Leadership and Telework

There's good and bad news on the federal leadership front. While employee rankings of leadership at some federal agencies have improved in the last several years, many believe their senior leaders still have much work to do when it comes to leading and motivating their agency workforce.

The Federal Leadership Snapshot, released Thursday by the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service, found that leadership is one of the lowest ranked out of 10 federal workplace categories, with a score of only 54.9 out of 100. Employees ranked satisfaction with senior leaders particularly low, scoring it at only 49.3 out of 100.

The snapshot, which is based on data from the Office of Personnel Management's 2011 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, also found wide gaps in leadership from agency to agency. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, for example, received a top score of 72 out of 100 on leadership, followed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (70.8) and NASA (67). Other agencies ranked at or near the bottom on leadership, however, such as the Homeland Security Department (47.6), the Securities and Exchange Commission (47.7) and the Housing and Urban Development Department (49.5), the Partnership found.

Overall, federal rankings on leadership also trailed behind the private sector. The largest gaps between the two sectors were on overall satisfaction with supervisors and satisfaction with the information received from management about what's going on in the organization. "Overall, the federal government has ground to make up to the private sector on leadership," the report states. "In the private sector, employees rate leaders higher on communication, have more positive views of their supervisors, feel more empowered, and may feel more motivated by leadership than their counterparts in government."

Leadership has been touted by several experts as a key ingredient to making federal telework expansion possible. For example, the most recent report on federal telework by OPM noted that "the success of any change effort begins and ends with leadership support." Many of the agencies listed in the Partnership's snapshot as leaders on leadership also are leading the federal government on telework adoption.

With agencies required to expand telework thanks to the 2010 Telework Enhancement Act, improving leadership will be crucial in ushering telework and other flexible work initiatives in.

How would you rate leadership at your federal agency? Does this score help or hinder adoption of telework at your agency?