The Leadership Implications of "Too Big To Fail"

This month, The New York Times in Leadership will be featuring a short post from me with some reflections on what we have learned about leadership in the six years since the onset of the financial crisis. It is based on a session I have done a couple of times for the Rockefeller Leadership Fellows program at Dartmouth. Here's the conclusion:

Ironically, the leadership lesson of “Too Big to Fail” is that we must lead proactively before a crisis so that leaders can remain comfortably on the sidelines when a large financial institution works its way into trouble.

Read the whole thing.

If you think the scarce commodity in Washington is knowledge ...

... think again.  On Friday, Treasury and CEA released an updated report showing the value of infrastructure investment.  It is broadly similar in its conclusions to the recommendations that some of us have been making for over four years.  And yet today, the House passes the weakest of transportation bills -- another 90-day stopgap.  The scarce commodity in Washington is leadership, the ability to translate knowledge into productive action.