Results of the 2011 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey

by Stan Sinclair, Managing Member

Last week, the Office of Personnel Management published its annual Federal Employment Viewpoint Survey.  More than 500,000 Federal employees were asked to participate in the survey, and more than 266,000 provided responses.  The survey, which you can read in its entirety here, provides a “comprehensive and valuable picture of the opinions of the Federal workforce,” according to OPM.

Among the survey’s findings were that nearly 7 of 10 Federal employees recommend their organizations as good places to work, and 92 percent believe that the work they themselves do is important.   More than 80 percent like the work they do; know how their work relates to agency goals and priorities; believe they are held accountable for achieving results; think their units do high quality work; and feel their supervisor treats them with respect.

On the negative side of the ledger, less than 50 percent of employees felt that their leaders generated high levels of motivation and commitment in the workforce and were satisfied with the policies and practices of their senior leaders.  And although 84 percent of employees feel they are personally held accountable for achieving results, 47 percent believe pay raises do not depend on performance; 41 percent believe poor performers in their organization are not dealt with, and 35 percent believe promotions are not based on merit.

As in every survey, some agencies did very well, while others did less well.  The highest rated agency in the categories of leadership and knowledge management; results-oriented performance culture; talent management and job satisfaction was the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which got the highest rating in each of the four areas.  Other “winners” included the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission; the State Department; OPM itself; and the National Credit Union Administration.

OPM concluded that “despite potentially adverse scenarios (such as) shutdowns, pay freezes, furloughs, benefit reductions, budget cuts and negative public perceptions, Federal employees’ dedication and commitment remain high.”  This agrees with what we at SAG are seeing in our work with a number of federal agencies—with this caveat: there are places, probably in every agency, where morale is nowhere near what it could, or should be. 

We strongly believe that our training and leadership development programs have significantly improved both morale and performance everywhere they have been given, and that such training is essential for every federal agency if it is to adapt to the needs of the American people in the 21^st century.  As OPM writes, “competent, ethical and dedicated senior leaders who foster the confidence and the respect of the workforce are critical to agency success.”

Interestingly enough, however, while 65 percent of survey respondents feel they have opportunities to improve their skills at work, only 54 percent believe their training needs are properly assessed. If, as OPM also concludes, “leadership is getting better, but still has a ways to go,” the best way to travel this path is through rigorous and intensive leadership training.

We at SAG are curious, though: this survey is the product of 266,000 responses out of nearly 4.5 million federal employees.  If you are a federal employee and were not surveyed, what do you think?  What would you have told the surveyors about your level of job satisfaction, your thoughts about your workplace, and the quality of your organizations leaders?  We promise we’ll maintain your anonymity, unless you’d prefer not to remain anonymous.  Thanks!

Are Great Leaders Disappearing?

by Seth Sinclair, Member

Two weeks ago, I posted a blog entry entitled “Leaders Are Made, Not Born.” My post was based on the four skills the American Management Association believes young leaders must master in order to be successful.  (You can read that entry here.)  I was responding to another blogger, who suggested that most young people aren’t learning critical thinking and problem solving, effective communication, collaboration and team building, and creativity and innovation in school—and, because of this, they don’t have the skills to meet the needs of business and government in the 21^st century.

More recently, the Harvard Business Review’s blog has weighed in on this debate.  In a September 20, 2011 post entitled, “Where Have All the Leaders Gone,” (read it here) consultant and author Ron Ashkenaz discusses the phenomenon that today’s most important leaders don’t seem to measure up to our expectations, and that leaders of previous generations inspired more confidence than our present collection. 

Mr. Ashkenaz offers two reasons for this finding.  First, he says, the velocity and volume of issues today’s leaders are confronted with has increased substantially.  He believes previous generations of leaders had more time between decisions than today’s leaders have.  The instantaneous communication technology has brought allows leaders very little time to think, and forces them to move quickly from issue to issue without the time, as he writes, to “think, reflect and plan.”

His second reason is his belief that many of today’s leaders are overly concerned with their stakeholders’ reactions.  They worry too much about making people “happy”—and as a result, they hesitate to do what they believe is right.  According to Mr. Ashkenaz, “politicians seem to base their policies on polling trends, while corporate leaders worry about the reactions of analysts and traders.”

In my blog on the AMA study, I took issue with the blogger’s conclusion, because I believe that it has never been the sole responsibility of schools to teach the skills good leaders require.  On-the-job training, careful listening, modeling the behaviors of mentors and others, and a commitment to lifelong learning—including learning from the kind of leadership programs SAG provides—all are as important, if not more important, than the lessons an aspiring leader learns at even the finest MBA or MPA program.

I disagree with Mr. Ashkenaz as well, because I believe that today’s great leaders are as skilled, or more so, than those of any previous generation.  Among the leaders of previous generations the author admires were Franklin Roosevelt; Winston Churchill; John F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King.  None of these great leaders were universally recognized as such during their lifetimes, (Churchill, for example, was turned out of office by the people of Great Britain as soon as World War II ended,) and all of their reputations have benefited significantly from the distance that time, and in some cases tragedy, provides.

We do have great leaders in all walks of life today—and future generations, if not their contemporaries, will recognize them as such.  Steve Jobs has been a controversial figure throughout his career; he even resigned from Apple Inc. in the 1980’s after he lost a power struggle with the company’s board of directors, and spent a decade away from the company before returning.  His resignation for health reasons as CEO of Apple last month was greeted with near-universal dismay, however, and I have little doubt that his legend will grow significantly in the years ahead. 

“Don’t it always seem to go,” Joni Mitchell once sang, “that we don’t know what we’ve got till it’s gone?”  Leaders like Jobs, Jeff Immelt and Jack Welch of GE, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, and others (I’ll leave it to you to list the present-day politicians you admire) are all great visionaries, and have mastered the leadership challenges of the beginnings of the 21^st century; just as leaders like Andrew Carnegie; Thomas Edison; and Henry Ford mastered the equally-significant business challenges of the beginning of the 20^th century.

These leaders understand the opportunities faster communications provide; they carve out the time they need to think and plan (and hire others to help them do so); and they—like leaders of every generation—do not hesitate to do what they believe is right.  The game has not gotten harder, in my opinion, but the rules have gotten more complex.  It is our responsibility at SAG, as trainers of tomorrow’s leaders, to help those who will be tomorrow’s leaders understand these new rules and become successful in their chosen fields.

I’d like to know what you think, though: is it harder for a leader to achieve greatness today, and, if so, why?  I’m looking forward to your comments below.