Is the federal government in the midst of a leadership crisis?

The results of a recent survey of career senior leaders conducted by the Senior Executives Association (SEA) and Deloitte would strongly suggest that the answer is yes, but not for the reasons most people might assume. The debate about a leadership crisis has tended to focus on two challenges: 1) the imminent retirement tsunami of career senior executives and 2) the apparent unwillingness of emerging leaders to join the Senior Executive Service (SES).

It is true that the majority of career senior executives are retirement eligible and many agencies could soon find themselves struggling with a shortage of institutional knowledge and career leadership. It is also true, as verified by surveys of GS-14/15s conducted by SEA and others, that perhaps half of emerging leaders believe the cost/benefit equation of being an SES is out of whack. Why take on the additional aggravation of dealing with big challenges and politicals when you can make as much money being a GS-15 step 10?

But these common assumptions mask what is a larger systemic issue in the federal government: an absence of a government-wide strategy to nurture the next generation of leaders. While a retirement tsunami is inevitable, it wouldn’t be a problem if agencies had strong succession planning programs in place. And, yes, half of GS-14s and GS-15s according to SEA’s surveys have said that they wouldn’t consider becoming a career SES. But that means that half would, which results in a pool of more than 100,000 emerging leaders who are eager to become SES.

So what’s the problem? The SEA/Deloitte survey uncovered several factors:

• Only 22 percent of the senior executives surveyed believe their agencies are prepared to retain top talent. Succession planning is largely absent at agencies and those agencies that do have strategies are hobbled by a lack of resources and commitment from political leadership. This strongly suggests that when tsunami hits, agencies are ill-prepared to identify and promote future leaders.

• While 98 percent of respondents agreed that people management skills are as important (or even more important) than technical skills, only 57 percent of current leaders believe they were selected based on leadership capability in addition to functional expertise. In addition, just 35 percent said senior leaders are selected because of their ability to inspire teams. This gap between expectations and reality helps explain why many agency leaders are relegated to “super manager” roles rather than leadership roles.

• One-quarter (26 percent) of senior executives believe their agencies have the infrastructure in place to support leadership development and identify critical skill gaps within existing and future leadership cadres. This chilling assessment means that leadership pipelines are not only being cultivated, but that if one existed we wouldn’t know how to prepare future leaders for the rigors of 21st Century leadership.

Taken as a whole, the SEA/Deloitte survey peels back the layers from a very disturbing narrative—one that must be reversed if the federal government is going to be able to deliver on its vital mission requirements on behalf of the U.S. taxpayer. SEA and Deloitte have developed concrete recommendations that will begin to address the emerging leadership challenge, including working with key stakeholders such as the Office of Personnel Management, to develop the policies and programs required that will enable a new generation of leaders to be successful.