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Bill Proenza was the National Hurricane Center director who never dealt with a hurricane -- at least one created by Mother Nature. His half-year tenure, from January to July 2007, was instead dominated by a storm of his own making. Proenza managed in that short time to publicly embarrass his bosses, alienate his staff and get himself fired.

A member of the Senior Executive Service who has since been reinstated in his previous position as head of a National Weather Service regional office, Proenza publicly pushed for a bigger budget for some hurricane center programs. He made his case in the media despite opposition from some of his superiors and subordinates.

For the sake of argument, suppose Proenza's efforts were in the best interest of the hurricane center. Assume he was right to argue for more dollars for hurricane research and for a controversial satellite. Being right wasn't enough. He failed not only to keep his job; he also failed to get the changes he advocated.

It wasn't just Proenza's maverick budget advocacy that doomed him. Much of the hurricane staff also complained to his superiors that he was a poor leader. Their complaints prompted Proenza's bosses to send a management assessment team -- led by the deputy director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology -- to the center.

"The team concluded that the [hurricane center's] ability to achieve its mission was seriously threatened because of the environment which had been created by the director's statements and actions," the NIST report to Proenza's bosses stated. "The director's actions intimidated some staff and alienated others. Teamwork, essential to the center's hurricane forecasting capabilities, was damaged severely. Some staff were concerned about retaliation for voicing their views."

Many executives in both government and the private sector take on new assignments full of plans for change. Good leaders take their time getting to know their new staff, their ideas for change and the overarching challenges their department faces. If executives have visions for the future, they develop support for them both up and down the chain of command. They incorporate the ideas of subordinates and superiors into their plans.

Proenza acted without taking such inclusionary steps. In testimony to Congress on his way out the door, Proenza said he took office and immediately identified the problems that he exposed in the media. A letter from his boss released at that time showed that Proenza had a habit of acting on his own, without regard for his superior's directions or official policy. On Capitol Hill, he presented himself as a whistleblower who was the target of politics at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the parent agency of the hurricane center.

Politics, however, is part of the job for any leader, even when dealing with bosses and employees. Politics is the art of persuasion and influence. A leader who is interested in seeing his vision actually become reality must learn that art. Proenza didn't, and he watched his ideas wash away, along with his job at the hurricane center.

Brian Friel covered management and human resources at Government Executive for six years and is now a National Journal staff correspondent.

COMMENTS

• This article make an important point: There is a prevalent - and terribly unfortunate - tacit belief in most organizations that leadership abilities come “free” with the title. Those who have had to suffer under incompetent leaders know that this is simply not so. Even individuals who prove to be hyper-competent in their present positions may prove incompetent when it comes to leading others, even in those same positions. Whether you ascribe to the nature or nurture side of the debate, nearly everyone should be able to agree that Leadership skills can (and must) be cultivated and improved if we expect people to be successful when assuming positions of responsibility and authority. I think the chief concern we should come away with after reading this article is not so much what Mr. Proenza did and did not do, but to ask ourselves: How many other “leaders” are out there subverting their organization’s mission – and making their people miserable in the process? It’s time we start to take leadership training even more seriously; whether our goal is to improve people’s abilities, or simply to serve as a secondary selection mechanism for weeding out the deadwood, so situations like this don’t have to continue to reoccur. Dr. JT Kostman Posted November 21, 2007 8:32 AM
• The fact that NOAA reinstated Mr. Proenza as director of NWS' Southern Region is a tacit admission that he did nothing wrong. If he was an inadequate leader for an organizaton of 50 people, why is he an adequate leader of 1000? The fact is, he was undermined by senior staff at NHC who dislike change and never once made a good faith effort to support their new boss. Instead, they actively undermined the rest of the staff's confidence in him then openly broke with him once they were assured by NWS management that they had its backing. This sorry episode not only gave NHC and NOAA black eyes, it assures that NHC will have incompetent, inactive leadership for years to come, and will continue the professional downhill slide it has been in for a decade. Enemy_of_NHC Posted October 4, 2007 9:14 AM
• Proenza did not make an effort to learn the responsibilities of the NHC Director job or to become familiar with the NHC/TPC employees, their job responsibilities, or the center's SOP. In his six months tenure he did not even once sit down with some of the key staff there. He did not read most emails from staff, and accumulated thousands of unread emails prior to finally being removed. He actually spent little time at the center. It is a very good thing he was removed from NHC before the hurricane season started. friend_of_NHC Posted October 3, 2007 5:30 PM