How can public officials move large government agencies to produce significant results? In Leadership Counts, Robert Behn explains exactly what managers in the inherently political environment of government need to do to obtain such performance.

In 1983 the leadership of the Massachusetts Department of Public Welfare--Charles M. Atkins, Thomas P. Glynn, Barbara Burke-Tatum, and Jolie Bain Pillsbury--set out to educate and train welfare recipients, place them in good jobs, and move them from dependency to self-sufficiency. From these efforts to accomplish a specific and...

Traditionally, American government has created detailed, formal procedures to ensure that its agencies and employees are accountable for finances and fairness. Now in the interest of improved performance, we are asking our front-line workers to be more responsive, we are urging our middle managers to be innovative, and we are exhorting our public executives to be entrepreneurial. Yet what is the theory of democratic accountability that empowers public employees to exercise such discretion while still ensuring that we remain a government of laws? How can government be responsive to the...

It started two decades ago with CompStat in the New York City Police Department, and quickly jumped to police agencies across the U.S. and other nations. It was adapted by Baltimore, which created CitiStat--the first application of this leadership strategy to an entire jurisdiction. Today, governments at all levels employ PerformanceStat: a focused effort by public executives to exploit the power of purpose and motivation, responsibility and discretion, data and meetings, analysis and learning, feedback and follow-up--all to improve government's performance.

Here, Harvard leadership...