Rudy Giuliani
I’m in NYC at the World Business Forum in Radio City Music Hall. The place is packed. Rudy was the first speaker, and my notes from his talk are below. They are choppy, but it is hard to take notes on a Blackberry in a cramped seat in the dark!
Nyc is the capital of the world! Some other mayor asked if the UN made a resolution, but we know now the UN doesn’t pass resolutions 
. Then the Pope came to NY and called it the cap of world – no higher authority.
Leadership same for mayor, and getting prostate cancer
Wrote book before 9 11
Rewrote some of it
6 principles for mgt and crisis
Most important is have a set of beliefs, know what they are
Study, meditation, figure out who you are
Reagan was his mentor: beliefs – communism was evil (not popular), and govt had become too large, was crushing economy
Public opinion poll politics is the opposite of leadership
Mlk developed idea of nonviolent response to shame america into seeing hypocrisy
Developed from study, prayer
Visionary, leader, not following polls
For rudy: people who live in freedom are stronger than people in oppression, will find a way to prevail because they have something to fight for
On 9 11 kept to that, will get thru this
Leaders shd be optimists
Everyone shd be optimists, pessimists are no fun to go to dinner with
Sports is a great way to study leadership in confines
Even when losing, coach gives hope
Vince lombardi: never lost a game, just ran out of time
Stay calm when everyone is losing their heads
Be a problem solver – part of optimism
Courage
You probably have it, but don’t know it
Not absence of fear
Overcoming fear
Manage fear to do what is important to you
Story of injured firefighter going to wtc
Part of courage is analyzing risks correctly and not letting them stop you
Overcoming fear gives you a great feeling, too
Relentless preparation
Prep for the worst that can happen, then you can handle anything
Law clerk: for every hour in court, 4 hrs prep. Everything is rehearsed, nothing unexpected.
Then when unexpected happens, can handle it, have so much prep, it is just a variation on something prepped for
City of ny spent 350m on y2k – rudy complained bitterly about that, but it was well spent, bc all systems had been backed up and duplicated
Teamwork
Have to have strong team
Don’t forget who put you there, it wasn’t god
Ask yourself this q: what are my weaknesses, how can my team compensate for them
When he came to office, had crime problem and economy problem
Knew everything about crime, but needed great people to handle economy
Find the gaps, and fill them
Also emotionally what strs and weaknesses do you need to balance
Communication
Having ideas isn’t enough, must convince others
The way to be a great communicator is to be honest – prev 5 things
Prep esp to feel comfortable
Comm becomes easy if you just talk to people
Most important thing about a leader is to love people
Have to be around people all the time, must love it, must be there, always talking with them
Funerals more important to weddings
Bush wanted to come to ground zero on 9 14
Tried to solve security probs, but still had fires
Him spending time there was inspiring, even though secret service wasn’t happy
People he spent most time w was construction workers, big men
Big opinions, and love to share them
Telling him what to do w terrorists
Then crushes him w a bear hug
Before 9 11 he might have chged order of leadership characteristics, now he believes more in power of beliefs
Pres bush measures up on these qualities, effective leader
There is only one pres bush, has strong beliefs, builds good team, not like some other folks
On Iraq pows, can’t blame entire us military for actions of a few
Also these kinds of things happen in war
Don rumsfeld took responsibility and apologized, bush shd not take direct responsibility
Comes at a terrible time
Take oppty to build govts in the world that are accountable to people
Japan took 7 years to transition to civilian govt, and had better start – iraq will take time
He ducks the president question, supports bush and cheney
9 11 commission, easy in hindsight, bush did right
We are better prepared today, but not as well prepped as we shd be
