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This week, I continue my special series on Leaders in Government.

If you want to get promoted and recognized for your ability to lead through difficult transitions, you have to be able to talk and write about them. When I'm teaching senior federal managers how to write federal resumes and Executive Core Qualification statements (ECQs) in my workshops, I tell them they must include examples of challenges, accomplishments and results in their applications. They struggle with my question: "What have you accomplished and what has changed in the last five years?" But these ECQ statements are what will make your resume and next federal application stand out from the rest!

The five ECQs are:

• Leading Change
• Leading People
• Results-Driven
• Business Acumen
• Building Coalitions/Communication

Gail McDonald remembers her most significant management challenge, her focus on a major customer (the Congress), and her methods in leading people during a difficult change in a government agency. Can you find examples of at least two ECQs in my interview with Gail?

Gail Clements McDonald

Gail Clements McDonald is from Texas, and was appointed by President Clinton in 1993 to chair the Interstate Commerce Commission. She had the awesome responsibility of directing the elimination of the agency, which became the Surface Transportation Board and downsized from 630 employees to 428. After two turbulent years at ICC, Gail was appointed by the President to be the first female administrator of the Saint Lawrence Seaway Development Corp., the agency that cooperates with Canada to manage the the Saint Lawrence Seaway. Gail is currently a consultant to the Federal Railroad Administration and is searching for a new senior executive position in government.

Q: Where was your first job in government?

A: The Oklahoma state government. I worked for Governor David Boren in 1974 as his Administrative Assistant for Education and liaison to cultural groups in Oklahoma.

Q: When did you decide that you were going to keep your career moving toward the highest possible level in government?

A: After my second tenure in the private sector, I realized that I really preferred government work and decided to come back in for the rest of my career.

Q: What was the most challenging action you ever took in government?

A: Trying to stabilize the work environment at ICC, when the agency was being zeroed out. Trying to keep it both a productive and a proud place in the face of a really grim future. As it turned out, they did get a future. There is a successor agency, the Surface Transportation Board.

Q: How did you do that?

A: By working to develop a full venue of activities at the agency, in the face of the grimness of the situation on Capitol Hill. Celebrating Black history week; giving career forums to get employees' resumes ready for whatever was going to happen; establishing a quality work environment on a day-to-day basis; recognizing people's accomplishments and creating new project teams.

There were good people there. It was just a matter of pulling them together, taking their best ideas and staying on track. And there was a happy ending for a third of the employees, because there was a successor agency that continues to run.

Q: Who was your most challenging customer? Why?

A: The Congress and the oversight committees. They were really looking at new ways to enforce regulations, to change traditional regulations toward a partnership of regulation with industry. We had the task of deregulating, and then in certain areas, with railroads, we had to try to strike a compromise with industry that did not have the adverse impacts on industry that the previous command and control regulations did.

Q: What do you look forward to every day?

A: I think it's the interaction with colleagues and with people in other agencies. To see what's going on. And to bring back ideas that have been useful and successful and apply them to your current situation.

Q: How do you get your employees to "buy-in" to all of your projects?

A: Listening to their ideas. Making everyone a partner in the process. Then really working to hammer out the best in terms of a new initiative. If you really listen to people and take from their experience, they will tend to sign on. Your success is assured if you have strong buy-in.

Q: In your opinion, what are your most important personal qualities that make you a good leader and decision-maker?

A: I think interest in people. The ability to find out what other people do well and to factor that into a project. Challenging them to do their best.

Q: What career advice do you have for someone who would like to be a government leader?

A: Look for opportunities outside your agency to network with government leaders. Take outside courses that will help build your resume and build knowledge that will help you develop your position in a new way.

Q: What's your favorite leadership book?

A: What I like are biographies of people who have taken charge of problems in their lives: Lauren Bacall's By Myself (Knopf, 1979) and Russell Baker's Growing Up (Congdon & Weed, 1982).

Q: What is your definition of a successful government executive?

A: Someone who has built a productive work environment for an agency. Leadership really sets that environment: the way the agency meets its challenges, the atmosphere in which the people work and take part in the challenges. These are significant factors in government today.

Simply put, someone who has led successful programs that have improved government services to customers and the American public.

Next week, we'll have an interview with Mike Snell, who recently applied for an SES position with the White House. Mike is a former military officer and lives in Bosnia. As you can imagine, it's quite challenging to search for jobs from halfway around the world.

Do you have a success story showing you are Results-Driven, have Business Acumen, or are a whiz at Building Coalitions? Send me your ECQ success story at resume@ari.net.

Kathryn Kraemer Troutman has been the president of The Resume Place, Inc. for 27 years. Kathryn helps people get promoted and change jobs. She is the pioneer designer of the new "federal resume." She wrote and published the first book on federal resume writing and is a popular resume writing workshop leader in government.

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