Tag: leadership



As a senior leader in the current Federal Government environment where agencies are struggling with increasing mission requirements, severe resource constraints, major limitations to our ability to compensate and reward employees, and cynicism by the workforce for new management initiatives, how do I sustain my employees’ motivation and enthusiasm to not only perform successfully but to also innovate?

–Anonymous

Innovation offers an intriguing and great path to work an organization’s way out of difficult economic times. Expressions like “doing more with less” or “doing the same with much less” signify that coming up with innovative processes and products are necessary to continue to deliver existing (and perhaps some new) government services but at a lower cost.

Yet, it is precisely during difficult economic times that budgets are cut back. During such times, it should be expected that agencies, their leaders, and Congress adopt a vigilant focus on issues of accountability, performance measurement, ferreting out waste and fraud and reducing costs. This top-down cost-focus creates fear, uncertainty, and, ultimately, inertia among employees, which greatly undermines employee willingness to innovate. How, in this cost conscience environment, can an agency leader sustain employee motivation, perform successfully and innovate?

In many ways, your idea to focus on innovation is a good one. Innovating creates opportunities for people to learn. Developing something new and seeing it create value for others can be very motivating. Indeed, in difficult economic times, engaging in innovation seems like a silver bullet that can motivate employees and generate superior performance all at the same time. Within this view, the real question becomes how, as a leader, can you encourage your employees to innovate in such an environment?

What may initially seem like a good idea—stimulating your employees to innovate—ultimately confronts the immutable fact that organizational systems involve trade-offs. A centralized organization cannot act like a decentralized organization and vice-versa. A compliance-based organization cannot act like a commitment-based organization and vice-versa. And, an organization focusing on cost controls cannot excel at innovation and vice-versa.

Designing an organization involves a multitude of decisions around compensation, job design, metrics and measurement, decision rights, hiring and firing, career advancement, training, managing conflict, communications, and culture. These decisions are not independent of each other; well-designed organizations account for how a decision on one dimension connects to decisions on the other dimensions. Only when the set of decisions compliment each other can an organization achieve high performance.

Please note that “performance” is in the eyes of the organizational designer. A well-designed high-accountability organization can perform well at being accountable. A well-designed innovative organization can perform well at being innovative. But achieving high levels of performance on both of these dimensions at the same time—the desire of almost every organizational leader—is difficult if not impossible.

Put differently, all organizational designs involve tradeoffs that yield the profound implication that a single organization cannot accomplish all goals equally well, at least not at the same time. So don’t expect high levels of innovation when your current organizational design and environment are focused on cost containment.

So what is a leader to do? Is innovation impossible during an age of austerity? I believe that with the appropriate leadership, you and your employees can innovate, at least a little. The key to innovating in such an environment is that you, as the leader, must lead the innovation effort.

In the current atmosphere, employees will not innovate on their own, even if you ask them to. Delegating innovation is not feasible because the organizational design and culture is encouraging them not to innovate. But, if you lead the innovation team, your employees are more likely to participate and try to innovate. With you leading the team, they have the opportunity to get your attention, to learn from you, and to understand what you think is important. Your time is valuable to them. They also will understand that, as the leader of the innovation team, you will provide protection from bad things happening to them if the innovation does not go well. Your leadership can make the difference.

The downside of you leading the innovation team is that we all have a finite amount of time and attention. If you lead the team, you have to make trade-offs and let something go or slide. In essence, when you cannot delegate to others, your time and attention become the innovation bottleneck.

Innovating within the government context during the age of austerity is more than difficult. Pressures from accountability, performance measurement, ferreting out waste and fraud, and reducing costs all work against taking the risks needed for innovation. Therefore, leaders should not expect much innovation from their workforce unless they lead the innovation effort themselves. I encourage you to lead your innovation team but also to recognize what trade-offs you are making by doing so.

Duce a mente (May you lead by thinking),

Jackson Nickerson




In today’s environment where government service is not valued by the American public or Congress, what are the incentives that make government service attractive to the current/next generation of the “best and brightest?”

–Brian Russo

In this column I have mentioned several times how difficult today’s environment is for federal employees. Three years of wage freezes, an austere fiscal environment (even before sequestration), a public and Congress that frequently act in ways hostile to government workers–all of which send a message: the federal workforce is not valued. But, even for those who advocate a dramatic shrinking of the size of the federal workforce, new hires are and will be needed. One has to wonder in such an environment how the government is going to attract the best and the brightest. What incentives make government employment attractive?

