The Relationship between Senior Executives’ Leadership and Innovation in the U.S. Federal Government

Over the past three decades, public managers have found themselves working in conditions of fiscal stress in which they must try to compete with interest groups and congressional appropriators to accomplish public policy goals with fewer real resources. The study includes senior executives in the research design in order to gather practitioners in a focused and rich exploration of the effect of transactional and transformational leadership on adoption and implementation of innovation. To explore senior executives’ leadership styles and their engagement with administrative innovation, the study used a narratological research method with semi-structured interview. The sample of this study includes senior executives within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health. Implications, findings and limitations of the study and future research directions are explored in the study.