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Government Leader home > news stories
04/17/06
Defense Department’s England touts leadership principles
By Richard W. Walker
Government Leader Staff
Deputy secretary of Defense Gordon England thinks effective leadership is more critical than ever as the government moves from a “bureaucratic model to an entrepreneurial model.” That especially applies where human capital is concerned.
“Leadership is important when you start talking about changing the personnel system,” he said at this year’s Office of Personnel Management Federal Workforce Conference in Baltimore. While the Defense Department’s effort to implement a performance-based personnel system has stalled after a federal judge in Washington ruled that portions of the system are illegal, England says that it’s still crucial for the department to have a “modern, responsive personnel system” to attract the very best talent.
England, who joined the Bush administration as secretary of the Navy in 2001, spent most of his career in the private sector, serving as executive vice president of General Dynamics Corp. for four years before moving to government service.
He says his experiences as a corporate and government executive have helped him identify 15 core leadership principles, many designed to enhance the performance of personnel:
- Provide an environment for every person to excel
- Treat every person with dignity and respect—nobody is more important than anyone else
- Be forthright, honest and direct with every person and in every circumstance
- Improve effectiveness to gain efficiency
- Cherish your time and the time of others—it’s not renewable
- Identify critical problems that need solutions for the organization to succeed
- Describe complex issues and problems simply so everyone can understand
- Never stop learning—depth and breadth of knowledge are equally important
- Encourage constructive criticism
- Surround yourself with great people and delegate to them full authority and responsibility
- Make ethical standards more important than legal requirements
- Strive for team-based wins, not individual ones
- Emphasize capability—not organization
- Incorporate measures and metrics everywhere
- Concentrate on core functions and outsource all others.
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