In the current federal epoch, it is more than likely that government will be unable to attract great talent for all but a few positions. In a prior posting, I described how people tend to be motivated by economic, social and emotional, and ideological factors . Reviewing these factors provides insight into why current incentives, on the whole, discourage the best and the brightest from applying for federal positions.

Economic: At present, expectations of economic motivation are greatly diminished in the federal government, which means that economic incentives are unlikely to be useful for attracting today’s best and brightest­­­. A continuing wage freeze, furloughs (or the threat of them), job reductions without a corresponding reduction in the work that needs to be done, etc., have created an expectation that federal workers must work harder for less pay. Perhaps the most recent illustration of this loss of economic incentive is the elimination of financial rewards associated with the Presidential Rank Awards. With these declining economic incentives and little economic upside, why would someone with better job prospects (presumably the best and the brightest have such options) be economically motivated to join the federal workforce?
Social and Emotional: If economic incentives are not working, perhaps social and emotional incentives can? Probably not. Social attachments develop with co-workers after employment begins. And, to the extent that gaining social recognition or status is a motivator, it is difficult to imagine in the current epoch that potential hires believe that they will gain recognition or status by working for the federal government.
Ideological: With the first two sources of incentives working in the wrong direction, ideological motivation offers the only remaining source for attracting the best and brightest. Perhaps people with passionate beliefs, whether political or altruistic, will be attracted to the federal government because it has unparalleled resources and power to accomplish certain aims.

Indeed, ideological incentives do continue to attract applicants to the federal government but two caveats should be realized. First, there is no guarantee that people attracted to federal employment on an ideological basis are the best and the brightest or are great workers. Second, ideological workers pose certain risks. For instance, although a contractor, Edward Snowden’s seeking out employment with Booz Allen Hamilton so that he could collect and disclose top-secret NSA information provides a cautionary tale about the benefits of hiring those with strong ideologies.

Although not an encouraging assessment of the incentives available for attracting the current generation of talented workers to federal employment, encouraging news is on the horizon. Like all epochs of history, current ones end and new ones begin.

The painful process of downsizing and reconfiguring the federal government will continue; but these efforts eventually will subside. In the next epoch, expect many opportunities in the federal government that will attract the best and the brightest: much responsibility at a young age, rapid advancement, and improved training especially around leadership. Indeed, these features of future federal job opportunities will be the logical conclusion of the massive retirement wave now rippling through the federal government.

In sum, attracting great talent to the federal government will remain a challenge until the age of austerity has ended. The current incentives simply are not very attractive to the most desirable candidates. But these incentives will change at some point and once again the federal government will be an attractive option for future generations of the best and the brightest.

Duce a mente (May you lead by thinking),

Jackson Nickerson




How do I, as a career Senior Executive Service (SES) member, best position myself to quickly develop trust with an incoming political appointee and to support their agenda while being able to also help educate and influence the appointee focusing on long-term sustainability in addition to the strong need to achieve short term results?

–Anonymous

Like the changing seasons of the year, Washington D.C. goes through its own seasonal changes marked by the departure of political appointees and the arrival of new ones. New appointees typically arrive with a desire to have an immediate impact but their appointments last only two to four years. This relatively short season for appointees creates predictable challenges for them and the agencies they lead.

All too often, appointees want to leave their mark by tackling problems, redirecting or reconfiguring the organization, creating new capabilities, or launching new services that they think support the current administration or respond to political needs.

But leading change in large organizations takes time and constancy of purpose: certainly more that two years is needed to significantly change any large organization. With such frequent turnover of appointees, even under the same administration, how can SESers help support the new appointee especially in the short run while making progress on the long-range strategies enacted by earlier appointees?

In a prior posting (Ask EIG: 5 Steps to Stop a New Appointee From Killing Your Project), I described how selling your solution to a new political appointee is a mistake. In this posting, I elaborate on three steps for how you can quickly build trust and create understanding for both you and the political appointee so that you can support both the appointee and the long-term sustainability of your agency.

  1. Explore why that appointee chose to serve in their current capacity. Ask questions and listen carefully so that you better understand their motivation for accepting the position and what current and future success for them looks like. For instance, what does the appointee care about not only for the agency but also for their own personal, career, and life goals?
  2. By asking questions, focus the conversation on the appointee’s perspectives of the issues confronting the agency. For instance, what symptoms or indicators of various issues does the appointee know and care about? What data and evidence is the appointee aware of that signals these issues are real?
  3. Resist conversations that move quickly to the appointee’s solutions or policy recommendations by asking and exploring “why” the situation is occurring in the first place. If together you seek out the underlying root causes you are more likely to develop feasible and valuable solutions and policy recommendations. For instance, you can ask “Will you help me understand what root causes you see that are creating the situation?” Could there be an even deeper root cause?

