How Federal Executives Build Successful Long-Term Organizations

What do executives do? How do they spend their time? What do they leave behind after their tenure? To answer these questions, we interviewed 24 top political executives in the Obama Administration during their first two years in office. Beginning in 2009, we interviewed them three times during their first two years, at the end of their first six months, at 12 months, and at 18 months. We found that executives can be described as “builders.” Our interviews focused on how each of the 24 executives spent their time and energy. Their activities included ••building organizational capacity ••building relationships ••building credibility.