Leadership Project

In the employ of Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS), under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, an employee finds words like transformation and service tossed around without scrutiny or characterization.  As an example: The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) offers educational programs to CIS employees for what they claim to be “every stage of your career”  (OPM.GOV, n.d.).  Under OPM’s umbrella, the Center for Leadership Development (CLD) asserts as its primary goal that it is “dedicated to transforming leaders to better serve the Federal government” (OPM.GOV, n.d.).  This mission statement defines the title word “Service” while at the same time igniting ongoing controversy concerning whom it is that government employees actually serve.  By this definition, government employees do not serve the U.S. public.  They serve themselves. 

 

On the other hand, perhaps by some slight-of-hand, they do serve the American public through their service to their government.  CIS employees serve the politically driven governing body overshadowing of every person in every state and in every community within the U.S.  Black's Law Dictionary describes this public service as: “A service that is provided by and or supported by a government or its agencies.  An agency that provides a public service for the government or on behalf of the government” (What is PUBLIC SERVICE?, n.d.).  A question for CIS might be: Can employees better learn to “serve the Federal government” by transforming themselves into servant leaders (Greenleaf) who require no definition of their servanthood through aim or vise, but merely are servants to humankind?  

 

William Clement Stone, a businessperson and philanthropist once said, “Be careful the environment you choose for it will shape you…”  So, what did I, a civil servant, do when faced with the harsh D.C. political environment that epitomized service to a thing rather than to fellow human beings?  I gave up!  Not that the means in anyway justified the end, but I did not give in immediately.  It took a great deal of persuasion on their part.  I fought tooth and nail.  Until, I realized I was not even fighting the system anymore as much as I was fighting myself.

 

Just this last week, I sat at my desk thinking about everything I had learned at Gonzaga.  I thought about the meaning of the words transformation and servant leadership.  I thought about my girlfriend constantly reminding me about who I am.  Suddenly, I walked over to a co-worker (Terry) and said this: Do you know what our problem has been this whole time?  We have been letting people tell us what the right thing to do is instead of just doing the right thing. 

 

She told me I was right and wanted to know what we were going to do about it.  I left that conversation and went directly to my Branch Chief, telling her what steps we needed to take concerning a multimillion-dollar backlog my co-worker and I had previously reported in 2014, yet no one had addressed due to a lack of interagency cooperation.  The solution I now offered was dramatic, because it required what apparently few in government service have the ability to do, which is to cross barriers and boundaries in service to the people who really matter.

 

Have you ever heard to “be careful what you wish for because it might come true”?  I wanted an opportunity to break free from DC politics and a career-oriented civil servant mentality in order to serve as our learned mentors would have us serve.  As of today, I now have my big project and a somewhat overwhelming opportunity to practice what our Gonzaga professors have preached.   The project will require me, as Project Manager, to set up new approaches and engage other directorates more actively and strategically. I will need to support dialogues and partnership building between organizations steeped in rhetoric and hardened by departmental politics.  I believe what will make the difference is that I will let every partner know by my actions that I serve them, not as a government entity but as individuals working toward a common goal.  It is a goal that, while it is in support of CIS, has a single common thread of servanthood: We all serve the American public.

 

OPM.GOV. (n.d.). Retrieved 06 02, 2015, from Center for Leadership Development: https://leadership.opm.gov/index.aspx

What is PUBLIC SERVICE? (n.d.). Retrieved 06 03, 2015, from The Law Dictionary, Featuring Black's Law Dictionary Free Online Legal Dictionary 2nd Ed.: http://thelawdictionary.org/public-service/

 

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