These questions are a start but they do not guarantee that you will build trust. Some appointees may not be open to engaging in such conversations. If so, then building trust quickly simply may not be feasible. Trust will take a longer time to build (see Ask EIG: Are You a Leader With ‘The Goods’?).

But, if you are able to engage in conversations to understand the appointee’s motivations and perspectives and you collaborated to understand the root causes of the key issues that the appointee cares about, you will be in a much better situation to help the appointee achieve their objectives and support the long-term sustainability of your agency. Indeed, you will in a position to find those connection points where initiatives to support the agencies long-term sustainability can help deliver on the short-term results.

By asking and listening, you demonstrate good will because you are showing that you care about the appointee and that you are thinking about how to help them. By resisting selling them an agenda, you will demonstrate attributes of your leadership ability (attempting to sell usually fails, which demonstrates poor ability). And, by working through the root causes of the issues together, you will make it easer for them to assess your good character as you begin working on resolving these issues. Good will, good ability, and good character are the building blocks of trust.

Building trust quickly with any new political appointee is not easy; although damaging your trustworthiness is. The three steps listed above highlight that it is vital to engage in conversations that first build trust and create understanding before you try to propose or implement policies and solutions. Investing in building trust with each other is the foundation for achieving short-term results and long-term sustainability.

Duce a mente (May you lead by thinking),

Jackson Nickerson




Often, I see micromanagement in the guise of accountability from the highest levels. It stifles empowerment. Upper management gives the directive to empower their employees and then demands weekly reports on the progress. Then they institute goals, quotas and deadlines. This doesn’t feel like empowerment to me. What conversation can I have with my manager to get me personally to a place where I feel more empowered, more emboldened and able to take risks?

–Anonymous

Empowerment can be a valuable approach to leading people. The basic approach to empowerment is to develop employee capabilities for tackling complex challenges beyond their previously narrowly defined tasks and then to delegate the leader’s decision-making authority to them. Empowering employees can lead to greater adaptability, flexibility, innovation, and long-run performance as subordinates take ownership of their roles.

Empowerment does not mean abandoning responsibility and accountability; instead, it means the leader must set expectations and find agreement with subordinates on how they will be evaluated. Then, the leader must avoid micromanaging. With empowerment, leaders spend much of their time serving their subordinates by removing bottlenecks and barriers that they cannot easily do on their own.

As many an experienced manager will know, empowering employees is more easily said than done. Transitioning to an empowerment approach is made easier by providing appropriate training to employees. The more challenging part of the transition, however, is shifting both the leader’s and subordinates’ thinking and mindset.

Empowerment does not come easily when either leaders or subordinates have “grown up” in a directive and compliance-based culture. All too easily, a leader who wants to empower subordinates can fall back into micromanaging by unilaterally directing activities and demanding additional measures and reports. What is going on when this happens and what can subordinates do to achieve a more empowered relationship?

Growing up, my dad had many quaint sayings. The one that comes to mind in response to this question is, “it takes two to tango,” a phrase made famous in a 1952 melody sung by Pearl Bailey. Trying to shift to an empowerment approach is challenging if the leader and subordinate do not know each others’ dance moves.

One challenge is that a leader may state they want to empower subordinates, but in times of stress, they quickly return to the thought patterns that worked in the past. In other words, the leader may want to try a new dance but hasn’t learned all the moves.

Another challenge arises when a subordinate acts in a way that does not meet the leader’s expectations. Perhaps the expectations were not clearly communicated or clearly understood. Or, perhaps the leader did not provide sufficient training or the subordinate did not make the most of the training. No matter the source, the leader who initially trusted the subordinate enough to delegate “decision rights” now has a diminished level of trust. With a lower level of trust comes increased oversight including goals, quotas, deadlines, and more frequent direction as these moves reduce the leader’s uncertainty about performance expectations. They also reduce empowerment.

The fundamental challenge for the subordinates, if they want to regain empowerment, is to figure out how to repair trust. As you might imagine, repairing trust is more difficult; far more difficult, that building trust in the first place. What can you do to repair trust with your leader?

