ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the leadership challenges to agencies of the executive branch of government and reviews some thoughts in the literature on leadership over the past decade in contrast to the current operational environment to determine whether leadership strategies and precepts of the recent past still apply. Many of the leadership challenges discussed in this chapter are recent concerns. Kouzes and Posner posited Five Fundamentals of Exemplary Leadership: Challenge the process, Inspire a shared vision, Enable others to act, Model the way and Encourage the heart. Donahue (1999) discusses four characteristics of the federal government that set it apart from the private sector: scale, complexity, monopoly, and indirect accountability. Agencies of the federal government operate in an essentially political environment; agencies are part of the executive branch and get their funding from the legislative branch. Electronic government or "e-government" is clearly the future for many of the services that the federal government provides.
