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Government Leader home > Jan/Feb 2006 issue
The Advocate - Comptroller General David M. Walker populates his spacious office at the Government Accountability Office in Washington with objects bearing the name or image of his six favorite leaders. It is a formidable aggregation, spanning three centuries: Jefferson and Washington, Lincoln and Lee, Theodore Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy.
Performance Anxiety - Whichever way it blows, change is definitely in the wind for the federal pay system. The government is looking to abolish its 56-year-old General Schedule system in favor of something sleek and modern, befitting a 21st century workforce.
Performance Anxiety: Results-Based Pay: Springer heralds the winds of change - Results, not longevity. That’s the basis for the federal merit-based pay system proposed by the Working for America Act.
Private Lives - You’ve seen all the stories about high-ranking government officials making the leap to the private sector after careers in public service.
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ViewPoint
PAY FOR THE RIGHT RESULTS - Managing in the public sector, almost by definition, means taking on overwhelming challenges. Few, however, have been as deeply rooted or so widely shared as the government’s recent attempt to overhaul how it pays and promotes federal employees.
UpShot
HUMAN CAPITAL: Faster clearances ahead? - Backlogs in personnel security clearance investigations have been giving government managers heartburn since the early 1990s, but relief might be spelled O-P-M—for Office of Personnel Management.
UpShot
LEGAL ISSUES: Courting complaints - Calling the federal employee appeals process broken and ineffective, government executives are pushing for the creation of a single, independent and streamlined Federal Employee Appeals Court to resolve complaints in the federal workplace.
UpShot
LEADERSHIP: Jolly good fellows - In the 40 years since the first hand-picked candidates were given entrée into the halls of power during the Johnson administration, the White House Fellows program has launched the careers of Cabinet officials, senior White House staff, and members of both the House and Senate. Not to mention federal judges, U.S. attorneys and presidents of universities and colleges.
Commentary
THE CASE IN PART: Civil servants have the edge over appointees in implementing policy - Since the inception of the civil service, debate has raged over who implements public policy better, political appointees or career civil servants. Now that question can be answered with some authority: The Office of Management and Budget has created an instrument to measure federal government program results. It is now possible to use OMB data to decide whether we should increase or decrease the number of presidential appointees implementing public policy.
Survival Guide
Hurry up and spend - For the first time since 2001, Congress completed the appropriations process without its little helper—the omnibus appropriations bill. The Interior Department and related agencies even received their 2006 appropriations before the Sept. 30 end of fiscal 2005. But many agencies had to wait two months or more into the federal year before Congress managed to come to terms with how they dole out money.
Inside Job
Inside Job: Scott Cameron, Interior's jack-of-all-trades - Scott Cameron wears so many hats at work he’s lost count. The deputy assistant secretary for performance, accountability and human resources at the Interior Department is also the agency’s chief human capital officer, managing partner for two Office of Management and Budget initiatives and co-leader on invasive-species issues.
BriefCase
New BlackBerry answers prayers - Many government executives these days can be seen doing the “BlackBerry prayer.” That’s a droll reference to the two-thumbed method—head down, hands together—of tapping out e-mails on the tiny keyboard of Research in Motion Inc.’s handheld.
BriefCase
For execs on the go, MS Live holds promise - Imagine calling up Microsoft Office from wherever you happen to be (as long as it has a broadband connection) and working on important documents.
BriefCase
AT RANDOM: Government leave: How much do feds get? -
BriefCase
BOOKSHELF: Follow the leader? No, lead by the followers - The measure of a leader is in his followers. That’s the premise of Measure of a Leader by Aubrey C. Daniels and his brother James E. Daniels: “If power resides in the followers, then effective leaders must first learn what matters to their followers.”
BriefCase
BOOKSHELF: Unleashing Change - People resist change. That’s a fundamental management truth, right?Not necessarily, says Steve Kelman, Harvard professor and procurement czar during the Clinton administration. A good number of people, both inside and outside government, welcome change when it finally arrives.
Practical Leadership
HHS Opens a door for new leaders - Lisa Park has a master’s degree in social work. Carrie Hendrickson has a doctorate in cellular and molecular biology. Scott Douglas spent several years as a neuroscience researcher before getting a master’s in public policy.
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