My recommendation is to begin by engaging in a reflection technique I call Aperio Examen. The Aperio Examen has four steps:

  1. The reflection begins by first thinking about what has gone well in your job—especially between you and your boss. We all have successes each and every day. Acknowledge these successes, at least in your mind’s eye, and give yourself a pat on the back. Doing so is an important precursor to the next step.
  2. Now, identify what has not gone well between you and your manager. Use your “literary creativity’ to make up a story—a narrative—in which the entire situation is your fault. Crafting such a narrative may be difficult for some but is a very important exercise.
  3. With the imaginative story in mind, reflect on each part of the story and evaluate which parts might be true. If you are like most people in these situations, you will discover you do share some blame and may have inadvertently contributed to the loss of trust.
  4. Having identified ways in which you may have contributed to the situation, think about what you could have done differently and how you could have known to act differently. Try to recall these heuristics over the next several days (practicing the Aperio Exam on a daily basis for issues at work as well as at home, can fundamentally change your thinking and relationship).

With your reflection in hand, you can now have a discussion with your manager. Explain what has happened from your perspective. Share and acknowledge your role in what happened. In other words, apologize, which will signal that your transgression does not reflect the true nature of who you are. Also, explain what you would have done differently now that you have reflected on the situation. Finally, ask how, together, you can rebuild trust to again move in the direction of empowerment.

You may be thinking that that you did nothing wrong. That it was entirely your manager’s fault so why should you take any blame? That sentiment is your ego talking. Ego can get in the way of both the Aperio Examen (which means “unguarded examination”) and having this important conversation with your manager. This same ego also gets in the way of you becoming a better leader, at the base of which is taking responsibility and learning from the situation. If you listen to your ego, you will continue to foist blame on the manager, which will come through in your words and deeds and only widen the loss of trust. Remember, it takes two to tango.

Duce a mente (May you lead by thinking),

Jackson Nickerson




Under what circumstances do you tell a leader what they need to hear when everyone else is telling them what they want to hear?

–Anonymous

Organizations by their very nature distribute power in an asymmetric way. Those at the top of the hierarchy typically have the power to create or foreclose opportunities for subordinates. Those lower down in the hierarchy have little power over such decisions. This power asymmetry creates incentives for subordinates to avoid conflicts with higher ups, to hide information that could lead to conflict, and, frankly, to tell superiors what they want to hear. Yet some people on some occasions choose act against these incentives and are willing to speak truth to power. When does it make sense to do so and why?

Deciding when to tell a leader what they need to hear when others are telling them what they want to hear is an ethical dilemma. In researching a response to this question I spoke with my colleague, Lamar Pierce, who is an associate professor at Washington University in St. Louis’ Olin Business School and co-teaches the course Ethics in Action: Leading with integrity at Brookings Executive Education. Our conversation lead me to conclude that your decision should be based on three factors that I call: View, Value, and Verify.

View: When considering speaking “truth” to power it is important to first figure out what the truth really is. You (and each of us) have a particular view on an issue, situation, or decision based on your information, knowledge, and motivations that combine and shape your view. All too often a point of view is necessarily narrow—one might even say biased—if you have not actively sought out and invested in thinking about and understanding other points of views from which to look at the issue. Indeed, biases such as confirmation (looking for evidence that supports only your position), self-interest (focusing on those aspects of the situation that affect your interests), and self-justification (emphasizing those insights that justify your position and role) frequently undermine thinking and hide the real truth. Before speaking truth to power it is important to first invest in thinking to discover the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

One way to seek out the truth is to speak to others who hold views different from your own. Engage them in open-ended questions to understand how they see the situation. (In other words, don’t ask leading questions like “You see it my way don’t you?”) Only by trying to view the situation from multiple and different points of view and understanding their motivations will you increase the likelihood that you can comprehensively formulate the truth.

Value: If you are confident that you have zeroed on the truth, you need to ask yourself two vital questions. Is the ethical dilemma a moral issue for you? If so, then your choice about speaking up is likely clear so I will focus only on the next vital question. Will the benefit to the organization that comes from raising the issue today diminish the benefit you can provide to the organization over the long run? Speaking truth to power can create great value for the organization if your conversation produces a useful outcome. But speaking up comes with risk—if your conversation is not effective you may harm your ability to influence outcomes in the future, which still could happen even if your conversation is effective.

Ultimately, if you are like most people, you want to create value for your organization not just for today but also in the future. It is important to assess the short and long term consequences of your conversation with the leader. If you are confident that your reputation and trustworthiness will grow by telling the leader what they need to hear, then doing so will allow the organization to benefit from your leadership now as well as in the future. If, however, your conversation backfires then your reputation and trustworthiness may be harmed, which diminishes your ability to make future contributions to the organization. Consider speaking truth to power when the expected gains outweigh the expected costs to the organization.

