Leadership Counts: Lessons for Public Managers from the Massachusetts Welfare, Training, and Employment ProgramHarvard University Press, 2009 M06 1 - 248 pages How can public officials move large government agencies to produce significant results? In Leadership Counts Robert Behn explains exactly what managers in the inherently political environment of government need to do to obtain such performance. In 1983 the leadership of the Massachusetts Department of Public Welfare -Charles M. Atkins, Thomas P. Glynn, Barbara Burke-Tatum, and Jolie Bain Pillsbury-set out to educate and train welfare recipients, place them in good jobs, and move them from dependency to selfsufficiency- From these efforts to accomplish a specific and important public purpose, Behn extracts the fundamental ingredients of successful public leadership. Behn's analysis spans the spectrum of managerial tasks-from the almost spiritual responsibility to create and communicate a public mission to the seemingly mundane chore of motivating specific individuals to accomplish specific tasks. He describes how to manage for performance, examines how effective leaders can use external success to build internal morale, and analyzes the dilemmas of evaluating ongoing and evolving public policies. He explains in detail how accomplishing specific purposes requires management by groping along. And he analyzes three different metastrategies for government executives -strategies that emphasize policy, administration, or leadership. Leadership Counts is more than an intriguing success story. It offers specific lessons that the nominal head of any government agency can employ to become the organization's true leader. This insightful book will be of interest not only to students and teachers of public management but to leaders at all levels of government-from the principal of a school to the secretary of defense. |
Contents
Important Events along the Way | 1 |
The Idea behind ET CHOICES | 9 |
The Birth of ET CHOICES | 21 |
The Structure of ET CHOICES | 36 |
Managing for Performance | 49 |
An Emphasis on Marketing | 83 |
Making Government More Businesslike | 104 |
Other editions - View all
Leadership Counts: Lessons for Public Managers from the Massachusetts ... Robert D. Behn No preview available - 1994 |
Common terms and phrases
achieve administrative systems AFDC caseload AFDC recipients agency argued associate commissioner Atkins Atkins's award Boston Globe Boston Herald budget Burke-Tatum child-support CHOICES clients concept contractors control group create Demonstration Research Department of Public department's designed Dukakis's effective Eileen McNamara eligibility employees Employment and Training error rate ET CHOICES ET's evaluation example experiment FASW federal find jobs former welfare recipient Glynn groping idea impact incentives individual job placements job search JTPA June 27 legislation local-office directors managerial marketing Massachusetts Department MDRC Medicaid ment metastrategy Michael Dukakis million mission months motivate null hypothesis operations organization OTEP participants percent performance Peters and Waterman Pillsbury placement goals political poverty problems produce public manager Public Welfare responsibility Rosenthal effect social workers staff state's success task tion training program treatment group voluntary Waddell welfare department welfare offices welfare recipients workfare
Popular passages
Page 233 - The professional manager in America exists above the industrial din, away from the dirt, noise, and irrationality of people and products. He dresses well. His secretary is alert and helpful. His office is as clean, quiet, and subdued as that of any other professional. He plans, organizes, and controls large enterprises in a calm, logical, dispassionate, and decisive manner. He surveys computer printouts, calculates profits and losses, sells and acquires subsidiaries, and imposes systems for monitoring...