Preparing the Next Generation of Federal Leaders

Leadership plays a critical role in successfully executing the mission of government. Successful leaders envision, shape, and safeguard the future, creating clarity amidst uncertainty. This objective is increasingly difficult in an era where rapid, unforeseen change seems constant.

Bill Valdez

Bill Valdez was appointed as the President of the Senior Executives Association (SEA) in September 2016. As President, Bill sets SEA’s overall strategic direction and is focused on strengthening the Senior Executive Service (SES) through legislative and policy initiatives, building a leadership pipeline for the Executive Branch, and establishing SEA as a thought leader in the Washington, DC policy debates that impact not only the SES, but all civil service employees. Bill retired from Federal service as a career Senior Executive in July 2014.

James L. Perry

James L. Perry is Distinguished Professor Emeritus and Chancellor’s Professor of Public and Environmental Affairs Emeritus, in the Paul H. O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University, Bloomington. From 2012 through 2017 he was Editor in Chief of Public Administration Review (PAR), the premiere global professional journal in public administration. Perry pioneered research on public service motivation and public pay for performance. He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.

Jenny Knowles Morrison

Dr. Jenny Knowles Morrison’s body of work has focused on exploring the human dimensions of policy implementation processes. She is a three-time National Science Foundation awardee, focused on building new pathways to support social scientists in their efforts to transmit evidence-based social science innovations to relevant policy stakeholders. Her current attention is focused on evolving public service education to better address emerging grand challenges facing future public leaders. Dr.

Gordon Abner

Gordon Abner is an assistant professor in the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. He received his PhD in Public Policy from the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University, Bloomington. His research spans the areas of public management, leadership, and political science. More specifically he is interested in the factors that shape citizens attitudes towards and perceptions of government and government employees, and the factors that shape the morale and performance of government employees.

Preparing the Next Generation of Federal Leaders: Agency-Based Leadership Development Programs

Successful leaders envision, shape, and safeguard the future, creating clarity amidst uncertainty. This objective is increasingly difficult in an era where rapid, unforeseen change seems constant. Agencies face serious public management challenges that go to the core of effective governance and leadership, requiring innovation, collaboration, flexibility, and understanding of the capacity needed to tackle complex, non-routine challenges.

Performance Management in Government: A Primer for Leaders

Governments are complex, multi-layered organizations and, not surprisingly, government effectiveness and efficiency have many dimensions. As such, we clearly need a multidimensional approach if we wish to create a government that works better, faster and more cheaply. Our approach should also be comprehensive, covering all aspects of government performance – static, dynamic, quantitative and qualitative.

However, the diversity that exists among nations and their governments tends to obscure three key facts.

Weekly Roundup: Sept 30 - Oct 3, 2019

John Kamensky

Agile Government. Federal News Network’s Jason Miller reports on federal IT policy and agile management.

A Hidden Corner of Local Government: Boards and Commissions

Yet boards and commissions are crucial to the effective and efficient delivery of services, complementing the more familiar local government structures consisting of city mayors, councils, and departments.

Revisiting “Gaming in Target World”

A recent article in Harvard Business Review reminded me of a favorite 2016 article in Public Administration Review by the British academic Christopher Hood, “Gaming in Target World.” Hood’s article recounted the problems created during the Tony Blair government when performance targets were widely used and tied to consequences affecting individual public servants.

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