Displayed along the grounds of the Bakersfield Business Conference were flags commemorating those lost in the attacks on 9/11. Inside the main tent at 2:35 p.m. the former mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani, spoke about his experience with the disaster, his time in office, and the criteria required of a good leader.
Throughout his speech, he offered principles he believes that are required of a good leader, providing stories from his life and criticism of contemporary politics. In stating the leadership principle, relentless preparation, the former mayor went on to tell of his experience on Sept. 11, 2001.
“When I was first told of the attack on the World Trade Center, I was about six miles away having breakfast with two friends,” said Giuliani. “I was told that a twin-engine plane had hit the World Tower, and I had no idea of how to react.”
On his way to the towers, Giuliani saw the second plane crash into the other tower. Upon arrival, the mayor was warned by police.
“As I was looking at the [falling] debris,” he said. “I just stopped and froze because I realized that I wasn’t watching debris. I was watching a man throw himself out of the 102nd floor, fleeing flames behind him.”
Realizing during the attack that he didn’t have an exact plan, Giuliani drew upon scenarios from other disaster plans to help deal with the situation at hand.
In explaining the courage principle, the former mayor said, “Most people think of courage as the firefighters, the police officers on 9/11 running into the building.
“A firefighter running into fire isn’t brave, he’s crazy. The difference that creates courage is you use your fear in a productive way. Fear is a very, very valuable thing,” said Giuliani.
Speaking on his early days as mayor of NYC, Giuliani spoke of the policies he employed in order to drop crime, unemployment and debt for the city.
“When I was mayor of NYC, I knew my priority was to reduce crime.” said Giuliani
“If I didn’t reduce crime the city of New York would be gone.We were the crime capital of America; we were on the front cover of Time Magazine, in 1990, as the rotting of the big apple. People were afraid to come to NYC and businesses were moving out.”
According to Giuliani, when first taking office, he was faced with a 10.5 percent unemployment rate that he cut down to five percent. The city, at the time, had 1.1 million people on welfare, which was reduced to less than 600,000, and a $2.3 billion surplus that was increased to $3 billion when he left.
“I had a big deficit. I cut every budget. I cut everything that had to be cut, and I cut things that shouldn’t have been cut, but I had to in order to survive.”
At the end of his last term as mayor, Giuliani said, “The city went from being in 1990 ‘The Rotting of the Big Apple’, to being on the front cover of Time Magazine Jan. 1, 2000 – and Time Magazine said that NYC is the city that had gone through the greatest urban renaissance in the last 70-80 years.”
In explaining his principle about leaders having to have strong beliefs, Giuliani commented on how American politics now consists of politicians that rely heavily on public opinion polls to dictate their agendas and are afraid to make crucial decisions.
The mayor then presented a hypothetical scenario: If he were to take a poll before he came out to speak and repeated the majority opinion of the poll, what that action would make of him.
“I wouldn’t be a leader, I’d be an actor, and that’s what many of our politicians have become,” said Giuliani. “To be a leader, you have to be an optimist. I don’t mean you have to be foolish, I mean you have to confront problems and start thinking about how to overcome them.”