---
id: "workshop:should-you-be-a-public-sector-leader"
type: "InnovateUS workshop"
title: "Should You Be a Public-Sector Leader?"
url: "https://innovate-us.org/should-you-be-a-public-sector-leader"
date: "2025-05-21"
duration: "60 minutes"
language: "English"
instructors: ["Seth Harris"]
recording: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSwOnk_HK_U"
transcript: "automatic, from the recording"
source: "InnovateUS (innovate-us.org)"
licence: "CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/), as stated on innovate-us.org"
---

# Should You Be a Public-Sector Leader?

InnovateUS workshop · 21 May 2025 · 60 minutes

This workshop will consider the traits and skills that are often identified with leadership and give you some tools for assessing whether you would be a good public-sector leader. The workshop builds on two models of leaders: the traits model and the skills model. These models overlaps, but they provide different answers to the question, what does it take to be a leader?

Professor Seth Harris has been a public-sector leader, as Acting U.S. Secretary of Labor and Deputy U.S. Secretary of Labor, and he has taught public-sector leadership at Cornell University and in a certificate program offered by eCornell. His workshop will offer a small taste of a much larger body of work on public-sector leadership.  And he looks forward to taking your questions.

## Learning goals

- Understand the traits and skills commonly associated with effective public-sector leadership through the traits model and the skills model

- Analyze the similarities and differences between the traits model and the skills model to better understand diverse leadership pathways

- Apply self-assessment tools to evaluate your own potential and readiness for leadership roles in the public sector

## Speakers

- **Seth Harris**, Former Acting Secretary of Labor, Former Deputy Assistant to the President, Professor and Senior Fellow

Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSwOnk_HK_U

## Transcript

Automatic transcript of the recording: names and terms can be misheard, and the times can be a few seconds off. Each time links to that moment of the video. The transcript alone: https://innovate-us.org/should-you-be-a-public-sector-leader.txt (plain text) and https://innovate-us.org/should-you-be-a-public-sector-leader.json (every segment with its start and end second).

**Seth Harris**

[0:00](https://youtu.be/PSwOnk_HK_U?t=0) I'll agree that you can't possibly have too many people from New Jersey. I feel very strongly about that. So good afternoon, everybody. I'm delighted to be with you and thanks to Jess and Agata and to the entire Innovate US team for inviting me to present this workshop. This is a workshop about leadership and specifically leadership of public organizations. There are many different models of leadership. We won't have time to study all of them today. And before we can understand the models that we are going to consider, we need a clear definition of leadership. Before we know how leadership works, we need to know what leadership is. Now, the best definition of leadership that I have seen is leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal. So if we break it down, leadership really has four characteristics. Leadership is a process. Leadership involves influence. Leadership comes in groups. And leadership involves common goals. And by common goals, we mean goals that are shared by the leader and other members of the leader's group. You might call them the followers. I don't love that phrase, but that's one way to think about it. Now, the biggest and most important word in this definition of leadership is influence. In fact, we could say that the central task for leaders is to influence their groups and perhaps people outside their groups. Influence is the product of power. Or stating it in reverse, one definition of power is the capacity or ability to influence. Now, power can be derived from one or more of six sources. And let me just say,

[2:07](https://youtu.be/PSwOnk_HK_U?t=127) as people who work in the public sector, you're going to identify with these sources of power, I think, very, very, very closely. The first is referent power. This is the kind of power that emerges when followers identify with, like, and admire their leader. And so the leader is able to influence the followers, possibly by example, but also through encouragement and discouragement. So the paradigms for this kind of leadership are people like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Malala Moussafzai, Nelson Mandela, Mohandas Gandhi. Or just think of a historic, if everybody could mute their microphones just so that everybody can hear what I'm saying. Another example is to think of a heroic and strategic military veteran leading our country's armed forces. That would be another example of referent power. Expert power. Here, the leader has superior knowledge, experience, expertise, or competence that followers rely on to guide their own behaviors. Think of a brilliant, relentless researcher leading a public science agency. Or think of a longtime conservationist who's asked to lead a nation's public resources agency. A third power, and this is the one that folks in the public sector understand best, is legitimate power or bureaucratic power.

