Most new presidents brag about the quality of their Cabinet. They promise to use their Cabinet as a sounding board for running the country. Various groups of citizens are pleased to see one of their own as a Cabinet secretary. Modern Cabinets are scrutinized for diversity. Presidents want to make the important decisions and initiatives, and so rarely delegate much power to the Cabinet secretaries.
Many secretaries become captives of their own bureaucracy's interests.
As I said, Cabinet-filling gets a lot of attention about this time every four years. Some of these names we will see almost daily from now on. Some we might never hear from again. In the end there is only one person at a Cabinet meeting who matters. That's illustrated by an anecdote about Abraham Lincoln, who had appointed some of his political rivals to his Cabinet.