Improving IT Leaders

On Monday, Wired Workplace highlighted the Office of Personnel Management's new regulations designed to improve and monitor agency training programs for managers. The nonprofit Partnership for Public Service also has launched an effort to beef up leadership training for GS-14s and GS-15s. The new program, called the Center for Government Leadership, integrates the Partnership's Excellence in Government Fellows program and the Annenberg Leadership Institute into one program, and provides custom trainings for agencies around key leadership issues flagged by federal workers in the group's Best Places to Work survey.

Tom Fox, director of the center, said Friday that the program consists of a series of 2-day seminars that focus on the specific skills that federal leaders need, including how to set employee expectations, deliver effective feedback, deal with poor performers, boost innovation, and achieve goals with declining resources. "The Center for Government Leadership is a place where we can offer leadership development support to prepare the next generation of leaders to drive innovation, inspire employees and deliver results," Fox said.

Fox added that the Partnership has customized the training for specific fields in federal service, including information technology. Last week, he added, the Partnership met with agency CIOs at the White House to discuss how federal IT managers can become more effective leaders. "We also spent time last year working with HP and Oracle to get a better sense of what high performance and leadership look like in an IT field," he said. "Not all occupations are created equal."

For more information on the Center for Government Leadership, or to apply for the Excellence in Government Fellows program, click here.