This post examines the type of technology leadership required in large enterprises like the government.

In the prior 3 articles in this series, I have identified methods and culture needed to improve the ability of the government to take full advantage of emerging technology. The final element driving adoption of emerging technology within government is leadership.  Without exceptional leadership at the right place and time, improvement in our ability to accomplish critical mission with new technology is not possible.

Leadership that creates positive permanent change is rare.  I have experienced this leadership on a few occasions, far less than I wished.  These leaders each had a number of qualities, to which I accredit their success; vision, awareness, and most importantly courage.  History notes many examples of leadership that has created impactful change, some for a single event, others have put the world on a new path.  As I have stated throughout this series, my intention in writing these papers is to inspire those who are still working inside government.  Change can be accomplished from the bottom up, by those in a position to make it possible.  Do not wait for department or political leadership to catch up with what needs to be done. Act with the abilities you have now. How do leaders leverage these critical qualities to ensure new technology is applied to make a strategic impact to the mission of the United States?

“The world stands on the threshold of an “aeronautical era” and that military airpower, independent of ground and sea forces, should be the first line of defense…”

(General Billy Mitchell, Winged Defense)

Vision.  Leaders must set a readily articulated vision to leverage new/emerging technology for mission.  It is the “why” of what you do, a forever striving statement that really could never be achieved, or if it was, the reason for your organization would no longer exist. This is not/not writing a clever sentence at a facilitated offsite.  Leaders need to engage teams with actions and words so that each member of the team fully understands and can articulate the future and how they personally are working to achieve it.  This both focuses the team in a single direction and identifies to those outside the organization why your organizations’ actions are relevant.  The objective is to create a wider scope and acceptance for change, and a base to both promote and defend the change being implemented. The best vision creates a readily relatable picture of what the future will be, and how elements of new technology will expand or improve mission. This should include new means to accomplish tasks within that mission, fundamentally better than current practice. The leader must create this environment, at an individual level within the team, as well as in settings with the entire organization, and externally.  Done effectively, the vision becomes contagious and spreads geometrically as it is fully adopted and promoted by those within and outside the organization, creating an engine for change.  

“There is a natural opposition among men to anything they have not thought of themselves.”

(Sir Barnes Wallace, Developer of the “Dam Buster” Bomb)

Awareness.  Great leaders know their resources, the limits of their power, and most significantly the context of their time.  Resources include the skills and abilities of the leader.  Once a leader understands their skills, abilities and weaknesses, they can build a team to leverage or cover the resources they lack.  Funds, people, and time are not always under the control of leaders at every level.  This is where the leader needs to leverage their vision to make an argument for how resources are used, or to obtain more resources.  The best environment for strategic change I experienced was on a program that took a 30% cut in funding over one year.  We reassessed the current mission, and discovered a number of extraneous and little used capabilities, and then “ruthlessly” stopped work on those products. This action “created” resources that were directly applied to leverage new technology and mission concepts.  Good leaders know leadership occurs at all levels of any organization. There is real organizational authority, as well as informal authority granted to piers, by their demonstration of ability to lead, or their knowledge of a topic. Informal leaders inside and outside of the organization are vital for creation of strategic change, as they create and promote change from the bottom and middle up. Awareness and engagement of these informal leaders, their resources, their opinions of the vision, as well as their ability to influence is a critical component of change.  Knowing when, how, and with whom to engage is crucial. Historians speak of the actions of leaders “within the context of their time.”  Understanding the current context, how mission is executed, available technology, the appetite for change, and with whom support can be obtained, is an essential skill.  Leveraged effectively, assessment of context can make up for a number of resource shortfalls within a program, and keep technical change moving in spite of obstacles within or outside the organization.

“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”  (Winston Churchill)

Courage.  Physical and moral courage is a well understood concept within any discussion of leadership. There are a number of well-known examples of leaders who have leveraged both of these traits to make impacts. Courage is not a trait typically associated with the development and implementation of emerging technologies but is absolutely essential.  Having a well understood vision and perfect awareness are insufficient by themselves to drive meaningful and lasting change.  At some point in the process, an event, inside or outside of the organization is going to require a leader to make a decision or take an action with known and unknown consequences, and against the advice or direction of a superior. A leader could be faced with termination of the program, destruction/loss of program owned property, loss of current or future funding, termination of a leadership position, or loss of employment.  A leader needs to consider what level of personal risk they are willing to take to pursue change.  This is an assessment that must be constantly reviewed in light of personal circumstances and awareness of the current environment.  My own experience tells me that “career-ending” levels of courage are far easier to achieve as you near the end of a career.  Unfortunately, career-ending courage applied much earlier in a typical career has far more impact.  Being a leader of change at any level requires some level of courage, even if all that is done is to render a contrary view of how a mission could be accomplished, or how new technology could be leveraged.  Asking why (from an earlier article in this series) requires courage, especially if you are the only one asking.  “Why” questions are not always answered or even tolerated by an established organization, but usually cause others to ask, and sometimes become the entire basis for a new approach to a problem. The first act of courage in the quest to leverage the vast resources of the United States in emerging technologies is to ask why a current mission must be accomplished leveraging the same ill-equipped process, culture, and leadership approach that has led us to our current state of unpreparedness.

Consider a thought experiment. What if the US Government attempted to build out its defense capability without any development programs, leveraging only off-the-self, publicly available technology and capabilities.  Could the US government create the same level of national security preparedness?

Comments welcome.