In today’s government, leadership is all about results

What is successful leadership in an administration in Washington? Is it designing policy? Making decisions? Issuing instructions? Giving a speech? Spending money?

Hardly. Such activities are essential; they're what most political managers routinely do. By themselves, they don't amount to strong, productive management. A lot of people in government today recognize that, but it's useful to make the point for each new administration. Leading successfully really means getting something tangible, something visible, for the money and effort invested. In a word, results.

In private business, as is so often repeated, the bottom line--profit or loss--makes it relatively easy to judge results. In government, it's harder. Much that looks like a result really isn't. When public leaders think they've gone the last hard mile, crossed the finish line, they often haven't.

Suppose the Federal Aviation Administration is investing millions to protect the health of air travelers by developing a climate control system for passenger jets that doesn't distribute airborne bacteria around the cabin. It plans the project, puts the job out to bid, spends the funds, convenes a lot of interagency consultation, tells the media about it. But those aren't results, only steps along the way. Not until the prototype is built, tested successfully, and demonstrated to airframe builders and airline executives is any real result in hand. Not until airlines are convinced they should install the new system--or are required to by regulation--has the FAA gone the full route by ensuring that passengers benefit from it.

Or take the actual decision by the Internal Revenue Service to allow electronic filing of tax returns. Announcing the plan, getting the technology designed, hiring the personnel--again, those were just way stations. Certainly, they added up to a lot more than just a visible intention to make the change. But they were not yet a real result. That came when people could actually go on line, send their returns to the IRS, and see them accepted, safe and sound, as advertised.

The first lesson of leading within an agency, then, is to pursue ends, not means. It's not how much money you spend, how many meetings you call, how many policy papers you put out, how many times you testify on Capitol Hill. It is not input, or even output. It is what the professionals like to call desired outcomes. It's results.

"Focus on outcomes, not on input," says one high-ranking federal official. "It's so easy to get caught up in getting the process right and getting the regulations just perfect and anticipating everything that might go wrong, but failing to notice that no real people were touched by what you did."

Part of the problem in going after results is the understandable attraction for political appointees of the world of policymaking. Policy, after all, is what guides most of their work. It seems like the most important aspect of a leadership position. It requires creativity, design skill, the art of negotiating--loftier assets, to some, than the ability to run things, and it seemingly is more likely to earn recognition and prestige. Again, however, policymaking alone doesn't bring results.

"A lot of us come to Washington and want to be engaged in high policy," says one appointee. "If we just get the policy right, everything will be different. I would suggest just the opposite. We spend much more time on policy than is needed, and so little on implementation. In the end you're going to be judged on what actually happens, not on whether there is a new declaration of direction and a nice event at the White House."

Why are better results the executive branch's most critical assignment? It is not just their enormous intrinsic value for the national well-being. It is also because there are increasingly workable ways to measure results--that is, to measure performance. The Government Performance and Results Act, passed in 1993, was only the beginning. Tools to measure are becoming more precise. They are beginning to find more acceptance among the decisionmakers who appropriate money for government programs. That means executive branch managers will be facing ever-strengthening mandates from the Congress to get better results for the resources they use.

Yet the most convincing reason why results matter can be found in national opinion surveys. Just about every poll in sight shows persistent, widespread public disenchantment with government (though not with government's potential). Government today turns large numbers of Americans off. A majority thinks of it, not as our government, but as the government; According to a June 1999 Council for Excellence in Government Hart/Teeter national poll, only one in four believes Washington works for the public interest. But most people continue to believe that it can. They want better results from government. And that, in the end, is probably the most urgent mandate of all.

Reprinted with permission from The 2000 Prune Book: How to Succeed in Washington's Top Jobs, Council for Excellence in Government, Brookings Institution Press.