The Handbook of Federal Government Leadership and Administration

Transforming, Performing, and Innovating in a Complex World

David H. Rosenbloom, Patrick S. Malone, Bill Valdez

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781498756402
• eBook ISBN:
  9781315439228
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Política

Public management is context dependent, rather than generic. That may sound obvious, but in the late 1920s through the 1930s, a dominant strand of thought considered public administration to be a "single process," wherever practiced. Today by contrast, federal administration is distinguished from private enterprise, nonprofit management, and state and local governmental practices by the combined effects of its scope and scale; the constitutional separation of powers, federalism, and protection of individual rights; and administrative law requirements for stakeholder participation, representation, transparency, privacy, due process and other democratic-constitutional values. The Handbook of Federal Leadership and Administration is a state-of-the art guide to the unique features of federal administration, informed by the latest theoretical developments, research, and practical applications, and the leadership and management of federal agencies.

Written by "pracademics" with federal practitioners specifically in mind, the handbook is designed to bridge the gap between academic and applied public administration by identifying what resonates with practitioners as they search for usable theories and research findings to improve performance. Combining rigor and relevance in the study and practice of federal administration, it includes chapters on theory, history, reform initiatives, leadership, necessary skill sets, budgeting, power and influence, political embeddedness, change management, separated and shared executive, legislative, and judicial powers, effective communication, ethics, and emerging concepts and challenges. It will be essential reading for federal practitioners, scholars, and "pracademics" alike.

1 The Bureaucratic Landscape

Origin and Implications for the Federal Leader

Patrick S. Malone

It is getting harder to run a Constitution than to frame one.

—Woodrow Wilson

Federal leaders work in one of the most multifarious organizational environments of any kind—a bureaucracy. And the truth is, bureaucracy in and of itself is not a bad thing. In fact, it can provide a solid and predictable framework from which to deliver public services. Reporting chains are clear, processes are structured and followed as expected, and allegiance is owed not to irrational individuals, but to rational structured organizations and legally established positions of authority therein.

But the landscape upon which federal leadership treads is far different from Max Weber’s bureaucratic haven. The environment is fraught with political, legal, and administrative forces all vying for control and influence. It’s an atmosphere shaped by years of incremental adjustments based on political or popular will. Indeed, today’s bureaucracy is one that demands extraordinary leadership skill in order to achieve agency objectives. And it began with the fight to build the U.S. Constitution.

The U.S. Constitution: The Source of the Problem?

When examining the structure of the U.S. government, a logical starting point is typically the United States Constitution itself. To familiar eyes, the preamble sets forth the reason for and scope of the Constitution—“to form a more perfect Union” and to “secure the blessings of liberty,” for current and future generations of citizens (U.S. Constitution, Preamble). The subsequent seven original articles, along with 27 amendments, form the foundation of government as we know it today. Despite its brilliance, the U.S. Constitution is eerily silent on the issue of the delivery of public administration and policy. The Constitution is even more taciturn on the organizational mechanisms and structures necessary to make the business of the nation transpire. Nowhere in the entire document does the “how” exist.

Perhaps the closest one will get to guidance from the founding framers on how to administer the young nation is found in Article 2 (Table 1.1). But each of the four sections provides only the slightest glimpse of the mechanisms, structure, and requisite guidelines. Section 1 grants the president executive power and denotes the length of tenure to be served with the vice-president. Beyond this, the balance of Section 1 reflects guidance related to the election process, compensation, and terms of removal from office. Section 2 provides some level of executive clarity by appointing the chief executive as the commander of the military and giving authority to oversee the heads of the civilian departments. Section 2 also allows a lead role in negotiating treaties and nominating officials of the government, including officers of the executive branch and judges in the judicial branch. Reporting mechanisms are outlined in Section 3 where the president is directed to report to Congress, convene congressional sessions, receive ambassadors, and commission officers of the United States. Finally, Section 4 provides guidelines for removal from office. But what about the “how?” What these articles fail to tell us is what the organizations that exist to deliver our democracy look like, how they should be structured, what guidelines they should follow, and the operating principles to which they should subscribe. This is frightening considering these very organizations serve as the touch-points with the citizens the Constitution is designed to serve.

Table 1.1 United States Constitution—Article 2

Section 1

The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his office during the term of four years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same term, be elected, as follows: Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States, shall be appointed an elector. The electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for two persons, of whom one at least shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves. And they shall make a list of all the persons voted for, and of the number of votes for each; which list they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted. The person having the greatest number of votes shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such majority, and have an equal number of votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately choose by ballot one of them for President; and if no person have a majority, then from the five highest on the list the said House shall in like manner choose the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by States, the representation from each state having one vote; A quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. In every case, after the choice of the President, the person having the greatest number of votes of the electors shall be the Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal votes, the Senate shall choose from them by ballot the Vice President.

The Congress may determine the time of choosing the electors, and the day on which they shall give their votes; which day shall be the same throughout the United States.

No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty five years, and been fourteen Years a resident within the United States.

In case of the removal of the President from office, or of his death, resignation, or inability to discharge the powers and duties of the said office, the same shall devolve on the Vice President, and the Congress may by law provide for the case of removal, death, resignation or inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what officer shall then act as President, and such officer shall act accordingly, until the disability be removed, or a President shall be elected.

