Reimagining the Senior Executive Service
An introspective approach to cultivate, develop, and retain high-quality senior career leaders and hold them accountable for their performance.
The federal government’s 1.9 million civilian employees are managed by a relatively small number of individuals, including 7,000 highly influential career executives who comprise the Senior Executive Service (SES).
Created by Congress in 1978 as part of a sweeping government civil service reform, the SES was designed to provide a mobile cadre of skilled career executives with shared values, a broad perspective, and solid leadership skills who would rotate through and strengthen relationships among agencies and offer cross-fertilization of ideas.
Over the years, however, the basic structure and operation of the SES has remained the same while the challenges confronting our nation have grown exponentially. Addressing today’s issues requires greater collaboration and negotiation between agencies and across sectors, and strong government executive leadership.
Booz Allen Hamilton and the Partnership for Public Service conducted a joint study on the SES and how the government develops, recruits, hires, retains, pays, and trains SES members. Specifically, the team examined how the SES is structured, whether it had achieved its original goals, and how it could be improved. Their findings and recommendations are presented in a study called “Unrealized Vision: Reimagining the Senior Executive Service.”
The study is based on interviews with stakeholders, practitioners, policymakers, and academics; data analysis; surveys of training and development officials; and results of focus groups with members of the SES and federal middle managers.
The primary finding: The SES envisioned by reformers more than three decades ago has never been realized. Most federal career senior executives remain in the same agency and do not move through the government to share their expertise or provide an enterprise-wide, collaborative approach. Most executives focus on day-to-day responsibilities—not on strategic leadership.
But most importantly, the study found that the original vision for SES is now inadequate for today’s needs and does not provide the foundation needed to build the senior government required for the future.
Building a high-caliber, government-wide executive organization is impeded by a number of factors, including decentralized talent development and recruitment processes, passive recruiting, a cumbersome hiring system, inadequate leadership training, and an inequitable pay structure. To address these concerns, “Unrealized Vision” presents comprehensive recommendations for restructuring the SES, including changes in recruiting, hiring, development, and compensation.
One recommendation involves creating a National SES Corps within the SES, which would consist of managers with rotational assignments throughout many agencies and levels of government as well as in the private sector. The study also recommends establishing an agency-based SES Corps whose members would develop skills within single departments or agencies.
Among other recommendations, the study suggests the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), consolidate SES program responsibilities into one office that provides coordinated, expanded services. The study also recommends that the OPM, Office of Management and Budget, and agencies work together to reevaluate existing SES positions and reassign those whose roles are better suited for Scientific and Professional and Senior Level job classifications.
As our nation faces new and critical challenges, the government must ensure it has the right mix of leaders who are highly competent, creative, and well prepared. “Unrealized Vision” offers an introspective approach to cultivate, develop, and retain high-quality senior career leaders and hold them accountable for their performance.
Principal David Dye, senior associate Lori Zukin, associate Brian Vander May, associate Lisa Gross and associate Torrey Wilkinson led the Booz Allen team that contributed to the study.
