Week 1 Reading

Leaders requiere vision + capacity of implementation.

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After watching the video and doing the reading, one thing that I was left wondering was What happens to a leaders effectiveness as bureaucracy grows?

On one hand, bureaucracy is viewed in the public eye as something that slows things down and prevents change. If a transformative president wanted to drastically change Foreign Policy, I could see a large bureaucracy slowing down the change both purposefully and accidentally. There have been various stories about career civil servants attempting to check President Trump from making changes. While we might agree that Trumps' ideas might be counterproductive, does an unelected official have the right to prevent the President from pushing forward with an initiative? At the same time, if you believe bureaucracy slows things down, then you might believe that an incremental approach is the best way to make significant changes.

On the other hand, large bureaucracy might give leaders the ability to implement decisions with the support of many people behind them. Joseph Nye said, "Leadership requires vision plus capacity of implementation." By increasing the size of bureaucracy, does it automatically transfer to an increase of this capacity? Ultimately, this discussion is something that I've been struggling with intellectually and I hope to be able to discuss it further in class.