The President shall, at stated times, receive for his services, a compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that period any other emolument from the United States, or any of them.

Before he enter on the execution of his office, he shall take the following oath or affirmation:—“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Section 2

The President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States; he may require the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of the executive departments, upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices, and he shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.

He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law: but the Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments.

The President shall have power to fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting commissions which shall expire at the end of their next session.

Section 3

He shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in case of disagreement between them, with respect to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper; he shall receive ambassadors and other public ministers; he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed, and shall commission all the officers of the United States.

Section 4

The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.

The Constitution, while a brilliantly crafted document with its broad language and separation of powers, perhaps was just what the founders intended to create—a mechanism to limit the dominance of any one faction. As designed, the U.S. government was not meant to be proficient or powerful but to be constrained. The founders were well aware the result of their work would be a government that would be restrained just enough to make it increasingly challenging to begin new programs and to establish institutions that would ultimately need to be supported by the citizens (Wilson, 1989).

When one observes the current structure of the U.S. government (Table 1.2), one sees an impressive organization made up of three branches, 15 departments, numerous independent agencies, with just over two million federal employees (Office of Personnel Management, 2015) serving a population of over 322 million, (U.S. Census Bureau, 2015) and spending about $3.5 trillion per year (Senate Budget Committee, 2014). But how did we get to where we are? And what kind of challenge does our current structure create for federal leaders?

How We Got Here: Seven Ironies Plus One

Evolution of the modern governance structure of our nation is best reflected in Michael Nelson’s (1982) theories of the ironies of the American national bureaucracy. Nelson notes that our modern bureaucracy was shaped by significant events occurring in the period from 1775 to 1932, at a time that was marked by a number of incongruous happenings that led to the development of the administrative infrastructure we possess today.

During this time, there were seven notable ironies related to the historical, political, and cultural events of the time. These, combined with an eighth and final irony, have left us with what public policy analysts often refer to as a situation that is “rife with unanticipated consequences.” Indeed, as Nelson (1982) suggests, political forces in the form of elected officials and organized political groups, in their effort to ensure control of government by the everyday citizen, unintentionally created the modern bureaucratic infrastructure we see today—the infrastructure in which our federal leaders must lead.

The First Irony: The Revolt Against the Old Administrative Order Planted the Seeds of a New Administrative Order

The Declaration of Independence (1775) is far better known for phrases beginning with “When in the course of human events …” or “We hold these truths to be self-evident …” than for its rebuttal of the administrative practices of the king of Great Britain. However, the colonists had nothing good to say about issues of administering the public good:

• He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

Table 1.2 The Government of the United States

• He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people …

• He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly …

• He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

• He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

• He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

• He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

• He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

• He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. (Declaration of Independence, 1775)

It is a fact that pre-revolution, the founding fathers were quite dissatisfied with many of the business practices of the ruling class. This fueled an anti-administrative tenor in the new nation—one that viewed such institutions with disdain.

After the revolution, the nation’s early leaders still had a country to attend to, and there were several failed congressional attempts to run the business of the nation. Congress finally succumbed to creating a series of boards with outside officials, and in some cases executives, that were accountable to Congress. By creating these bodies, Nelson (1982) notes that Congress was responsible for the one of the first ironies of American history. In essence, the response to the uprising against the British administrative structure was to create new administrative structures in the United States. And while such bodies are compulsory to run any nation, “the adoption of a system of single-headed executive departments was a step distinctly in advance of formal English [administrative] development” (Short, 1923, p. 75).

The Second Irony: The System of Dual Control of Administration Became One of Limited Control

The events that followed the American Revolution reflected a nation at odds with its desire to repudiate former British control, eschew administrative infrastructures, and provide services for a new and growing nation. As the nation struggled with a suitable design for administrative capacity, newly established agencies found themselves in the unenviable position of dual control by both the legislative and executive branches of government.

As Nelson (1982) writes:

The Constitutional Convention, in loosing the agencies from their old legislative moorings (politically necessary if the support of executive power adherents was to be won) without tying them securely to the presidency (equally politic if anti-federalist support was to be kept) forced agencies to find and exercise relatively independent power. Agencies began to learn to play one branch off against the other; if neither presiden...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1 The Bureaucratic Landscape: Origin and Implications for the Federal Leader
• 2 Federal Administrative Leadership in the American Political System
• 3 Theory and Practice in Federal Government Executive Branch Leadership and Administration: Developing Rigorous Approaches to Effective Government
• 4 Leadership and Management: The Use of Distributed Power and Influence in a Changing Federal Government
• 5 Leadership Development: An Investment Necessary to Increase Federal Employee Engagement and Federal Government Productivity
• 6 Administering and Leading in the Federal Government: The Need for an Adaptive Leadership Approach for 21st-Century Leaders
• 7 Leading with Integrity
• 8 Communicating to Drive Engagement and Trust
• 9 A Review of Federal Government Reform Initiatives Since the Passage of the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993
• 10 Change Management in Federal Government Organizations
• 11 Leading in the Context of Constitutional Government
• 12 Understanding the Federal Budget: Where Policy Meets Money
• 13 Emerging Challenges for Federal Government Leaders
• About the Editors
• About the Contributors
• Index