Description of Yale School of Management Video: Retired General Stanley A. McChrystal sees a major challenge for leaders in the United States. For decades, Americans led the world and grew used to things being a certain way. But the world has changed—and quickly—and Americans haven’t kept pace. “People were raised on things that worked and they don’t work anymore,” he said. “They’re competing against people they didn’t even know existed before.”

McChrystal, a senior fellow at the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs at Yale, spoke on January 10 as part of the Leaders Forum lecture series. He used his own experience of three decades in the U.S. Army to illustrate ways in which individuals can begin to close what he sees as a serious leadership gap in the country. He spoke of the need for leaders to be able to embrace the increasing complexity of the world and find ways to knit together disparate stakeholders into a coherent team able to embrace a “shared consciousness and purpose.” “It’s the Holy Grail in terms of what’s needed to be effective,” he said.