Leadership

Today, government is in the midst of significant changes that have both near-term consequences and lasting impact. Such changes become more complex in nature and more uncertain in effect. At the same time, the demands on government continue to grow while the collective resources available to meet such demands are increasingly constrained. Government leaders, managers, and stakeholders face major challenges, including: fiscal austerity, citizen expectations, the pace of technology and innovation, and a new role for governance.

This report focuses on interagency coordination and thus differs from many earlier IBM Center reports that have examined the use of collaboration.  Dr. Strimling Yodsampa notes that, when agencies collaborate, they work side by side toward a shared goal. When they coordinate, they still maintain their organizational autonomy and independence of action, but they deliberately align resources, capabilities, strategies, and implementation in support of shared goals.

In this report, Professor Moynihan describes the evolution of the federal performance management system over the past 20 years since the passage of the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (GPRA). He reports recent progress in achieving meaningful performance results within targeted pro­grams and describes anticipated future changes over the next few years as a result of the new requirements of the GPRA Modernization Act of 2010, which significantly amended the earlier law.

In Robert Gates, former secretary of defense, and Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, Professor Lambright has identified two outstanding government leaders who both led transformation initiatives in their organizations.

On May 14, 2012, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) provided a memorandum to all departments and agencies on the need to use evidence throughout the Fiscal Year 2014 budget submission. The memorandum provides four pages of issues and approaches for using evidence in the development, evaluation, and management of government programs. OMB also encourages agencies to strengthen program evaluation through a dedicated senior leader, such as a chief evaluation officer reporting directly to the secretary or deputy secretary.

Applying power in all its forms to secure the present and future is ultimately a leadership challenge. That challenge is especially complex in the current century when the forms and patterns of security are changing in so many ways at an accelerated pace than ever before. The capabilities required to threaten a nation, region, or even global stability are available to both rich and impoverished nation states, as well as small networks of people who can and do operate relatively independent of any nation state. There is more data available than ever before to make sense of this era.

Periodically the IBM Center staff steps back and reflects on the insights provided by its authors of more than 300 research reports and by some 300 senior government executives interviewed over the past 13 years.  Through our research and interviews, we identified several broad societal trends that we believe are changing the game for successful leadership at all levels of government.

In August 2007, five urban regions were selected by the USDOTSDOT to participate in a path-breaking federal transportation initiative. Known as the Urban Partnership program, the initiative funded a total of $1.1 billion in grants for integrated transit, highway pricing, technology, and telecommuting strategies aimed at reducing traffic congestion in major urban areas. The Minneapolis - St. Paul region was selected to receive one of the five grants.

Professors Cassell and Hoffmann observe that the public debate to date over the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) has focused primarily on the policy issues involved, with significantly less attention paid to operational issues. Their report focuses on the challenges the federal government now faces in implementing a series of financial relief programs. To gain insight into how the federal government might act upon these operational challenges, they took an historical look at how the federal government responded to previous financial crises.

The outgoing Senate-confirmed appointees of President George W.