[3:42](https://youtu.be/PSwOnk_HK_U?t=222) Basically, some leaders occupy positions that confer formal authority that causes others to follow the leader's dictates and opinions. You all see that in your jobs every day. Very common in public organizations. Of course, our constitution and laws create different governmental entities and delegate specific kinds of authority to the officials who lead those public organizations. For example, the U.S. Congress passed a law in 1913 creating my former agency, the U.S. Department of Labor. Now, in that law, Congress assigned certain responsibilities to the secretary of labor. And thereafter, Congress passed more laws assigning more responsibilities to the secretary and others in the department. That is legitimate power. Reward power is very straightforward. Some leaders have the ability to reward their followers. You can give them a pay increase or a promotion, public congratulations, greater involvement in important decisions. Some people view that as a reward as well.

[4:52](https://youtu.be/PSwOnk_HK_U?t=292) The flip side of reward power is coercive power. That's the ability to punish followers, demotion, discipline, discharge, exclusion from important meetings, giving somebody the cold shoulder, right? That's another way to discipline someone in the public sector and beyond. And then finally, there's information power. The leader possesses knowledge that others want or need. Now, information power is not a lasting power because the leader eventually has to share the information they have in order to be able to lead the organization. So, that is a shrinking resource of power while the others are not necessarily. So, let's talk about the traits model of leadership. We've defined leadership. We've defined the power that is necessary in order to be a leader. Let's answer the question, do leaders have to have particular personal traits? For example, do leaders have to be tall? The example, do leaders have to be tall? The reason I put this picture on the screen is that as a general matter, at least in the modern era, but it's been true throughout our history, American presidents have been taller than average. So, if you look at this chart on the far, my far left, I hope it's on your far left, is President Jimmy Carter, who is the average American male height of five foot nine. Every president after Carter and Abe Lincoln, who's all the way at the far right, was taller than the average American male. In fact, it's interesting, they left one picture out, unless I missed it. They left out Lyndon Baines Johnson, who actually was just as tall as Abraham Lincoln. I think they wanted to make a point about Lincoln towering over everybody else. So, do leaders have to be tall? Let me just say,

[6:55](https://youtu.be/PSwOnk_HK_U?t=415) I'm six foot two, so I hope the answer to that is yes, but maybe not. Do they have to be first born or only children? Many first born and only children seem to have leadership qualities, as it turns out. Some scholars argue that the personal characteristics or traits of leaders, maybe going beyond height and birth order, matter a great deal. One pair of prominent leadership scholars wrote, and I'm quoting them now, it is unequivocally clear that leaders are not like other people. Perhaps you've experienced that in your career. The logic of this trait model of leadership is that leadership results from an individual's possession of traits that are central to or facilitate leadership. The model argues that these traits are more important than the context or environment, the nature or qualities of the leader's followers, or the particularities of a situation or organization. It is a leader-centric model of leadership.

[8:05](https://youtu.be/PSwOnk_HK_U?t=485) Traits model scholars have identified six categories of personal characteristics as leadership traits. Let's go through them rather quickly. The first category is drive, audacity, ambition, determination. This category also would include things like motivation, persistence, and domination. I think this category makes intuitive sense. A leader has to seek or at least accept a leadership role. That takes a certain degree of ambition and audacity and certainly determination. Also, generally, leaders are determined to succeed in a leadership role. Very people say, hey, yes, I'll be the leader, but I guarantee you I'm going to fail. Right? That wouldn't make a lot of sense. The successful ones, though, have to persevere through difficulties. That's a characteristic of almost every leader. Finally, domination is one form of influencing others, not the only form, but it's one form of influencing others, which, as we have already discussed, is a necessary part of the definition of leadership.

