A Passion for Leadership

by Robert M Gates

  A leader implementing reform, within the confines of law and regulation, must decide how much analysis is needed before making a decision and acting. Analysis must not be an excuse for paralysis.

  The man in charge must decide when further study is warranted in order to gather more information, to build support for what he wants to accomplish, or to improve the measures for implementation. When to stop studying and start acting is a judgment call, and a leader has to rely on trusted advisers as well as his own experience and political instincts in making that call.

  As beneficial as inclusiveness, transparency, and patience are, they cannot turn into an excuse for putting off tough or unpopular decisions. Particularly when you are trying to pursue bold initiatives that change the status quo, there will be those who insist that not enough analysis has been done to properly evaluate the options, support a decision, or proceed with implementation; it always seems that just a little more work needs to be done. Sometimes, the concern is legitimate and intended to keep the person in charge from rushing pell-mell into hasty and ill-thought-out actions. Sometimes, complaints over insufficient analysis are born of timidity and risk aversion. But as often as not, the demand for more analysis is simply a stalling maneuver to avoid change or to wait until a more sympathetic leader takes over.

  Calling for further study is an especially favorite tactic of the U.S. Congress when a senior executive branch official makes a commonsense decision based on judgment and experience. This is the usual recourse when the secretary of defense decides to take some action that will cost jobs in a representative’s home district. Congress demanded copies of all the backup documentation supporting my decisions to close Joint Forces Command and to cancel a number of weapons and equipment programs. The whole point of the exercise was to allow congressional staff time to find holes in the analysis, require further study, hold hearings, and pursue other such tactics to forestall unwelcome decisions.

  In another example, over the years the air force had conducted multiple “Air Mobility Studies” to determine just how many cargo aircraft the U.S. military needed. The studies repeatedly concluded that even with the Iraq and Afghan campaigns under way the military had more cargo planes than were needed. Congress’s response was always to send the military back to the drawing board to study the issue one more time. Too many members had a vested interest in the cargo plane production line and in keeping open bases where they were stationed. Paralysis by analysis.

  Congress is far from alone in using the need for further analysis as a way to prevent action. It happens every day at the local and state levels as interest groups of all kinds insist on yet another study to block, among other things, new highways, pipelines, or hospitals or to change school district boundaries. Environmental impact reviews, however necessary, have become an especially effective tool of delay at the state and local levels; imagine trying to build the transcontinental railroad, the Hoover Dam, or the Golden Gate Bridge today. The demand for further study can be the bane of CEOs in business as well. I have seen their frustration when subordinates ask for “just a little more time” to study an initiative.

  The proliferation of investigative bodies in government, especially at the federal level, is becoming a serious impediment to managing—and changing—bureaucracies. The increasingly intrusive role of outside commissions and audit agencies such as the General Accounting Office, inspectors general, and the Congressional Budget Office and their ability to delay or overturn decisions by insisting on further analysis or study are unwelcome realities, especially if the leader has limited time in office. Indeed, I would argue that the actions of Congress, congressional staffs, and these investigative bodies—even if they are supposed to oversee bureaucracies and hold them accountable, and sometimes do—invariably embolden and strengthen bureaucratic resistance to change.

  Deadlines for implementation are important in every initiative for change in every organization.

  Everybody hates a deadline. The acerbic American writer Dorothy Parker was on her honeymoon when she received a telegram from her editor complaining she had missed a deadline. She wired back, “Too fucking busy and vice versa.” On the other hand, everyone knows they are necessary. Duke Ellington was quoted as saying, “I don’t need time. I need a deadline.” Bureaucracies look at deadlines much as did Parker. If you want to get anything accomplished, though, Ellington is your man.

  Deadlines need to be short. A distant deadline is an invitation to lethargy and delay. A leader should set realistic but short deadlines on each initiative she undertakes. Every task force or effort I commissioned while DCI had a deadline of less than three months. When I was secretary of defense, the deadlines ranged from a week to ten months. A university operates on a different time frame from virtually any other enterprise in the universe, but even at Texas A&M my deadlines were short, ranging from one to several months.

  Short deadlines focus attention on an effort and signal its importance, creating momentum. They usually generate a new level of energy (or panic) and even enthusiasm; short deadlines sustain the electric charge. They also limit the time available for the opposition to coalesce and develop blocking strategies. Finally, short deadlines demonstrate a leader’s seriousness of purpose: that she is determined to implement change as soon as practicable, understands the dynamics of bureaucracies, and is using time limits as a means to counter an organization’s naturally cautious instincts and resistance to change. If I were limited to just one suggestion for implementing change in a bureaucracy, it would be to impose short deadlines on virtually every endeavor, deadlines that are enforced. Sometimes brief extensions are justifiable, but a leader should make them rare and make sure there is ample justification.

  Implementing reform, a leader must master the available information, make decisions, assign responsibility for action, have a regular reporting mechanism that allows her to monitor progress and performance, and hold people accountable. And then she must get out of the way. “Micro-knowledge” is necessary; micromanagement is not.

