Why Leadership Development Matters More Than Ever

Two twenty-three-year-olds enter public service in the same month. One is commissioned an officer and enters a statutory, career-long development pipeline; the other joins a civilian agency and receives a checklist. Twenty years later both may lead organizations of consequence, and only one was prepared to. This article argues that institutions rise and fall on deliberately developed leaders, that the federal government has largely stopped developing them, and that every federal failure that reaches the headlines, including the OPM data breach, traces through a leadership chain forged or left unforged years earlier. Promotion transfers authority. Only development transfers the ability to use it.