Verify: If you are going to speak truth to power, you have to figure out what you are going to say and how you will say it. Blurting something out, being unprepared, and feeling the emotions of the moment will likely to lead to failure. All too often a messages based on emotion or that comes from isolated thinking are fundamentally flawed. How can you verify what you plan to say so that your communication is clear and precise and that it accurately and logically conveys your ideas.

Several processes can help you verify the narrative and words you use. For instance, take some time, perhaps a few days, to allow any emotions to settle down. Write down a description of the situation, evidence to support your description, as well as your response. Then, share these writings and thoughts with several trusted advisors. Ask them for their general reactions but also explore if they can think of better ways or better language to convey the ideas. Connecting with at least three trusted advisors will help you verify that your communication is likely on point with appropriate language.

In summary, before speaking truth to power I recommend that you:

  •  view the situation from multiple perspectives to assess the truth,
  •  value the short-run versus long-run effects of speaking up, and
  •  verify with others the message and language you plan to use.

Duce a mente (May you lead by thinking),

Jackson Nickerson




How do we maintain a mission focus for our agency when operationally we are constantly pushed and pulled by administration priorities and political directives? The game seems to always be changing. How do we maintain our constant mission focus over four to eight year cycles when our energies are always getting pulled in divergent directions?

–Anonymous

Almost by definition, working in leadership for a government agency will naturally expose you and your agency to the swirling winds of politics. Every administration has its desires: its agenda, its platform, its set of constituencies and supporters to acknowledge. Like sudden wind storms, every administration also faces political difficulties that can surprise and swirl around it, threatening desires and the potential for re-election. These storms often create pressures for agencies to rapidly respond. It is also important to note that laws and policies usually are written to provide at least some discretion in how the administration implements authorities. It is the conjunction of desires, difficulties, and discretion that opens the door to the pushing and pulling of administrative priorities by political appointees. How can you deliver on your operational commitments and agency mission when appointees are demanding responses to immediate political concerns?

While I have never personally been in your position, I do envision three kinds of strategies that, tongue-in-cheek, I refer to as Agreeing, Blocking, and Serving. “Agreeing” strategies are ones where you do what you are directed to do by your political appointees. In essence, you adopt a compliance approach to your position and follow orders from above. You focus on political directives, which necessarily means a tradeoff of focusing less on your agency’s mission. Agreeing strategies encourage you to satisfy the desires of political appointees and they reduce your liability for decisions that were made by someone above you. Yet Agreeing strategies do create other liabilities for you. Subordinates are likely to think poorly of you as a leader. Maintaining integrity is not easy if your promises keep changing with the prevailing winds. And, if your integrity is undermined, so too will be your subordinates’ motivation and commitment to the mission.

“Blocking” strategies involve using the inertia of bureaucracy to slow organizational responses to directives. Sometimes inertia can help you wait out at least some directives until political appointments are over. Indeed, Blocking strategies recognize that most political appointees have finite appointments—typically two years. A hard-charging and directive appointee who doesn’t listen to, respect, or involve careerists in decision-making may be surprised to later discover little progress is made on their directives. With your integrity intact and supportive subordinates, you can help your agency remain somewhat focused on the mission by levering inertia. A downside to such Blocking strategies is that as political directives are stymied, so too are needed efforts to advance your agency’s mission—improving capabilities, tackling organizational problems, increasing employee motivation, etc.. Additionally, blocking strategies do come with some career risk.

“Serving” strategies are different from both Agreeing and Blocking. You can’t use your knowledge and experience to help guide and influence a political appointee if you are not included in the appointee’s trusted circle of advisors. Neither Agreeing nor Blocking strategies will earn you this trust. Serving strategies involve investing in, understanding, and actively seeking out ways to create value and successes for political appointees. Only after you have demonstrated your good character, good will, and good ability and create value for the appointee will you have a chance of being invited into the appointee’s circle of trusted advisors.

Only then, as a trusted advisor, will you have opportunities to highlight the trade-offs between administrative priorities and agency mission. Your creativity and knowledge of the agency can be extraordinarily valuable in helping appointees respond to directives while simultaneously delivering on the agency’s mission. Unfortunately, Serving strategies work only if an appointee opens up to your efforts to build trust. I believe, however, that the more you give of yourself in making appointees successful, the more likely they will seek out your counsel and involve you in decisions. In sum, you can help political appointees manage the tension between mission and politics only if you invest in becoming a trusted advisor.

Duce a mente (May you lead by thinking),

Jackson Nickerson