Leader-Managers in the Public Sector:Managing for Results

At a time of doubt and concern about government and its capacity to serve the public, this book highlights the critical skills and practices that characterize good leadership and good management

Authors Michael S. Dukakis and John Portz distilled this list from in-depth interviews with seven successful leader-managers in different policy fields and at different levels of the federal system. In the first part of the book they present these common skills using extensive analysis of the interviews, and in the second part they provide the actual interview transcripts. Readers can start with a focus on the detailed presentation of the key skills and practices, then turn to the transcripts to explore in more depth the experiences of these successful leader-managers.

Michael S. Dukakis is a professor of political science at Northeastern University and UCLA. A graduate of Swarthmore College and Harvard Law School, Dukakis entered politics in 1960 as a town meeting member in Brookline, Massachusetts. He served four terms in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. In 1974, he was elected to the first of three terms as governor of Massachusetts. In 1988, Dukakis was the Democratic Party's nominee for the presidency. He completed his term as governor in 1991, and then joined the faculty at Northeastern.
John Portz is a professor of political science at Northeastern University. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he worked for the Wisconsin legislature before joining the faculty at Northeastern in 1988. In 2001 he served as director of the University Honors Program and since 2003 as chair of the Department of Political Science. He served as an elected member of the Town Council and School Committee in his home community of Watertown, Massachusetts.