Chapter 9 explores the emerging issue of human capital, efforts to transform the civil service system, and strategies for strengthening leadership at the top of the bureaucracy. Challenges to building human capital include the lack of leadership focus on this issue, lack of strategic planning, roadblocks to acquiring and retaining talent, and lack of measurement of performance. To counter these issues in the 1990s, new and more aggressive flexibilities began creeping into the personnel systems at all levels of government.              

The United States has a far larger number of political officials at the top of the bureaucracy than do other Western democracies. In the American executive branch there are over 3,000 political positions, of which about 1,500 are at the higher levels. Political appointees serve only briefly in their posts. Filling those positions is one of the most daunting problems facing a new president. In 1978 the Senior Executive Service (SES), which includes a well-educated and highly experienced group, was created to provide career leadership. Despite recurring attempts to reform the system, the problem of leadership at the very top of the bureaucracy remains one of government’s most important and difficult problems.