[9:20](https://youtu.be/PSwOnk_HK_U?t=560) The second category is self-confidence. Again, this seems correct as an intuitive matter. Leaders have to believe that they're going to succeed in a leadership role, and taking on leadership requires self-esteem and self-assurance about one's skills and abilities. The third category is intelligence. This category includes strong verbal ability, good perceptual ability, and reasoning ability. Leadership often requires complex problem solving and on occasion understanding technical matters. Expertise and knowledge are two bases for power, as we've learned, and power is necessary to influence followers. The fourth category is integrity and conscientiousness, although I want to acknowledge that this category may be more up in the air nowadays than it has been in the past. Some research has found this is the second most important trait of good leaders.

[10:24](https://youtu.be/PSwOnk_HK_U?t=624) Let me explain it to you and why maybe current circumstances are not a perfect illustration. This category includes things like honesty and trustworthiness, principle, taking responsibility for the leader's and others' actions, and dependability. Now, I think it's easy to see how followers would want a leader they can trust, right? Are you going to follow somebody down a path when you can't trust that they're taking you down the path that they think is best? And referent power, that we've talked about, can involve modeling behaviors so that followers will want to emulate the leader. These characteristics are those kinds of behaviors. The fifth category is sociability and agreeableness. Some research has found this to be the single most important contributor to leadership. It's not hard to understand how maintaining pleasant social relations, being friendly, being courteous, being outgoing and tactful and diplomatic would contribute to successful leadership.

[11:28](https://youtu.be/PSwOnk_HK_U?t=688) These are some of the people skills that we talk about when we describe leaders and describe what's necessary in order to be a leader. The sixth category is emotional intelligence. This requires understanding the complex interplay between emotions and thinking. It involves an ability to understand our own and others' emotions, but also applying that knowledge to the tasks at hand. This requires an ability to perceive and express emotions, to use emotions to facilitate thinking and reasoning, and to effectively manage emotions. Again, leaders lead groups. So, the ability to understand and engage and integrate individuals' emotions and the group's emotions can be fundamental to a leader's ability to influence that group.

[12:35](https://youtu.be/PSwOnk_HK_U?t=755) As one set of scholars put it, leaders must be cognizant of context, self, and others. That is emotional intelligence. So, do you have these traits? Of course, I can't say just looking at you through a screen whether you do, so we have created a tool that will allow you to help figure out whether you have these leadership traits. And Agata, if you could put it in the chat, that would be terrific. We call this the Leadership Traits Assessment Tool. And let me walk you through how this assessment tool works. This is not the tool. This is just an introductory explanation. It's a questionnaire, and you can use it to assess yourself. You can use it to assess others. You can also give it to others to assess you.

[13:35](https://youtu.be/PSwOnk_HK_U?t=815) And I think that creates the opportunity for some very interesting insights into your self-perception and others' perception of you. So, if you're assessing yourself, complete the questionnaire yourself, right? Just give yourself an assessment. But you can also ask friends and family or co-workers to assess you as well. You can complete a questionnaire offering your own opinions about somebody else. I don't think you want to necessarily do this behind their back, but you might want to do that. And then you can complete a second questionnaire based on your perceptions of how others view the individual that you have already assessed. Or you can get other people involved in assessing that other individual. So, I'm going to, in just a second, unveil the questions on this Leadership Assessment Tool. And what you're going to do is, for each of the traits that are listed on the tool, you're going to use a one-to-five rating scale to answer the question, this individual possesses this trait, whatever the trait might be.

[14:51](https://youtu.be/PSwOnk_HK_U?t=891) So, one would mean they don't have it at all. Five would mean, yep, they're the model of this trait. And then two, three, and four would be somewhere in between. So what kinds of words are you going to assess when you're looking at folks? The kinds of things we've talked about in the traits model. Are they honest? Are they articulate? Are they pleasant? Are they dependable? Are they ambitious? Are they friendly? Are they conscientious? Are they ethical? Are they intelligent? These are all the list of the traits that we have just talked about from the traits model. And as I've shown, you're going to rate them 1 to 5. 1 meaning they don't have the trait at all. 5 meaning they're the perfect model of that trait. Maybe not perfect. Human beings are never quite perfect, but they're an excellent illustration of that trait. How do you score the assessment tool, right? How do you know how well the person has done?

