This has not exactly been missed by translators, including myself. Lead the responsible officers Lau and Huang both give the phrase a moral spin, which is the traditional, pious interpretation of this and all the other central Confucian texts, but it is at variance with the statecraft emphasis in this chapter and the preceding LY 12. Any of the other three will do. The executive branch needs a plan to execute, and the plan must come from the leader. If you read the memoirs of any head of state you will see this theme constantly appearing.
Bureaucracies are sluggish, and inclined to makework or lethargy or irrelevant notions.
They do not have a direction of themselves. It is an operational maxim. As to what sort of policy direction the LY 13 people thought was good, that is dealt with in other sayings in this chapter.