Title: A passion for leadership : lessons on change and reform from fifty years of public service /
Authors: Gates, Robert Michael, 1943-
Year: 2016
Subjects: Gates, Robert Michael,; Gates, Robert Michael,; United States. Officials and employees Biography.; United States. Officials and employees Biography.; Texas A & M University System Biography.; Texas A & M University System; United States.; United States.; Cabinet officers United States Biography; Organizational change United States.; Leadership United States; Public administration United States Anecdotes.; Administrative agencies United States Reorganization; Administrative agencies Reorganization; Cabinet officers; Employees; Leadership; Organizational change; Politics and government.; Public administration; United States Politics and government.; United States
Abstract: From the former Secretary of Defense and author of the best-selling memoir Duty, a characteristically direct, informed, and urgent assessment of why big institutions are failing us and how smart, committed leadership can effect real improvement regardless of scale. Across the realms of civic and private enterprise alike, bureaucracies vitally impact our security, freedoms, and everyday life. With so much at stake, competence, efficiency, and fiscal prudence are essential, yet Americans know these institutions fall short. Many despair that they are too big and too hard to reform. Robert Gates disagrees. Having led change successfully at three monumental organizations--the CIA, Texas A&M University, and the Department of Defense--he offers us the ultimate insider's look at how major bureaus, organizations, and companies can be transformed, which is by turns heartening and inspiring and always instructive.--Adapted from book jacket.
Contents: Why bureaucracies so often fail us -- Where you want to go: "the vision thing" -- Formulating a strategy -- Techniques for implementing change -- It's always about people -- Stakeholders: friends and foes -- The agent of change: "mirror, mirror on the wall" -- Money, money, money: reforming in scarce times -- Reform: the never-ending story -- A flaming heart.