[15:53](https://youtu.be/PSwOnk_HK_U?t=953) There are a number of ways to do it. Let me start by saying there is absolutely not a you are the perfect public leader score. It doesn't exist, right? If you get 5 on every single one of these traits, something's gone horribly wrong because I don't think anybody is quite that way. So how can you assess the answers that you're getting? And as I said, there are a number of ways to do that. One is simply compare the responses to each trait, and that will give you an understanding of where you have strong leadership skills and where maybe you're lacking in some of the leadership skills, or you're not as strong. Another thing you can do is compare your responses to other people's responses. So if you think you're an honest person and everybody else gives you a 2 for honesty, right, that tells you something about how you project yourself to others, and also maybe your self-perception is not entirely accurate. Another possibility is average all of the responses and just come up with a number. I'm not sure that's going to tell you a lot, right, but it will tell you something about how things come out. If you get an average above 4, boy, that's a really, really good leadership score. If you're at 1.2, maybe leadership is not the thing for you. What you can also do if you've asked others to assess you or if you've assessed a third party in a group is average your scores on each of these characteristics, on each of these traits. So average the answers on diplomatic, average the answers on empathetic, and that will allow you to know sort of how the group perceives either you or a third party individual. It's another way to do it. And then I think another way, and this is, I think, a very helpful way to get a picture particularly of yourself, and that is group the responses by their rating level. Make a pile of fives, make a pile of fours, make a pile of threes,

[17:56](https://youtu.be/PSwOnk_HK_U?t=1076) et cetera, and see what's in each of those piles because that's a really good way to get a sense of where you are strongest in your leadership traits, your leadership abilities, your capacity, and where you maybe aren't as strong, right? So there it is, the leadership assessment tool. I hope you'll use it. It's, we'll have it in, we have it in the chat, I hope, and it'll also be available later on. We will send it to you after this workshop. Okay. Actually, before I get to the skills model, I do want to make a couple of points, and I want to acknowledge, and I think some of you are probably grumbling about this to yourselves right now because it's like, you're feeling, hey, Harris is trying to sell us this traits model. There's all kinds of problems with it. Yes, there are all kinds of problems with it. There are some very well-justified criticisms and questions, frankly, about the traits model of leadership. First, I think it's silly to say that every successful leader has to have every trait in every situation. For example, in a time of war, a leader's sociability and agreeableness may be less important than their determination and problem solving, right? Winston Churchill led England brilliantly during World War II, but he was neither sociable nor agreeable, and he lost the very first election after the war ended. Or imagine a group of public employees whose one and only job is to make the trains run on time. Then imagine their leader is a deeply intelligent and inspirational speech maker. Are intellectual engagement and great speeches going to make the trains run on time? Probably not. Maybe every now and then, but probably not every day and three times a day. So certain traits may be instrumental to achieving certain outcomes or better in certain circumstances. Second, there's a question. Are these traits a recipe

[20:02](https://youtu.be/PSwOnk_HK_U?t=1202) for successful leadership, or do they simply ratify our existing ideas about leadership? We've all seen and perhaps worked with leaders that we have liked or admired, leaders we would call successful. It would be entirely understandable that we would consider these leaders' personal traits to be important leadership traits because after all, a successful leader has them. But there are at least three problems with that kind of thinking. First, it assumes a causal connection where none may exist. Just because a great leader has a personal trait doesn't mean that the trait caused them to be a great leader. For example, some great leaders are excellent public speakers. Others, including U.S. Presidents Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, were terrified of public speaking. You know, everybody remembers Abraham Lincoln delivering the Gettysburg Address. He was petrified by that experience. He was scared to death of giving public speeches. Possession of that trait does not necessarily determine leadership success. Second, defining leadership traits based on past experiences can be exclusionary. Women have long been excluded from leadership positions in most countries, so drawing conclusions about leadership traits from past leader models could leave women out or disadvantage them. For much of our nation's history, public organizations and other organizations have been led primarily by members of ethnic, racial, sex, and religious majority groups. So there's a risk that looking to past examples can disadvantage members of minority groups who have not had leadership opportunities. Finally, the trait model suggests that leadership is innate in the individual, rather than something that's learned or developed in response to a particular circumstance.

