Coast-to-Coast Inclusive Management Initiative

In 2005, Virginia Tech’s Center for Public Administration and Policy and the University of California at Irvine launched its Initiative for the Study and Practice of Inclusive Management (IM), which is built around the study and practice of participation, collaboration, and the renewal of democratic capacity by individuals in public, private and nonprofit organizations when addressing public problems. Read more about the IM Initiative here.

Roundtable on Leadership & Administration - Sat Nov 1

Save the date! The Fall 2007 Roundtable on Leadership and Administration will be held on Saturday, November 1 at CPAP. The guest speaker will be Captain Suzanne Engelbert, United States Coast Guard.

The Changing Face of Leadership and Administration

This January 2004 Roundtable session featured a conversation with Robert J. Lamb, Senior Advisor for Policy, Management and Budget, U.S. Department of the Interior, and David Lewis, Assistant Professor of Politics and Public Affairs, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University.

In the public management literature and in seminars and classrooms across the United States, the terms leadership and management are increasingly used interchangeably. This initial Roundtable explored the overall question of whether leadership and management are the same, or whether there are important distinctions in language and practice that must be understood.

Leadership in the Information Age

This October 2006 Roundtable featured Walter F. Ulmer, Jr., Leiutenant General, U.S. Army, Retired and former President and CEO, Center for Creative Leadership, and Dr. T. Owen Jacobs, Co-Founder and Partner, Executive Development Associates, LLC and formerly the Leo Cherne Distinguished Visiting Professor of Behavioral Science Chair, Industrial College of the Armed Forces, National Defense University.

This Roundtable focused on the challenges of leading in the information age, which suggest a new paradigm for leadership theory and practice. We live and work in a fascinating era. Change is increasing exponentially while many of our management and leadership structures and skills are out of step with the pressures and needs of today’s work environment. The mix of generations in today’s workplace, coupled with advancements in technology and information systems, further complicate how we lead and manage today.

Leadership and Accountability

This July 2006 Roundtable featured a conversation with John Rohr, Professor, Center for Public Administration and Policy, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and Bradford Huther, President and CEO of the International Intellectual Property Institute and Retired Member, Senior Executive Service.

In a linear, bureaucratic world, accountability in the public service should be readily defined—assigned to public actors with one level reporting to, and accountable to, the next higher level. In reality, in a constitutional republic of shared and fragmented power with both government and non-governmental actors, the question of accountability is more complex. Public administrators working in a bureaucratic framework clearly answer directly to their managers/executives and the political agency heads. But does that answer the question of accountability? This Roundtable explored the question of whom leaders in the public service are accountable to and how they acquire their normative foundation for ethics and accountability.