Giuliani was Mayor of New York during the 9/11 attacks and in his book 'Leadership', outlines how he turned the city of New York around and how he led New York in the aftermath of 9/11. He has also been tipped as a potential presidential candidate for the Republican party in the United States in the future.
Closing off day two of the Global Leaders Africa Summit in Johannesburg, Giuliani spoke off the cuff, walking up and down the stage in front of the high profile audience of local business luminaries. Wearing a bright red tie and an American Flag pin, he has a down-to-earth, direct presence and spoke with matter-of-fact humility.
The following are his lessons in leadership, which he outlined with vignettes of real life experience, particularly the poignant time following 9/11.
"Before you can change anything, you have to visualise what you want to accomplish... Think of a leader as the captain of a ship... the most important thing you have to do is set a destination. You need goals," said Giuliani.
Second lesson of leadership: Accountability and process is important
Giuliani says it's "no good" to just have a dream. "A leader has to combine the ability to envision, with accountability."
When he became mayor of New York City, people had lost confidence in the city, mainly because of crime. A cover story in Time read: 'The rotting of the Big Apple' (1990). New York was termed ungovernable and the crime capital of America. Cut away to the Year 2000, and the same magazine, Time carried a pic of the Times Square Millennium celebrations with New York as a symbol of urban renaissance. In his years in office, Giuliani and his team had managed to cut crime by over 60%, address welfare problems and turn New York City into one of the safest large cities in the world.
"It was a plan and a process," said Giuliani. "I wanted to improve the outlook of the citizens of New York. I had to solve specific problems."
Third lesson of leadership: You have to be an optimist
"People who accomplish things are those who look at a glass half full, not half empty," said Giuliani. "The people I really valued were those who thought about the solutions to the problems, not the problems. If you want to be a leader, you have to be an optimist.
"People follow hopes and dreams. You have to have a dream or a plan of improving things. Everyone can tell you how bad things are. You do not reduce crime in one day. You don't improve education in one day. You have to think of it as 'a person at a time'," Giuliani explained, drawing on his experiences on September 11, 2001 to illustrate several points.
"I sure needed those lessons on September 11. It was a terrible time. That attack killed more people than any other attack in the United States... in any wartime attack in any one day... One always has to maintain your spirit as an optimist if you want to lift people up."
How does that help you in your personal life? he asked.
"A year before September 11 I got prostate cancer. I said to myself, I was a very lucky man, as I had received a warning about something that could kill me and I could do something about it. I maintained a positive spirit. If you remain optimistic, you can solve problems!"
Fourth lesson of leadership: You have to prepare
"Understand the principle of relentless preparation. But, no matter how much you prepare, something unexpected always happens," Giuliani warned.
"That helped me along on September 11. When I first heard about it, I was told a [small] twin engine plane had hit the Twin Towers. I didn't appreciate how bad it was until I got there and could see the tremendous flames and debris falling down... and I realised all of a sudden that what I was watching wasn't debris, but people throwing themselves out of the building to avoid the flames and smoke. I kind of froze and said to the police commissioner that this was far worse than anything we had ever dealt with and that we did not have a plan for this. We had plans for all kinds of other eventualities... [but] we had no plan for missiles attacking our buildings. We were used to working from a plan.
"I thought we didn't have a plan, so I started making decisions: triage hospitals, protect key installations, shut down airports, the national guard to patrol streets, bring in big generators to light up the area to save people... I was making all these decisions and I remembered [advice given him by] Judge McCann: 'If you prepare for everything you can think of, you will have a plan for any eventuality'...
"Each one of the decisions I was making that day came out of a plan, except this was in a bigger context."
Fifth lesson of leadership: Teamwork
"A leader does not exist by themselves." Giuliani said the value of teamwork to balance strengths and weaknesses cannot be emphasized enough.
Sixth lesson of leadership: Communication
Leaders need to be a teacher and motivator, they need to communicate, explain. One of his most famous quotes is on September 11: "Tomorrow New York is going to be here and we will rebuild and stronger than ever before...". He explained that he was trying to get people to lift their eyes up and look forward to the future and not dwell on the utter devastation and pain of the attack and get mired in that pain.
Seventh lesson of leadership: Care about people
"You are running an organisation of people," Giuliani said, adding that confronting cancer and his own mortality as a result helped him become a more empathic person, which stood him in good stead in his career.
