Leadership in the Federal Government and Why It Is Not Working
The federal government is one group that traditionally had been a center for innovation and admiration. Over the past few years however the innovation from the federal government, who at one time had the most talented scientists and employees, is being outpaced by the commercial industry. Not only has the commercial industry moved passed the federal government in innovation but many talented members of the government leave to work in the more open, innovative spaces that is the commercial world. Why is this happening, put simply leadership.
Leadership, as defined by Merriam-Webster, is the action of leading a group of people or an organization. By this definition anyone that is in a position above others is a leader and is supposed to lead those people down a chosen path. The definition does not, in any sense, state what makes a good leader, what characteristics a good leader has, or what style of leadership is the best for an ever changing technical landscape and society.
Out of the many styles of leadership one that has taken hold and provided a position work environment is Transformational leadership. Transformational leadership at its core incentivizes employees by allowing them to create a better workplace and suggest newer or more novel solutions. It also hinges on the leadership building the respect and trust of the employees. These are critical pieces to a happy and productive work environment since people trust the leadership while at the same time leadership trusts the people. In the “The Influence of Transformational Leadership on Employee Well-Being” study researchers performed analysis to find out just how a company run by leaders that influence, individualize, inspire, and stimulate employees affected the overall state of their employee’s mental health. The research focused on the mental health of the employees and just what would help them be healthier in the work places. The researchers polled six German companies and found that the ones that were led by a person or group that used the transformational practices of allowing employee influence to provide ownership, the understanding of individual’s skills and desires, inspiring through common goals and employee stimulation through employee tag ups tended to have a more positive outlook, less retention issues, and an overall better working and production environment.
In looking at the German study and seeing how commercial companies have retained their innovative technology progress while building a positive more healthy work environment we can see just how important leadership is to the process of hiring, keeping talented people, and motivating them to be more innovative and productive. Now when we look back at the federal government we see a much different environment.
Quality leadership today is vitally important in not only local business and the global market but also in the federal employment arena. Currently the federal government is seeing a three year downward trending perception by employees which has been captured in the Federal Employment Viewpoint Survey. In capturing these data our federal leadership should start thinking outside of their comfort zone and begin looking at how commercial industries are run and how the leadership of those companies interact with their employees and customers. This interaction is crucial to the effectiveness and efficiency of not only production but also the quality of the product which the commercial world understands. In trying to make better products and keep their employees happy many successful companies found that using Transformational leadership was a key component to not only employee but also customer happiness. Although many will tell us that the federal government doesn’t have customers or build products that is simply not the case. The federal government at the very least has a very large customer in the American citizens and their products are anything from building a newer more effective military to presenting a service such as Social Security. These products are extremely important to not only its local customers, Americans, but in some cases global customers as well. In realizing this the federal government should start listening more closely to its customers and verifying that the products being presented actually meet the customer need and they could do this by looking to outside industry and modelling itself in such a way to use a leadership style like Transformational.
As we have seen leadership in business change with the times so too does leadership in government. Tom Fox in his Washington Post article “The deep-rooted problems with government” interviewed Peter H. Schuck, Professor of Law Emeritus at Yale University and author of “Why Government Fails So Often: And How It Can Do Better” on what currently he sees as the major issues with in the government leadership today. Schuck feels that the primary problems in government leadership are personnel, legalism, and the current tenure of most of congress.
Personnel in the government, as Schuck points out, have a morale and cultural problem. The government does not seem to promote organic learning or hire the correct skill sets for the tasks at hand. Based on this many times what you see is the government looking to outside parties such as contractors to bring in new ideas or perform tasks that they themselves do not have the skill to perform. This lack of organic growth opportunity and inspirational atmosphere stunts motivation and therefore burdens innovation in the government space and when that environment is coupled with poorer benefits and compensation you see talent leave to find employment elsewhere. In many cases of benefits and compensation for federal employees the responsibility of creating a more attractive employment package rests with the overarching legal body that manages all federal agencies, the United States Congress.