[21:58](https://youtu.be/PSwOnk_HK_U?t=1318) If traits are something that we are born with, then that's a rather undemocratic view of leadership. In essence, the traits model implies, it doesn't say this, but it implies that there are born leaders and everybody else is a follower. Now, since leaders are diverse, it may be more productive to take a more expansive view of leadership than is offered by the traits model. So let's take a look at the skills model of leadership. The skills model of leadership is another leader-centric model, but the skills model focuses less on who the leader is and more on what the leader knows and is capable of doing. The skills model's implications, I think, are immense. If it's possible to assemble a list of leadership skills, then it's possible to train leaders in those skills and make them better leaders or to train people who have not yet become leaders for success in leadership positions. So it may be difficult or even impossible to train people in traits like self-confidence, emotional intelligence, sociability, but people can learn to solve problems.

[23:18](https://youtu.be/PSwOnk_HK_U?t=1398) So training and skills acquisition can drive leadership, not traits that we are born with. And as you all know, there's a gigantic leadership training industry that promises they can deliver skills in just that way. Now, let me say the skills model is not entirely divorced from the traits model. The skills model assumes leaders have four traits. This is the left column on the screen right now. General cognitive ability means intelligence, perceptual processing, reasoning, creativity, and memory. Crystallized cognitive ability is learned or acquired intellectual ability, knowledge and experience, meaning an ability to comprehend complex information and to learn new skills and information. Oral and written communications are also part of crystallized cognitive ability. Motivation is a willingness to tackle complex problems, domination or influence, taking responsibility for yourself and others, and a willingness to advance human good and the values of the group. Personality refers to openness, tolerance for ambiguity, curiosity, confidence, and adaptability. Now, with these four traits to build on, skills model scholars argue that leaders also have to have three categories of skills.

[24:51](https://youtu.be/PSwOnk_HK_U?t=1491) The first is problem solving skills, the creative ability to solve new and unusual, sometimes poorly defined organizational problems. Think about how you approach a problem. You probably start by figuring exactly what the problem is. In public policy world, we call that problem definition. You gather information about the problem and its causes, and then you sort it out. So you process the information that you've gathered. Then you think up some possible solutions. Maybe you brainstorm a list of possible solutions. And finally, you choose the solution that you conclude is best using a set of selection criteria that are often values-based but might be more pragmatic than that. These are all problem solving skills that a leader should have. The second is social judgment skills, understanding people and the social systems that surround them, understanding others' attitudes, empathizing with and being sensitive to others' point of view. It includes social perceptiveness, insight into how others work and their motivations, priorities, needs, goals, and problems. It also includes behavioral flexibility, meaning adapting your behavior in light of others' perspectives. And finally, persuasion skills and conflict resolution skills are part of social judgment skills.

[26:24](https://youtu.be/PSwOnk_HK_U?t=1584) The third and final category is knowledge, accumulation of information and the ability to organize that information. Now, one difference between an expert and a novice is that the expert has seen a lot of different situations and problems in the past and knows from experience what solutions will address those problems. They have schemas in their head connecting solutions to problems and problems to solutions. Novices don't because they don't have that experience. When I was asked to become the U.S. Labor Department's Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating Officer during a deep recession at the start of the Obama administration, I had already worked in the department for six and a half years during the Clinton administration. I knew the place. I knew a lot of the people. I knew how it worked. I knew what the systems were. I knew what the mission of each of the component agencies was and how they were carrying it out.

