Making Bureaucrats Accountable

Making bureaucrats accountable is difficult. They do not work for a for-profit company – a surefire incentive to perform, a penalty for failure. That said, certain tools – used with method, consistency, and experience – create accountability.

First, the executive must make expectations crystal clear, defining all outcomes, metrics, rewards, and penalties. Advancement, not malingering, is the objective.

Expectations come in two flavors: “well done” and “parting ways.” Any breach of integrity is an instant end to employment, “for cause.”

On the incentive side, leaders have options. They can incentivize mission focus, team performance, reward knowledge, training, skills, and experience – with responsibility, advancement, operational, financial, and leadership opportunities.

This actually incentivizes further acquisition of knowledge, training, skills, and experience. The military does this all the time. Breaking a bureaucracy’s “heads down” cycle with leadership seeds a virtuous cycle.

Over time, as in “train the trainer” environments, group psychology changes to learning, performing, gaining recognition, advancing, and it reseeds itself, like a forest.

Bureaucracies, in the end, are people. The problem is, absent expectations and consequences, people default to “groupthink.” Without inspiration, motivation, or incentives, only the exceptional perform. Uninspired, unmotivated, and unincentivized groups underperform, especially when the paycheck keeps coming.

Many choose government with good motives, but slide into mediocrity through poor leadership. Others want security, not risk. While everyone has an emotional reward mix, aversion to risk can produce a quest for anonymity and no accountability.

To counter that, a proactive government leader must invite risk-taking – have an open door to creative ideas, forward thinking, criticism, error admission, and conversation. Done right, the open door ignites solving their own problems.

As success begets success, a team win – whether a cogent plan, successful operation, pioneering some new policy, saving money, or solving a problem – has a self-inspiring effect. Wanting not to let others down, the team gets stronger.

Military techniques help accelerate the process. Operational teams – from intelligence to field work – often do a “hot wash” after some event. In naval intelligence, we did them daily. The goal is to figure out – when information is hot – what went right and wrong, to learn, no blame, just team gain.

Another military and law enforcement tool, underutilized by bureaucracies, is the after-action report. A 360 a few days out, how an operation was conducted, crisis addressed, coalition built, multi-dimensional problem solved, can be key.

The goal, as in life, is to improve. Done right, a star team fits within a constellation of star teams, part of a highly accountable, proud-to-be-measured, history-making universe of problem solvers. The best governments operate on this model.

Real government leadership produces higher efficiency, lower costs, more synergy, high morale, better outcomes, and positive feedback loops – strategic, operational, legal, and political. Real leadership is self-critical, striving, and growth is a shared aim.

Consequences, of course, come in other flavors. On the penalty side, criticism is best delivered in private, praise in public. It should be swift with counseling on how to correct the error, asking the accountable party to tell you how first.

If the mistake, misfire, or misunderstanding goes uncorrected, is deliberate, or was for a personal or political agenda, the second conversation ends it and is dispositive. Consequences must be swift and certain; examples are useful.

If a team is found to be deliberately underperforming, duplicative, misses expectations, or was created in error, it should be eliminated. Over time, this also creates another clear feedback loop, deterring errant behavior.

This is how the real world works. In effect, the first mission of the government executive is to model and set expectations, enforcing them consistently, swiftly, and fairly. Unfairness has no place; that is why performance metrics are essential.

Done with care and consistency, good leadership flows both downward and outward, inspiring measurably better outcomes, triggering a desire to achieve, and sifting wheat from chaff, performers from drifters and slackers.

Working in two White Houses, for two hard-charging US House Speakers, as an assistant secretary of state with thousands under me, responsible for complex law enforcement and counter-narcotics ops, billions of dollars in programs, ten years in the US Navy Intelligence, and running a company for 25 years, this is what real leadership looks like. It is not hard once you digest it, but without it, missions fail.

Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, Maine attorney, ten-year naval intelligence officer (USNR), and 25-year businessman. He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (North Country Press, 2018), and “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024). He is the National Spokesman for AMAC. Today, he is running to be Maine’s next Governor (please visit BobbyforMaine.com to learn more)!