When we look at Congress as the decision maker for our federal employee benefits and morale we see a lack of continuity. With an average tenure of two and a half years in office a congressional delegate barely has time to present a new thought or put into place any change. This short tenure tends to flow down to agency heads as well. Many agency leads begin with ideas and attitudes of change to a more modern leadership style but with most only staying in place four years it’s difficult to change a culture that has been in place for decades. When we couple the culture shifts needed, the short tenure, and the amazingly long time it takes to put any new rules, laws, or policies in place it is not hard to see why there hasn’t been a more complete shift in management styles. Anyone with a passion to affect that change is removed or leaves before the true change is made. It is a vicious cycle since in order to make more agile changes in an environment there needs to be a leadership style, like Transformational, that facilitates it but in order to get to a point where you have implemented that style there is a need to work through all of the older processes to get there. With the short tenures and long processes not only can we not put in place a good leadership strategy but we also see innovative ideas and good measures wither and die before they are ever seen or brought to light.
In the federal government, as in the commercial environment, change and innovation many times comes from its employees. We have visited this concept a few times in this writing but it bears repeating. If you don’t incentivize the employees or provide them with a mechanism for ownership many talented and motivated people will find work elsewhere. In Tom Ford’s Washington Post article “Bleeding the federal workforce” he interviewed 17 time congressional electee Frank Wolf on just this topic.
In the article Wolf feels that with the pension cuts and the salary freezes that there is large decrease in morale. He states that federal agencies do work interesting national and global issues such as ailment cures at the CDC and smart motivated people want to be a part of those teams. The problem is that with the decrease in compensation and lack of inspirational leadership and employee ownership many are motivated to leave and take part in similar research efforts for commercial companies where they have more resources, better compensation packages, and leaders that value their thoughts and opinions. This is the reason why you see commercial companies becoming more technologically savvy or presenting the next cure for a disease because the people doing the work are motivated and compensated.
Wolf sees that the current state of affairs is not going to be changing. He believes that there isn’t a plan in place for the next six years to help improve moral of the federal employee. Surprisingly this is an issue with the overall leadership style of our government. There are no incentives to perform well. There is no ownership possibilities and there is no open door policy to government leaders for their employees to walk in with new ideas. Many times new ideas, risks or concerns are shot down in favor of the “my way is best” mentality of a command structure which doesn’t support innovation or ownership by the employees themselves[D1] . This is where a leadership change to a more transformational model would help rebuild the trust and respect needed for both the employer and employee to move forward together providing more incentive and owner to the employees and therefore creating a better more positive work place.
In today’s ever changing society the federal government must look to its younger employees to help bring new and exciting ideas. The problem is the government is not presenting these motivated and talented people a strong enough reason to stay which is leaving the government leadership well behind in today’s technology and research markets. And it seems that the gap will only continue to grow. This is slightly disputed however in the “Federal Leadership Challenge” that the Partnership for Public Service put together. The point of the challenge was to rate senior government leadership based on employee input and use it to gage employee satisfaction. What the Partnership found was that since 2003 there has been an increase in overall perception and approval of senior management by the employees. Although the increase was only from 42.7% to 49% there was still an increase. The job satisfaction percentage has also increased as show in Beth Cobert’s article “Positive Trend Lines in Employee Engagement and Job Satisfaction”. As director of the Office of Personnel Management or OPM, Ms. Cobert states that 60% of current government employees find their job meaningful and enjoy their work. So we see here that the work itself is important and employees realize it. The primary detractor or areas of concern however, as Ms. Cobert also states, is that although there has been an overall increase from 2003 there has been a decrease in satisfaction with senior leadership over the past two years showing that there is still an issue to be addressed.
When I consider what great leadership is and how leadership groups or personnel interact with employees and customers not only do I research styles and options but I also reflect on my own experience. I have had an opportunity to work for one of the best and most talented groups of seniors and have been able to grow and prosper because of it. The growth and prosperity was facilitated by the corporate policies of the company I work for and the transformational leadership style that is expected of everyone from the Chief Executive Officer down to the program and project managers. In building this structure one person in particular stands out as a perfect example of how federal government can take a page from a commercial company’s leadership handbook. The leader I am referring to is Ops Integrative Solution’s (OIS) Mr. Richard Johnson
I have worked for Mr. Richard Johnson for 15 years in small and mid-sized company environments. Throughout those 15 years I have respected his decisions, vision, and opinions on matters both professional and personal. When I asked if he had time for an interview on leadership he almost laughed at the fact that I would consider him even though he is responsible for 75% of OIS’s mission and is directly responsible for most of the operational responsibilities (R. Johnson, personal communication, September 22, 2015).