[27:25](https://youtu.be/PSwOnk_HK_U?t=1645) And I knew a lot about what would be required for the department to help President Obama and Congress address massive economic challenges. That is knowledge and that's an important leadership skill. So let's ask the question, do you have the leadership skills that you need? Well, we've got a tool for that. This is called the Leadership Skills Inventory. And it operates somewhat like the Leadership Traits Assessment Tool. Again, you can use it to assess your own and others' leadership skills. Once again, there is no right answer. There is no you are the perfect leader score. Instead, what the inventory does is gather information about you and your leadership skills or another person and their leadership skills and assesses them, gives you a way to sort of assign a number to the strength of those skills in you or in the other individual. So with this one, you read a statement and there'll be a list of 18 statements that I'll go through very quickly in just a moment. And you rate each item, each of the 18 statements based on how well the statement describes whoever it is you're assessing.

[28:49](https://youtu.be/PSwOnk_HK_U?t=1729) I use the language I in each of the statements in these 18 statements. But if you're assessing somebody else, you're not using I, you're using him, her, they, whatever is the right descriptor. And the scale, the 1 to 5 scale, the Likert scale, 1 to 5, goes from 1, this statement is not true about this individual, to number 5, it's very true. And 2, 3, 4, seldom true, occasionally true, somewhat true. After you've rated each of these statements in the assessment of yourself or the assessment of another individual, or having others assess you or another individual, you'll construct a score. And I'll show you how to do that in just a minute. So here are the statements. Again, I'm not going to read them all to you, but you know, they're the kinds of things that we just talked about in the context of leadership skills. I find following directions and completing forms easy. I understand how to do the basic things required of me. I enjoy getting all parties to work collaboratively. Supportive communications are important to me.

[30:02](https://youtu.be/PSwOnk_HK_U?t=1802) I understand the social fabric of my organization. I find complex organizational problems interesting. Seeing the big picture is one of my best skills. You all can read them yourself. Again, this is available. We have a link in the chat and we will send these tools to you after the workshop is over. So how do you score yourself? You have to break the statements into three groups. Statements one through six. Here they are. I enjoy getting deeply involved with how things work up to I understand how to do the basic things required of me. That's score A. Score A roughly assesses your perception of your skills or your perception of somebody else's skills at knowledge acquisition, problem solving, and general and crystallized cognitive ability. Score B is taken or assessed by looking at statements seven through 12, right?

[31:05](https://youtu.be/PSwOnk_HK_U?t=1865) That's adapting ideas to people's needs is usually easy for me up to my decisions effects on others are important to me. Score B offers your assessment of emotional intelligence or social judgment skills. And score C is all of the rest of the questions, questions 13 through 18. Score C is a proxy for mission orientation and your facility with conceptualization. Now, if you get a score between 23 and 30 in each of these blocks of six questions, you're getting a great score. If you're getting between 14 and 22, you're sort of in the middle, six to 13 would suggest that's an area where you're not the strongest, right? So you can do the same thing, I'm sorry, you can do the same thing with these questions that you've done with the other to get to a final score. One is you can compare score A, score B, and score C, and that will tell you sort of which categories of skills do you have most and which do you have least, right?

[32:14](https://youtu.be/PSwOnk_HK_U?t=1934) You can also average the collective scores of others who've given the assessment, compare them to your scores, aggregate them, do an average, that will give you a sense. Here I think it doesn't make sense to take all of the questions together because they're very different questions looking at different things. I think organizing them in these three buckets makes the most sense. And that's a good way to think about what your leadership skills inventory score should So we've considered two models of leadership, the traits model and the skills model. be. How do they fit together? Do they fit together? So remember we had this slide, which is leadership traits, and we had this slide, which is leadership The skills model, again, assumes leaders have four leadership traits listed in the left skills.