  A leader cannot reform a bureaucracy while flying at thirty thousand feet. Leading change is hard work. The leader must do her homework to understand what change is needed, what change will work, who is a reliable source of information and who is not, whether recommendations will lead to the changes she wants, and whether her decisions are being effectively implemented. Broad perspective is always important, but a leader must get into the weeds as well. She must pore over and understand endless briefing books, know the innermost parts of the organization, get a sense of everyday life on the job from employees at every level. She must constantly be learning, listening, and asking questions. A leader must have sufficient detailed knowledge so she can recognize when someone is bullshitting her, when people are giving her inaccurate information (and whether it’s because they don’t know the facts themselves or are trying to mislead or steer her), whether options or recommendations are based on sound data.

  In the military and in corporate America, there is great emphasis on delegation and not being a micromanager. All things being equal, that is good advice. But subordinate managers must know the person in charge knows what she is talking about. An effective leader must master much of what others in the organization know so she can integrate it into her decisions. A leader who can say that the proposals presented to her in one briefing contradict those presented in an earlier briefing is a leader to whom attention will be paid. A leader who can point out that numbers that should have remained constant have changed from one meeting to the next is a leader to be reckoned with. (In my first meeting with the Pentagon comptroller, I pointed out that a number in one massive budget binder—I had taken home several to study over the weekend—didn’t agree with what should have been the same number in another binder. In another instance, I noticed that budgetary numbers on the same matter from two different components disagreed. People quickly realized I actually read the briefing books I was provided, and they took note.) It is also important t
o be aware when common sense has somehow fallen by the wayside.

  When a leader is aware of the nitty-gritty, it doesn’t take long for people to realize they had better double-check their work and that different organizations involved in the same briefing had better cross-check with each other before marching into a meeting. Such displays of micro-knowledge also send the message that it will be very hard to bamboozle the leader and the consequences of that or trying to bluff will be unpleasant. Moreover, micro-knowledge often allows a leader to better understand what she is being told, to place it in context, ask penetrating questions, and make smarter, better-informed decisions.

  Too often, leaders think that knowing all these details is somehow unnecessary or “beneath” them, that their time is better spent on the “big picture.” Such leaders will find themselves “kept” men and women of the organizations they purport to lead, dependent on others who may not have the same agenda or priorities to tell them what they need to know. For a leader to get the big things right depends a great deal on knowing the little things, especially when implementing difficult and controversial change. Whether I was restructuring reconnaissance programs at the CIA, pushing diversity at A&M, or cutting wasteful programs at Defense, knowing the details enabled me to make informed decisions—and also to defend those decisions in public. As President Obama told me on more than one occasion, “If I don’t understand it, I can’t defend it.”

  The point of a leader having micro-knowledge is neither to embarrass someone nor to nitpick. Both will make a leader look small and should be avoided. Everyone comes into a meeting with the boss with some measure of apprehension. Increasing people’s anxiety or fear by faultfinding is counterproductive. If an error is meaningless to the larger discussion, ignore it; dwelling on typos, format, or some trivial issue in a chart suggests to people that the leader is not just in the weeds but lost in them. A leader should signal her command of detail, but that’s not where her focus should be. Remember that most briefings one gets as boss—from middle manager on up—will have been reviewed by several layers of supervisors and colleagues. Nearly always, if there is an error or problem, it is a problem that extends well beyond the briefer. My approach in such circumstances generally was to address my questions or concerns to the briefer’s boss, in part to convey that I suspected the mistake was not the briefer’s fault. I tried never to be nasty, condescending, or personal. I don’t think I ever intentionally embarrassed anyone. The more junior the briefer, the gentler I tried to be. Employing humor, when appropriate, is a good idea. Having the boss point out an error is mortification enough. And after a particularly contentious briefing, I would try to remember to thank the briefer for his or her efforts.

  The purpose of doing your homework—of micro-knowledge—is not to show off how much you know, for one-upmanship, or to play “gotcha,” but to be able to make better decisions. Without micro-knowledge, you are the prisoner of your bureaucracy and your staff, and they will play you like a cheap fiddle.

  Where too many leaders of change fail is in not understanding the difference between micro-knowledge and micromanagement. As head of the CIA, I wanted to know if a case officer was having a particularly sensitive meeting with an agent, but I sure as hell was not going to try to tell him or his boss how to conduct the clandestine rendezvous. A university president is going to care a lot about the quality of teaching but is not going to tell deans or faculty how to teach. And the secretary of defense, in the midst of two wars, is going to pay close attention to strategy and even tactics insofar as the latter have political ramifications but is not going to be telling generals how to deploy their troops tactically.

