Introduction
Effective leadership is essential to the success of an organization and the implementation of its programs. That is true of a well-executed resilience program such as homeland security, whose responsibility delicately defines the state’s security. Leadership is especially important in this challenging time for the federal with many issues such as severe budget cuts and furloughs (Cordero, 2020). Pay freezes and reduced resources absorb and manage employees’ uncertainty about the future and engage employees. The deepening of employees’ organizational commitment and increasing general job satisfaction cannot be overemphasized. The recent years have had leadership as a source of concern across the federal government, particularly in the department of homeland security (DHS). The Partnership for Public Service1 evaluated the 2012 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS) results.
Federal employees have not given their leaders high marks for many years, and leadership scores have dropped significantly for the first time since 2003. Six of the 19 main federal agencies improved their overall leadership score in 2012, yet effective leadership in the federal government did succeed (Haupt & Connolly, 2018). The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Intelligence Community, and the Department of State were among the top-rated agencies, while the Department of Homeland Security was last.
Furthermore, employees at DHS have regularly voiced dissatisfaction with the organization’s leadership and highlighted worries regarding communication and trust. According to Bass, leadership is a critical success factor that defines the success or failure of organizations (Beckner, 2021). As management is repeatedly shown to influence employee morale, productivity, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, stress, and resilience, it now needs a well-defined approach. Effective management creates a mood of trust, growth, and development, thus improving performance in the institution. Consequently, effective leaders are entrusted with successful programs like the DHS (Beckner, 2021). The DHS needs leaders who exhibit strong attributes of discipline, consistency of actions, and scientific—leaders who insist on empirical proof rather than traditional knowledge.
The paper majors on highlighting some of the major issues active in and around DHS, with evidence-based on conducted studies and reports. The study entails using employees’ responses to support the claims about leadership in homeland security. According to the employees, the overarching leadership traits in the department, as indicated in the responses, are widely discussed in the paper (Cordero, 2020). The need for effective leadership models and management in homeland security is imperative to national security and cannot overemphasize issues related to the institution. Subjects such as the public’s privacy to the leadership of the DHS and the program’s funding problems directly impact the management. On the other hand, disconnection among the staff questions the leaders and puts the department in jeopardy. Additionally, role matching is adamant about the leaders’ need to work hard to promote national security.
Disconnect Between Department of Homeland Security Leaders and Frontline Workers
The DHS consists of a hierarchical leadership system, from the top management leaders to the workers whose poor relationships contribute to unsteady leadership. According to evaluations carried out in the department, employees pointed out the profound disconnect between the DHS Leaders and Frontline Workers (Beckner, 2021). When considering leadership at DHS, it is critical to concentrate on executives and organizational leaders, career employees, nonpolitical personnel, and supervisors. The DHS is tasked with instilling vocal and active commitment from the overall management officials to strengthen workforce resilience effectively. The levels of focus span from the top and works down to those with whom frontline workers contact regularly. However, the committee discovered a schism between frontline personnel and their bosses. Commitment to worker health and safety, as expressed in words and deeds, is vital, and it starts at the top. Discussions with DHS personnel have made the committee feel that the vision is not communicated to the frontlines. Members of the workforce who talk with the committee complain about the high authorities making instructions without their participation or consideration of how they affected operations on the ground.
Furthermore, leaders fail to discuss the difficulties they encounter with frontline workers or supervisors and how to support them better in their duties. It is critical for senior executives in DHS and the component agencies to take an active interest in the workers’ personnel. The interest will help to boost staff morale and resilience. Additionally, the leaders only speak about the significance of a healthy, resilient, and engaged DHS workforce. They should believe in the vision for the workforce by meeting the frontline workers and showing compassion for workers and their feedback. Every new presidential administration features the federal government choosing new executives, typically from outside the organization, to the highest echelons of executive agencies. Consequently, equal emphasis must be focused on career, nonpolitical leaders. Political appointees must rely on nonpolitical leaders for organizational memory and, consequently, mission continuity; they hold the organization together, giving leadership stability amid administration changes. A long-term mechanism must allow these leaders to perform regardless of who is chosen above them.
Finally, the organization should emphasize mid-level and frontline leaders as they are critical to success. They are the persons with whom the workforce interacts regularly and hence have the most power. They are the most likely to advance to leadership positions. Developing resilient leaders boosts the resilience of the workforce they lead (Beckner, 2021). Instilling the idea of a healthy, resilient, and engaged workforce in them early in their careers will assist them in propagating the vision as they advance in the department. However, the disconnect between the leaders and the workers in the DHS is inevitable due to non-responsive workers. Even though the lower levels deserve to be granted the privilege to drive operations around, some departments are ineffective. The idea comes to realization when the leadership ladders are analyzed to have lower-level leaders who are rather irresponsible and only work when summoned. Therefore, it is logical to trust the work of the top leaders in such a case.
Communication Issues among the DHS Staff
The second essential building component of a successful organizational leader is effective communication. Communication in companies is more than just the exchange of information between individuals, but a sense-making process that includes interactions, decisions, messages, and interpretations. Strong communication that arises from dense contacts leads to a picture of the world that none of those involved possess or could possess separately. Strong communication influences perceptions as well as relationships. The DHS experiences challenges in communication due to the great separation between its officers. As shown by DHS staff during committee meetings and site visits, there are various engagement issues. DHS employees in the field generally feel that interaction between DHS leadership and those on the frontlines is nearly nonexistent. Employees complain of decisions coming from headquarters overlooking those on the ground or consideration of how they will affect their work.