[33:14](https://youtu.be/PSwOnk_HK_U?t=1994) column, general cognitive ability, crystallized cognitive ability, motivation, and personality. So let's start with an assessment of how these leadership traits from the skills model track with the leadership traits identified in the traits model itself. Remember six categories of leadership traits in the leadership traits model. So our assessment is really a matching exercise. How do those four traits in the skills model match with these six traits from the traits model? The skills model's general cognitive ability and crystallized cognitive ability taken together are similar to the traits model's intelligence. That's very easy. Another easy match is the skills model's motivation and the traits model's category of drive, audacity, ambition, and determination. And let me say we can make that match even better by adding in the taking responsibility for yourself and others from the traits model's integrity and conscientiousness category.

[34:17](https://youtu.be/PSwOnk_HK_U?t=2057) Again, there may be semantic differences here and there, and there are a few words missing. I get it. But the concepts, I think, are very closely related. That's where the obvious overlaps end and the matching becomes more difficult and we get some questions. The skills model's personality includes the traits model's self-confidence. So that's a good match. However, personality also includes other characteristics that are not accounted for in the traits model, things like openness, tolerance for ambiguity, curiosity, adaptability. So with respect to the four leadership traits listed here in the skills model, these four leadership traits in the left column here, let's say three and a half of them match up with the traits model. On the other hand, there are leadership traits from the traits model that do not have matches in the skills model's list of traits, but they do match up with the skills model's list of competencies or skills.

[35:31](https://youtu.be/PSwOnk_HK_U?t=2131) Emotional intelligence, sociability, agreeableness, and extroversion taken together match up great with social judgment skills. But social judgment skills is listed as a competency, a skill on the skills model, not a trait. Perhaps this tells us that it is sometimes difficult to categorize whether a human characteristic is a trait or a skill. The skills model itself raises this question when it includes knowledge in the definition of crystallized cognitive ability, which is offered as a trait, but also lists knowledge as a competency or skill. Is knowledge a trait or a skill, or is it both? Most important, does it matter how we characterize human characteristics? Whether we put them in the skills bucket or the traits bucket. What is it that defines those two buckets?

[36:32](https://youtu.be/PSwOnk_HK_U?t=2192) Is it the difference between innate characteristics, that is characteristics which we are born or we organically develop, and characteristics that can be taught? I should say skills that, excuse me, can be taught. That's a distinction I think is worth challenging. Who's to say that human beings cannot be trained to be more self-confident, or to better acquire knowledge, or to develop their ambitions and determination and resilience? Ultimately, I think the question is not how we categorize, but what contributes to successful leadership. And both of these lists, traits and skills, are menus that we should consider as part of our study of leader-centric models of successful leadership. Now, I will close with the biggest caveat of them all.

[37:33](https://youtu.be/PSwOnk_HK_U?t=2253) Both of these models of leadership are leader-centric models. They look at the leader. But in leadership, you also have to look at the environment. You have to look at the organization. You have to look at barriers that are built into the organization, which is a gigantic issue in the public sector, right? There are rules after rules after rules. I've told people many, many, many times in my career, the most heavily regulated sector of our economy is the public sector. More rules than you can throw a rule book at, right? So all of those things also matter. The situation matters. Again, I gave the example of Winston Churchill at war and Winston Churchill at peace. That difference really mattered. So these are two models that allow you to assess yourself and whether you have sort of the fixins for leadership. But there are other questions that also need to be addressed. So let me go to my very last slide.

[38:39](https://youtu.be/PSwOnk_HK_U?t=2319) I'm going to look forward to taking your questions. I want to thank you for participating in the workshop today. Let me just, a quick advertisement. One of the Burn Center's programs for those who are interested in worker power and unions and worker collective action, things like strikes and other things. Please go to poweratwork.us, https://poweratwork.us. We have a very active website there. I think you'll really enjoy it. Okay. Take a look at it. Jess, I will pull down the screen and you can let me know if there are any questions.

**Audience**

[39:10](https://youtu.be/PSwOnk_HK_U?t=2350) Awesome. Well, I'm going to stop.

* * *

Original page: https://innovate-us.org/should-you-be-a-public-sector-leader · Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/), as stated on innovate-us.org