Organizational excellence and leadership are inextricably linked. The latter begins with leaders who embrace change and new ideas, anticipate opportunities, remain transparent and take calculated risks in a way that efficiently achieves the mission while evolving towards new challenges and opportunities. The development of leaders is integral at all levels of the organization and is not limited by job series or grade level. All employees are entitled, and encouraged, to pursue such opportunities.
As the world’s premier scientifically based wildlife conservation agency, the Service has focused on technical credibility, and the agency will continue to be known in this way. The Service is a recognized leader in the use of habitat management techniques and tools, including the use of prescribed fire. Many talented employees emerge as leaders in biological planning, conservation design and modeling and monitoring. The Service must continue to support these scientific endeavors – they are the foundation to the agency’s adaptive conservation delivery activities.
Service leaders have always led from a foundation of integrity coupled with adherence to sound principles of land stewardship. The Service supports and encourages developmental opportunities such as details, shadow assignments and job swaps as methods to expand employees’ leadership horizons. Moreover, the Service recognizes that leadership development programs are integral to the organization, including for entry-level positions. Supervisors and managers should support individual development and create an environment that fosters self-motivation, high morale, continuous improvement and each employee’s contribution to the team.
Programs such as Stepping Up to Leadership (SUTL) and the Advanced Leadership Development Program (ALDP) have been excellent internal sources for leadership training, and they should continue to evolve as the demands and needs for leadership changes. Much the same can be said for the three-day Leadership Challenge Workshop offered at the National Conservation Training Center and at other Service locations around the country. Further, internal leadership training is not the sole source of development opportunities. A number of professional organizations, including, for example, The Wildlife Society’s Leadership Institute, offer courses and programs.
Recommendation: Encourage qualified employees to apply in greater numbers for leadership training and development programs. Also encourage employees to apply for the Department of the Interior’s Senior Executive Service Candidate Development Program.
Supervisors are encouraged to give all the support needed to ensure that the most qualified people do, indeed, apply for advancement and leadership training. The low number of applicants for such leadership training may well account for the small number of individuals with Refuge System field experience who hold the top leadership positions with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Department of the Interior. While the Refuge System represents about 50 percent of the Service’s workforce and is the land base of the Service, it has far less representation on the leadership of the Service or the Department.
Recommendation: Develop executive leaders who can guide the work of a variety of specialists toward broad, landscape-level conservation goals.
The Service must also continue to embrace the need for leadership development as critical component of the organization’s philosophy. There are a number of identified pathways for employees to follow in their careers. However leaders must model the way and provide the necessary resources for leadership development, including encouraging employees to attend developmental programs, even when it is difficult for the organization or leader. Leaders must also become personally involved in employee development programs, serving as instructors, mentors and coaches.
In addition, the agency must foster an earnest culture through increased focus on leadership competencies. The Service has developed a model for identifying and developing a host of competencies in its employees and emerging leadership. Truly though, the conservation leader of the future is not the same as it was twenty years ago.
While some of the intangible values of leadership – honesty, integrity and trustworthiness – persist, there are other values leaders must unequivocally exhibit. Leaders must foster a positive work environment where calculated risks are encouraged, mistakes are used as developmental experiences, brainstorming and innovation are rewarded, learning is supported and employees are regularly recognized for their achievements. Leaders must put their employee’s concerns, work/life balance and developmental needs first. Thus, they recognize that mentoring and coaching is one of the best uses of their time. As being an effective leader can at times be difficult, leaders will need strength in conflict resolution, courage to risk potential failure and strong support from others as a result of their demonstrated performance. Tomorrow’s leaders will be more aware of their personal strengths and weaknesses, and they will model behaviors of continued self-discovery and improvement. In light of all this change, the Service should assure that the competencies developed in its employees and leaders reflect the needs of future conservation leaders.
Recommendation: Mandate the use of the Service’s Leadership Competency Development Model and the Leadership Pathways reports as part of all employee development planning and implementation.
Recommendation: Review the Service’s Leadership Competency Development Model and, if needed, supplement it to reflect additional priority competencies identified for future leaders of the Refuge System.
Comment below and/or move on to next section of Chapter 6 - Managing People
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A conservation leader pipeline must be developed long before a person becomes an employee of the USFWS. The pipeline begins with Environmental and Conservation Education opportunities at the refuge and grade school level. A major effort to fill the pipeline starts with hiring high school students for summer jobs with a greatly expanded Youth Conservation Corps (YCC) and Student Conservation Association (SCA) program at almost all refuges. Conservation leadership development begins here and providing good work experience is essential. Junior leaders will be allowed to come back the following summer. I would also hire these crews to work on weekends or vacation breaks during the school year. When leaders are found, they will be mentored by appropriate staff on career choices and the need for college training.
Investing in youth by providing summer employment with appropriate work will start to fill that pipeline. Even if they do not work for the USFWS they will be better citizens and can be counted on to understand the mission of the USFWS. A realistic goal is a YCC type program of 5,000 young people per year and that is actually less than 10 people per refuge.
I encourage you to add something in the vision statement that covers this need for a conservation leadership pipeline starting in high school.
I think that expanding YCC and SCA involvement in USFWS is a great idea for a number of reasons, including the ones you stated here. I know that the demand for this kind of work among high school and college students is high, and that the potential for staying in contact with young volunteers/hires is unprecedented.
I can’t understate the kind of passion I see among my peers for this kind of work. A brief description of my SCA position last summer to some of my peers here at Carleton was enough for a good number of people to research the opportunities the SCA provides (a number of my friends applied for a summer position this year). I know that the SCA generally cannot place all of their applicants, so an expansion of SCA positions within USFWS would be beneficial.
Environmental Studies departments around the U.S. are growing as it becomes a more and more popular field, and discussions about defending nature are becoming very common among my generation. This presents an unprecedented opportunity to get young, motivated people involved in protecting the environment, hopefully for life. Reaching out to college career centers and science departments could be one way to do this.
I totally agree that a significant source of the the ‘pipeline’ begins with youth that come through the ranks of volunteers, YCC, SCAs, STEPs, seasonals, and others. But it’s well worth mentioning in this discussion thread that we need to get back to providing more entry level career ladder ‘trainee’ positions to allow new permanent employees to get a foothold in our organization at lower grade levels which will allow them to gain valuable experience to prepare them as future leaders of our organization. This is not a new concept and is likely addressed elsewhere in the draft vision document. We’ve all heard the term ‘grade creep’ and have likely heard concerns from new employees, including SCEPs, about the difficulty of finding entry level positions as a result, particularly in certain job series. Some regions are already doing a good job addressing this, for example, replacing a GS-11 Wildlife Refuge Specialist position with a GS 5/7/9 Refuge Manager Trainee position. All positions should be looked at critically prior to advertising to examine where and when similar opportunities exist.
Stepping Up to Leadership (SUTL) is an outstanding training opportunity for Service employees. It is currently targeted at the GS 11/12 level. However, the Service should consider opening up this training to, and even giving a priority to, outstanding employees at lower grade levels, including GS 7s and 9s. The earlier in an employee’s career that they are exposed to the ideas and exercises of SUTL, the bigger the impact the training will have on their professional development.
What a great idea Doug…I wish that I would have had the benefit of leadership training when I was a GS 7 and 9! Some employees never get beyond a GS 9. Are they not worth an investment in leadership training?