  In trying to change any bureaucracy, especially a large one, the leader must decide on the proper course of action and then assign responsibility for implementation to his subordinates—and empower them to carry out the task. Give them space to show what they can do. Stay out of their hair. There were bosses at the CIA who were so constantly reaching down to see if their instructions were being followed we accused them of “pulling us up by the roots to see if we were growing.” A leader at any level who tries to oversee the daily efforts of his subordinates is doomed to fail. Besides which, if a leader doesn’t trust his lieutenants to carry out his strategy, he has chosen the wrong people.

  Lasting change in a bureaucracy depends, above all, on those below you embracing the change and taking ownership, making it their own. The more frequently you intrude, implicitly reminding them it is your change, the less they will believe it is theirs. Successful implementation, in short, depends upon them. The leader cannot hold individuals accountable for driving change if he refuses to let go of the steering wheel. He must trust his subordinates, replace them if necessary. But he mustn’t micromanage them.

  If you don’t have the guts as the leader to make tough and timely decisions, for God’s sake, don’t take the job.

  Nothing crushes momentum for implementing change, for reform, like an indecisive leader. And nothing takes the air out of a campaign for change—for transformation—quite like sending bold options to the boss and then waiting, and waiting, and waiting for a decision. I can’t count the times over my career when I saw truly dramatic proposals for change land in a boss’s in-box only to be slowly asphyxiated as they lay there gasping at the bottom of the growing stack of incoming paper because he didn’t want to make a decision—or couldn’t.

  I witnessed this repeatedly at the CIA and heard plenty about it at both A&M and the Defense Department, where, in both cases, stories were legion about major efforts for change that languished in the front office, gathering dust because the person in charge shrank from the challenge. No wonder professors and generals alike—anyone charged with coming up with proposals for reform—become cynical. They are asked to invest huge amounts of time and energy (and sometimes personal reputation) in a project and then left to wonder whether their work was valued or appreciated—or even read. A firm no would be better. In some cases, inaction is due to sheer laziness or lack of courtesy. Whatever the reason the leader fails to make a decision, the result is that not only does he leave his own people in the lurch but he also has made it all the harder for his successor to engage the professionals’ enthusiasm the next time around.

  Of course there is risk in making decisions. Rarely are there obvious answers, and few are easy. Sometimes, a leader will have to choose the least bad option because there are no “good” ones. Planning, organizing, and implementing change put a leader, by definition, in uncharted territory. They are, after all, about the future. But remember the definition of a leader I cited earlier in these pages: “one who guides, one who shows the way.” A leader is in his position precisely because people had confidence in his judgment and believed he was the person for the job. There are no guarantees of success, but if he doesn’t lead, who will?

  As a leader confronts difficult decisions regarding implementation, as with every other part of the reform process it is important to discuss with people she respects and trusts the pros and cons of the different options before her. She shouldn’t be afraid to test-drive her decisions with them and listen closely to their reactions. If they’re worth their salt, they will give voice to objections, concerns, and problems, and even if the leader opts to proceed, she will have been forewarned of likely criticisms so she can either adjust her decisions or be better prepared to counter critics. Still, she, and she alone, must make the decision.

  As the leader goes through the decision process, she must not send the bureaucracy signals that she is anguishing over a decision or is having a hard time making up her mind. She should be willing to take time to hear last-minute appeals from subordinates if necessary, take time to review all the considerations, but then decide decisively and unambiguously, with no vacillation, caveats, caviling, or hesitation. And she must avoid those “middling” options. As Justice Holmes said, they sing in a very soft voice.

  A final, and critical, technique for implementing change is en
suring follow-through.

  There must be some law of bureaucratic physics about how initial energy slowly degrades into inertia. The leader has to be the variable in that formula. Great ideas, great internal support, great decisions, are all for naught if the actions she has directed are not implemented. Contrary to what most bureaucrats believe, a good process is not an end in itself: Outcomes are the only things that ultimately matter. Decisions are really only the starting point. Just think of the number of big ideas that became troublesome because of lack of attention to implementation—like the ObamaCare Web site.

  Being a visible presence during implementation is mandatory. A leader cannot delegate that. The bureaucracy needs to know its leader is personally involved in the implementation of his initiatives and monitoring their progress. Those techniques used in formulating the agenda and making decisions—transparency, inclusiveness, decisiveness, micro-knowledge (but not micromanagement), and accountability—all will continue to be essential in implementation.

  At the Defense Department, I met with each task force every two weeks for status and progress reports. My immediate staff was monitoring the efforts even more closely. When problems and obstacles cropped up, as they inevitably do, we knew about them quickly and were able to act just as quickly to overcome them. My chief of staff at A&M and my special assistant at the CIA operated similarly, closely tracking initiatives under way in each of those organizations to ensure they were proceeding as I wanted and on the timelines I had set.

  At A&M, when I was fighting to increase diversity, I made frequent recruiting trips to predominantly Hispanic and African-American high schools all over the state. I regularly went before both the faculty and the student senates to report on the agenda for change and take questions. As DCI, I spoke out frequently in public about the changes we were making. I’ve already mentioned my engagement at Defense, to which I added innumerable public statements about the changes under way internally.