Creating Quality Leadership and Management

Executive Summary

"The state of management in the federal government is not good," the
General Accounting Office (GAO) concluded in 1992.(1) Also that year, in
Managing the Federal Government: A Decade of Decline, the House
Government Operations Committee found that, "first and foremost,"
executive branch management problems are caused by "the lack of
leadership."(2)

Such criticism of federal management is not limited to specialists.
More than four in five Americans think the federal government needs
"fundamental change" or a "complete rebuilding," a May 1992 CBS poll
showed. At the same time, the share of Americans who "trust the federal
government all or most of the time" fell to 21 percent in 1993--from 76
percent in 1963.(3)

Sound leadership and strategic management are vital to any organization.
Sound leadership at the top of an organization develops vision, values,
and policy agendas, sets priorities among competing demands, and plans
strategically. Strategic management aligns programs and management
systems (e.g., personnel, budgeting, procurement) to support the vision
and agenda, and ensures that these programs and systems are continuously
improved to give better value to customers. The combination of sound
leadership and strategic management is essential to driving and guiding
major cultural change in an organization.

Managing for Results

Historically, the executive and legislative branches have tried to
resolve management problems by extending and tightening the oversight,
regulation, compliance, clearance, and review mechanisms of executive
branch agencies and managers. However, this has not led to any lasting
improvements. Under a reinvented system of executive branch governance,
senior leaders would be involved in crucial leadership and management
processes. This approach, known as "managing for results," has three
components.

First, the President, working with his cabinet as a team, should create
a sense of purpose and vision. These actions would, in turn, highlight
the value of continuous improvements in management and in achieving
results.

Second, to demonstrate and institutionalize this value, the President
should order each agency head to designate a chief operating officer
(COO)--a post for someone already in the agency, most often the Deputy
Secretary, who would have line management responsibility.

Third, the President should create a cross-functional council--a
President's Management Council--which would be composed of the COO's of
major agencies. It would take the lead in reinventing programs and
management systems to support the President's agenda. In addition, it
would be responsible for creating the culture changes needed to put in
place a management approach dedicated to ever-improving efficiency,
effectiveness, and results.

"Managing for results" is founded on strategic management concepts, such
as those in the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993, as well
as quality concepts, such as those embodied in the Presidential Award
for Quality and the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.(4)

Nations, such as Australia, and states, such as Oregon and Florida, have
already adopted this approach. Now, in Washington, D.C., interest in
adopting it at the federal level is spreading.

Lessons on Improving Performance

The federal government is learning how to manage for results and improve
performance from the private sector. During the summer of 1993, numerous
business leaders shared their experiences with the Vice President as he
led the preparation of the National Performance Review (NPR) report.
Studies, such as a 1991 GAO report, found that companies using quality
management strategies achieved better employee relations, higher
productivity, greater customer satisfaction, increased market share, and
improved profitability.

A year later, GAO reported that 68 percent of federal agencies said they
had started or were starting to implement quality management. A few
agencies--such as the Internal Revenue Service, the Departments of the
Navy, Air Force, and Army, Defense Information Systems Agency, National
Aeronautics and Space Administration, and National Security Agency--have
begun organizationwide efforts. Agencies that have moved beyond initial
stages of quality management have enhanced customer satisfaction,
organizational performance, and workforce excellence, GAO found.

The first step is education. Experience has shown that widespread
training in an organization is crucial for using this approach
effectively. All executive branch employees, starting with the
President, Vice President, and cabinet members, should attend
introductory education sessions, which should then cascade throughout
all departments and agencies. The Federal Quality Institute (FQI) will
work with the President, Vice President, Cabinet, and President's
Management Council as facilitator, advisor, and coordinator to provide
the needed institutional support. Fortunately, the executive branch
already has much expertise in this area, but it must tap into and
mobilize it. Centers of expertise within individual agencies also can
provide needed support as well as create learning networks across the
government.

Picking the Right People

Leadership and management, of course, cannot be improved without
enlightened leaders and qualified managers. Long gone are the days when,
experts believed, just anyone could fill a government job. With the
government's huge size, budget, and complexity, the executive branch
requires a tremendous amount of executive talent to lead and manage it.
The President relies on a multi-tier system of political appointees and
career executives to provide the required leadership and management.

In the seniormost ranks of government, political turnover is a major
cause of absent leadership. Moreover, in the past, political
appointments did not always match job requirements and, in choosing
appointees, top leaders placed a higher premium on an individual's
policy expertise than on their managerial qualifications. Senior career
executives can provide some of the needed management continuity.
However, due to political appointees' historic distrust of public
servants, and the absence of a formal institutional talent pool, these
career executives are not used as well as they could be.

"No modern administration has yet fully succeeded in developing a set of
initial staffing procedures that are comprehensive, timely, or
adequately related to the new President's immediate policy objectives,"
Assistant Comptroller General Lawrence Thompson observed in a 1991
hearing on the reasons for the ineffectiveness of government in serving
the public.(5) One way of addressing this would be to develop a summary
of qualifications needed for senior political positions as well as
adequate training, especially in contemporary approaches to leadership
and management.

Improving Legislative-Executive Relations

The Constitution establishes three branches of government:  legislative,
executive, and judicial. The first two have a symbiotic relationship.
Congress enacts laws, authorizes and appropriates funds, and provides
oversight of program accomplishment and compliance with laws. The
executive branch executes programs and also provides internal oversight.
A broad array of experts says Congress has become overly involved in
executive branch functions and responsibilities, such as with too much
detailed program direction and program oversight. Congress, however,
responds that the executive branch appears unable to guarantee sound
internal management.  Regardless of who is right, the government and the
country would benefit from a more collaborative relationship between the
executive and legislative branches--without compromising the fundamental
value of separation of powers. The President can work to enhance
informal communications with lawmakers and staff and to reach agreement
on ways to deal with management problems.

Endnotes

1. U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO), General Management Issues,
GAO/OGC-93-3TR (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Accounting Office
[GAO], December 1992), p. 4.

2. U.S. Congress, House Committee on Government Operations, Managing the
Federal Government: A Decade of Decline, Majority Staff Report
(Washington, D.C., December 1992), p. 1.

3. University of Michigan data cited in Washington Post (August 23,
1993), p. A15.

4. Public Law 103-62, Aug. 3, 1993; also see Johnson, Kenneth, Beyond
Bureaucracy: A Blueprint and Vision for Government that Works (Homewood,
IL: Business One, Irwin, 1993).

5. See U.S. General Accounting Office, Service to the Public: How
Effective and Responsive Is the Government?, GAO/T-HRD-91-26
(Washington, D.C.: GAO, May 8, 1991).