risks are not enough. We need to add a characteristic that has enriched the quality of life in America: empathy for others. This nation's religious beliefs are grounded in concepts of charity, its identity shaped by a tradition of helping each other and of neighborliness. In clinical terms, it is called empathy. It means understanding how someone else feels and registering the pain and suffering of others, both near and far. It also means understanding someone else's motives and point of view. Americans at their best tolerate differences and respond to those in need, traits that are tested and challenged in times of uncertainty.

Despite all the criticism and second-guessing of U.S. foreign policy, no other country surpasses America's capacity to respond to suffering and disaster anywhere in the world. Whenever there is a natural disaster, America can be counted on to fly in medicine, blankets, tents, and food. What nation in modern times declared war on poverty in launching Great Society programs? What country fights its enemy, then “bombs” the countryside with food? We would argue that empathy deserves attention as a major source of strength for the United States. It is a national asset, both internally and externally, that grows in value during times of crisis.

In the wake of 9-11, Americans all over the country felt empathy for 9-11 victims and their families, and sought ways to help in whatever way possible. Empathy unites the nation as much as the determination to crush its enemies. Empathy mobilizes our desire to take action and prompts us to respond to leadership. In turn, we expect our leaders to demonstrate empathy, to sympathize with those in need, and to show that they “have heart.” That quality in Giuliani won over the nation and struck a worldwide chord. He was “strong enough to let his voice brim with pain, compassion and love,” Time magazine reported. “When he said, 'the number of casualties will be more than any of us can bear,' he showed a side of himself most people had never seen.” As New York's police commissioner, Kerik, noted, Giuliani showed his “tremendously huge heart.”

Finally, we have the modus operandi that is special for Americans: straight talk. Nothing goes more against the national grain than obvious double-talk. It is un-American. Leaders who cannot be believed lose their following, especially when they demand sacrifices, no matter how gifted they are or how righteous their cause. Double-talk's bedfellow, hypocrisy, compromises credibility and undermines trust. One way to eliminate the risk of hypocrisy and thereby minimize the risk of losing credibility is to “tell it like it is.” When leaders believe what they say and say what they believe, people don't just listen. They follow.

President Roosevelt's singular impact was personified by his “fireside” chats on the radio during the Depression and World War II. Each American felt as though he was speaking to him or her personally and telling it like it is. He acknowledged the difficulty of eliminating the Depression and creating more jobs, and told Americans what he was doing to confront the nation's problems. During World War II, he spelled out what Americans faced and what was being done. He did not hesitate to talk about the sacrifices needed and the effort demanded.

Clearly, what we need and, based on America's history, what we can expect from our leaders is straight talk. We should, in turn, take our own medicine when we dialogue, whether we agree or disagree, all the time remembering that straight talk alone is an orphan. Separated from commitment and action, it is only talk. It proves itself in action, whether we lead or follow. There is a time for debate, and there are times when we must get behind our leaders. It is a delicately balanced tension in America because of our commitment to civil liberties and individualism and the high value we place on cooperation. The challenge for all Americans is to demonstrate the capacity to follow and to lead, knowing when to choose one or the other. Together, leading and following point to a body of practices and attitudes that back up a winning bet on America's future after 9-11. How to place that bet is the theme of the final chapter.