Leading in Government Demands the Stewardship of Public Trust

As Americans, we have only one institution with the public mandate and resources to collectively address our nation’s most important and difficult challenges: the federal government. Given the multiple crises facing our nation today, the need for an effective government and capable federal leadership is clearly of paramount importance.

The Biden administration has ambitious goals concerning the coronavirus pandemic, racial inequity, the economy, the environment, and national security. Having a firm understanding of what it means to lead in government will be core to its ability to make progress against these daunting challenges. Although some aspects of leadership transcend the public and private sectors, others are unique to government. In particular, the role of public trust is both crucial and at grave risk, as has been so painfully exposed during the past few years.

Building, rebuilding, and maintaining trust in the face of extremely difficult challenges, where progress will confront resistance from all directions, requires strong leadership from both federal career executives and presidential appointees. These individuals must not only bring policy expertise but an ability to champion the public interest, lead a large workforce, ensure effective implementation of a wide range of programs and initiatives, and navigate political minefields amid constant budget uncertainties.

In our work at the nonpartisan, nonprofit Partnership for Public Service, we have developed the Public Service Leadership Model to illuminate the essential attributes of effective leaders in government. In brief, such leaders bring a deep sense of stewardship of the public trust and a clear commitment to the public good. All federal leaders — both career employees and political appointees — take an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution when they enter public service. Given the vast and unmatched influence, power, and resources of our government, and its far-reaching effects on the United States and the rest of the world, trust in federal leaders and their integrity is critical. These leaders represent the American people and must be held to the highest standards in their service to the public.

Crumbling Trust

Trust between the public and government is at an all-time low. According to the Pew Research Center, in 2020 only 20% of U.S. adults said they trust the federal government, compared with 77% in 1964. Recent research from the Edelman Trust Barometer shows that trust in every type of institution has reached historic lows. For a country looking to overcome unprecedented challenges, Americans’ distrust in their government is a major stumbling block in the path of progress.

Former President Donald Trump exacerbated the situation through actions such as accusing career public servants of subversion, seeking to supplant nonpartisan career leaders with agenda-driven loyalists, and, most recently and disturbingly, working to overthrow the results of a democratic election. Not only have these actions damaged the trust between the public and government, but they have damaged the morale and psychological safety of the federal workforce by working to overthrow the results of a democratic election, leading to the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

Too many of those who have spoken up, whether as whistleblowers or simply truth tellers, have been punished in highly visible ways. It is easy for federal employees to conclude that the truth is too risky to pursue — and innovation even more so.

For the country to move forward, career and political leaders need to unify behind the common oath they have taken. The need for this commitment is manifest given the inestimable good they can do in service to the American people.

The Magnitude of Government Service

Public service leadership differs from that in any other sector. Government leaders must satisfy the competing expectations of more than 300 million people. The size of the workforce they lead is also staggering, with more than 2 million full-time civilian employees — from astrophysicists to zoologists. Additionally, the government has Capitol Hill leaders, the Government Accountability Office, various agencies’ inspectors general, and a host of nonprofits keeping an eye out for waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement.

Being responsible for public trust is a critical leadership responsibility, and a particularly daunting one when public trust has suffered grievous harm. Sean O’Keefe, whose career includes running the Department of the Navy, NASA, and the multinational aerospace corporation Airbus, knows the significance of leading in government. “Serving the public is a more significant calling than making widgets better at lower cost,” O’Keefe said. “The stakes are higher, and the consequences are greater. You are responsible for the public trust.”

The 2019 Best Places to Work in the Federal Government rankings, produced by the Partnership for Public Service and BCG, found that only 48.6% of federal employees have a positive view of their senior leaders. The 2019 private-sector employee engagement score is 77.0 out of 100, 15.3 points higher than the score for government workers, according to data from employee research firm Mercer Sirota.

To help fill this engagement gap and fulfill the promise of government in the process, the new administration can foster a culture of integrity, ethics, and trust. To do this, agency leaders must visibly abide by the many rules and regulations in place, set performance expectations for holding leaders accountable, listen to career leaders, be responsive and attentive to the workforce, and model the highest levels of integrity. They must do this with a new level of clarity and energy so that the signal of real change is unmistakable to the workforce and the public.

Impacting Generations

“You cannot put a price tag on the feeling that you’re making a difference in people’s lives,” said Jon Michael Seward, who has worked with the Department of Justice for more than 30 years. The possibility for making a difference through public service is difficult to quantify. It is work that affects generations, and the examples are numerous, seen in the achievements of political appointees and career leaders alike.

Seward, who successfully brought lawsuits against banks to ensure that tens of thousands of people living in underserved and minority communities could gain access to credit, is just one example of a model for leadership in public service — among numerous other recent examples. Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health serves the country as a mission-driven steward who has worked tirelessly to combat COVID-19 and saved millions of lives for decades through his work on HIV/AIDS, the H1N1 virus, and Ebola. His colleague, Dr. Barney S. Graham, the director of the NIH Vaccine Research Center, was the chief architect of the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines now being administered in the United States — vaccines that are the product of years of painstaking research and a fierce commitment to public health. Phillip Brooks and Byron Bunker, federal leaders at the Environmental Protection Agency, halted a 2017 scheme by Volkswagen to evade emission standards, helping secure a record $17.4 billion in legal settlements to reduce harmful pollution and compensate deceived car owners.

Ultimately, effective leadership and a commitment to the public good is the most important component for our government’s and our nation’s success. No matter one’s political persuasion or the tumultuous politics of the day, our nation needs a competent, well-managed government to protect public health and the environment, care for veterans, respond to natural disasters, support the economy, and, above all else, keep us safe in an uncertain world. We believe this starts with identifying and supporting the kinds of leaders who are able and willing to take on these challenges.