Leadership, Responsiveness and Competence in Government

In his study, Administrative Behavior of Federal Bureau Chiefs (1981), Herbert Kaufman famously concluded that despite their best efforts, these federal executives had only limited control over the direction of their organizations. Instead, to a considerable extent they are pushed along by larger organizational, institutional, and systemic imperatives. Has the broader literature on leadership in the federal executive establishment borne out Kaufman’s observations and conclusions? There has been little discussion on the leadership and responsiveness of government in the literature. This article fills this gap and examines the literature on leadership in the federal executive following Kaufman’s observations and conclusions as well as the way of the responsiveness of federal executives.