This Agency Senate Report is taken from the responses of the Agency Senate to the senate survey for December 2021.

We asked the Senate about what it takes to be both a good human being and do the difficult things of effective leadership.

We gave the following strong statement, a perspective on the topic that might commonly be expressed by an agency leader, the kind of thing you might hear in conversation with peers talking about trends or strategic positions.

Agency leaders often try to do good with and in their agency, with caring workplaces, generous leave policies, B Corp certification, for example. However, being a good person and making the necessary hard leadership decisions, like restructuring, redundancies, or disciplinary measures, are essentially mutually exclusive.

Trying to be a good human being and also do the difficult things of effective leadership is virtually impossible.

We then asked them for their opinion on the statement, and to express their agreement on a scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree.

What is the Agency Senate?

The Senate's Opinion on Being an Effective Leader and a Good Person