Based on his leadership foundation, which is truly transformational, Mr. Johnson is easy going and addressable. He is always easy to speak with and will regularly walk through the office to say hello to everyone just so they know he is around and interested. He does this all while managing a very talented and successful group of people that have been with OIS or the companies that OIS purchased for a long time. People look up to, respect, listen, and look to him for answers which is exactly the core components of good transformational leadership. And by having the corporate structure in place to reward efforts like Mr. Johnson’s not only does he but also the people who work for him feel ownership and motivation while being incentivized to provide the best services and products. If the federal government looked to employ policies like OIS’s and personnel like Mr. Johnson at higher levels of management we would see higher evaluations, better perception, and a more motivated federal workforce.
From the highest to the lowest management positions in the federal government there needs to be global changes. Personnel taking or appointed to these positions need to be trained in and evaluated against their leadership styles. The leadership style should be transformational at it foundation allowing for employee input, ownership, and incentivization. By looking to the commercial industry the federal government can model its new leadership processes by focusing on successful implementations in successful companies. If this happens the hope would be a happier more stable workforce that will be motivated to bring in new technology and ideas to push our government back to the forefront of innovation.
Sources:
Davidson, Joe (January 2014) It will take more than a high-powered memo to fix federal employee morale Retrieved October 11, 2015 from https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/federal_government/leadership-is-key-to-obama-administration-plan-to-boost-employee-morale/2015/01/13/aa391ed4-9b52-11e4-96cc-e858eba91ced_story.html
Partnership for Public Service (April 4, 2012) “The Leadership Challenge” Retrieved October 11, 2015 from http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CB4QFjAAahUKEwjCqcGB2LrIAhXDVD4KHaBtBqc&url=http%3A%2F%2Fourpublicservice.org%2Fpublications%2Fdownload.php%3Fid%3D51&usg=AFQjCNHjt3te3eQ6k1uxp1liRkUyDxupCQ
Ghasabeh, Mostafa; Soosay, Claudine; Reaiche, Carmen. (April 2015). The Emerging Role of Transformational Leadership. The Journal of Developing Areas Volume 49, No. 6, 2015.
Ford, T. (2014, October 20). The deep-rooted problems with government. Retrieved October 3, 2015, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-leadership/wp/2014/10/20/the-deep-rooted-problems-with-government/
Ford, T. (2014, October 8). Bleeding the federal workforce. Retrieved October 3, 2015, from http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-leadership/wp/2014/10/08/bleeding-the-federal-workforce/
Noaman, Amar (March 11, 2015). Technical Leadership: The Often Overlooked Skills and Responsibilities of a Technical Team Leader. Retrieved from http:// www.infoq.com/articles/technical-leadership-overseen
Libert, Barry; Wind, Jerry; Fenley, Megan (February 06, 2015). Is Your Leadership Style Right for the Digital Age? Retrieved from http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/the-right-leadership-style-for-the-digital-age/
Jacobs, C; Pfaff, Holger; Lehner, Birgit; Driller, Elke; Nitzche, Anika; Stieler-Lorenz/ Brigitte, Wasame, Jurgen; Jung, Julia. (2013). The Influence of Transformational Leadership on Employee Well-Being.
Ford, T. (2014, December 8). How federal leaders can use the “Best Places to Work” rankings. Retrieved October 11, 2015, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-leadership/wp/2014/12/08/how-federal-leaders-can-use-the-best-places-to-work-rankings/
Cobert, Beth (2015, September 28). Positive Trend Lines in Employee Engagement and Job Satisfaction. Retrieved October 11, 2015, from https://www.opm.gov/blogs/Director/2015/9/28/Positive-Trend-Lines-in-Employee-Engagement-and-Job-Satisfaction/
