Political appointees and career executives are often depicted as being at odds, but the truth—often unacknowledged—is that they can’t succeed without each other.

That’s a point driven home by Mark Abramson, executive director of the IBM Center for the Business of Government, and Paul Lawrence, director of IBM’s business consulting services, in their introduction to this book.

Political appointees can’t achieve their organizational priorities and goals without the support of their career staff, they say.

At the same time, career executives lack the authority or clout to achieve agency objectives without the full support of their political appointees.

The keys to successful partnerships be- tween career executives and political appointees are pretty simple, the editors argue: mutual respect and an understanding that each has a different job.

The 210-page book has contributions from a wide range of experts and in-cludes chapters on becoming an effective political executive; drawing on lessons from experienced appointees; rules of engagement for career and political appointees; working with Congress and the media; working toward organizational transformation; working with career executives to manage for results; and performance management for political execs.

Resonant Leadership
by Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee. Published by Harvard Business School Press, www.hbspress.org/$25.95 hardback.

There is much talk today in government about organizational transformation. The authors of Resonant Leadership say people who think they can be great leaders without personal transformation are fooling themselves: To lead, you must first face your own shortcomings.

Subtitled “Renewing Yourself and Connecting with Others Through Mindfulness, Hope and Compassion,” the book espouses the notion that those qualities are essential to resonant leadership—the ability to move people “powerfully, passionately and purposefully.”

Richard Boyatzis, a professor of organizational behavior and psychology at Case Western Reserve University, and Annie McKee, co-chair of the Teleos Leadership Institute LLC of Philadelphia, argue that resonant leaders are in tune with those around them.

“They act with mental clarity, not simply following a whim or an impulse,” the authors state.