Training program seeks to groom next crop of senior executives

The Brookings Institution has created a new leadership development program to groom a corps of federal managers for the Senior Executive Service.

Seventy percent of the Senior Executive Service will become eligible to retire in the next five years and more than 50 percent of the federal workforce will retire during that same time frame, according to General Accounting Office estimates. The potential brain drain caused by that exodus could drastically hinder the government's ability to serve the public, the Merit Systems Protection Board concluded in a Sept. 12 report. Brookings hopes to offset that potential loss by developing a skilled group of federal leaders poised for the Senior Executive Service.

"We thought it would be good to bring together in one package a program to meet the needs of those people moving into higher management," said Lee Fritschler, vice president and director of Brookings' Center for Public Policy Education.

"Mastering the Art of Public Leadership," aims to bring together about 25 federal employees at the GS-14 level and give them the tools needed to become effective government leaders. Program candidates are likely lawyers, doctors or physicists with little exposure to the policymaking process.

"Many who move in to these positions already have advanced degrees, what they really need is a capstone course in management at the highest policy levels," Fritschler said.

Participants will be chosen based on recommendations from their agency and their record of accomplishments. Agencies must foot the $19,500 tuition bill, but the program is structured to reduce the amount of time participants are out of the office, by meeting for two and one-half days every month for 10 months beginning in March 2003.

"People don't have to leave town, they don't have to leave their positions, we've even planned it down to the idea that they can go back to their offices on Friday and catch up on what they've missed for the past two days," Fritschler said.

Program participants will work closely with each other and course instructors, and will be assigned a professional coach to work with them as they complete a project related to their agency. The curriculum will include courses in how the federal system works, strategic leadership, ethics and verbal communication.

Applications for the program are available now through Brookings, and will be accepted until January 15, 2003. For more information, contact Angelo R. Bouselli at (202) 797-6002 or by email at abouselli@brookings.edu.