Last week, former CEO of Lehman Brothers, Dick Fuld, broke his silence.
For the first time since the credit crisis he took to the stage to pontificate on topics mostly unrelated to his leadership in the biggest financial disaster in history.
Like many people, proving he learned nothing from the credit crisis, he pointed the finger.
It wasn’t his fault. It was the government’s emphasis on home ownership and the Federal Reserve that led to Lehman’s demise…
It is true. The government, The Fed, and lousy borrowers must take responsibility for their roles in the credit crisis, but so too must we on Wall Street.
Guns don’t kill people. Idiots kill people.
But the guy who sells the idiot the gun must take some responsibility, especially when he is minting money doing everything he can getting him to buy it.
Lehman didn’t fail because of bad borrowers or The Fed or the government. It failed because Dick ran his business like a gorilla.
In life we learn through experience, yet we only learn when we take responsibility.
Because the government, The Fed, Main Street, and Wall Street have continued to point fingers, we have only learned how to recreate the same conditions that led to the credit crisis in the first place.
We don’t need leaders who are blinded by their own hubris. We need leaders who are willing to speak the truth, and lead.
It’s like being a good parent.
As Dick said in his speech: “You know what, I feel sorry for all of you that don’t drink, ’cause when you wake up in the morning, that’s as good as you’re going to feel for the rest of the day. I told my children that for many years.”
Don’t be a Dick.