There appears to be little sharing of best practices and a general lack of engagement between and within components. The department is experiencing communication gaps on workforce health and resiliency. Additionally, there is frequently a lack of clear interaction or awareness of available services to assist employees with health and work-life difficulties. In the hypothetical brainstorming of communication issues, the department is attributed to logical factors that explain the non-interactive staff. Factors such as a non-cooperative staff member at the lower level of the organization contribute to the lack of engagement. The lower staff members fail to report issues to the leaders for fear of exposure, producing a rather non-interactive community of workers.
Defective Organizational Structure
Defective organizational culture is the third component that adversely affects institutions’ leadership. Organizational culture is significantly correlated with leadership behavior as administrators usually adjust their leadership behavior to accomplish their mission. Successful institutions need more than merely establishing a new organizational culture and granting legal authority. Research shows that merging government agencies necessitates developing and communicating vision clearly, uniting managers, employees, and people from different cultures into a common mission (Beckner, 2021). Integrating complex and disparate financial, human resources, and technology systems, changing relationships with key stakeholders, and navigating a complex political system is important. A successful organization’s third fundamental building component is the culture which entails a company’s long-standing, mainly unspoken shared values, beliefs, and assumptions that impact behavior. It develops the organization’s image and identity by providing a common platform, modeling how workers interact, motivating employees to succeed, and providing a common platform. Even the finest tactics will fail in a culture that rejects change and innovation and does not support the organization’s goal and basic values. The strategic plan and organizational chart may show how to do things, but organizational culture influences what occurs.
Failure to account for existing organizational cultures during the development of DHS has resulted in many employees feeling disengaged while raising questions to their leaders. An engaged employee is absorbed in the substance of the job and energized to expend extra effort in job performance. Trust is essential in every relationship, and it is especially crucial for the DHS in its efforts to concentrate employees and managers on health and well-being. However, mistrust is a pervasive aspect of the department’s contemporary structure. The committee expressed similar ideas by DHS workers at the component agencies interviewed. The committee frequently encountered personnel who felt victimized by the “political machine during its site visits.” Employees in several locations cited a lack of growth opportunities, with others blaming widespread bias in the process. Some employees expressed apprehension about approaching their managers to address difficulties or even new ideas, fearing that it would be used against them when promotion possibilities arose.
Employees tend to be afraid of repercussions from their leaders, resulting in a defective organizational culture. The Institute of Medicine conferences reports on DHS workforce resilience argues that people still feel that getting treatment may result in job-related penalties (Cordero, 2020). Nevertheless, the present political environment and budget sequestration that support layoffs and overtime loss have further strained the relationship between some components and leadership. Additionally, the lack of communication makes employees feel they lack support from their leaders. On closer examination of organizational structure and its effects on the perspective of leadership, the poor culture is aggregated by the department’s employees themselves. Leadership holders are free of any involvement to support the defective structure of the department and point to employees who have rather evolved in posting the culture. The department, however, is not out of options; there is a need to have open relationships and communication to address culture. Additionally, the process is potent enough to change the beliefs and practices in the organization and approve a healthy culture that will help leaders manage DHS.
Privacy Concerns on the General Public Population
Furthermore, privacy concerns form a major issue in the DHS due to its propensity to intrude on the privacy of American residents. The department’s laws that support their operations are directly associated with the management as they are actively involved in their amendments. According to one interpretation of the legislation’s language, H.R.5710 changes the Privacy Act of 1974; the bill grants the government access to private information (Cordero, 2020). As a result, the DHS may be able to merge personal information, such as phone company and Internet service provider data. Moreover, information from the FBI, CIA, law enforcement, and commercial firms to hunt for terrorist activities is collected. The bill establishes the post of privacy officer to handle any privacy problems.
In principle, this officer will guarantee that privacy rights are maintained, but nothing is known about how he will do so at this time. However, there is still no solution for the privacy officer’s position to be filled. There will always be Privacy issues of the general public due to the demand of a leader who is ready to violate them in the effort to ensure the population’s safety. However, the issue is bound to be adamant due to the need for the authorities to know just enough about the citizens to provide security. The department will find it hard to solve some of the security issues as they arise while lacking information to support their investigation. Privacy issues, however, will continue to be a consistent issue for the homeland security leaders to address.
Funding Constraints for the DHS
Funding for any project, program, or organization is always a role leader should be ready to commit. The department can’t survive unless it receives adequate money, which is now one of the primary challenges (Lambert, 2019). Congress enacted financing legislation, but this cash was merely shifted from past efforts, meaning that there is little “new” funding for the DHS. For example, the current smallpox campaign has raised worries that funds and time formerly spent on regular medical visits have been redirected. The redirection has hindered them from preventing and responding to chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) threats. Many routine services, programs, and departments have been cut or removed at hospitals across the United States in favor of CBRN readiness, leaving a void in health care.
State and municipal officials have begun to express reservations about obtaining financial aid to deploy CBRN response procedures. For example, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino recently stated that many towns are still waiting for even the first tranche of cash under the DHS’s new budget. Even the United States Senate has begun to question the allocation of money. Wisconsin Senator David Obey recently stated that the Bush administration launched tax cuts but failed to obtain funds for domestic security and the DHS. This seeming inconsistency damages the administration’s confidence.
These concerns and the recent failure of an amendment that would have increased money for first responders and port security cast doubt on the DHS’s ability to achieve its goals. Funding problems continue to pressure the department’s management to ensure its functions are fulfilled; this, however, overwhelms the leaders and demotivates them. The problem, however, does not surface when the organization’s leaders enact prudent measures to track the department’s funding. The steps include appointing officials to ensure proper funding and allocation of these funds. The current department lacks the funding measures necessary, resulting in financial constraints, and therefore poor leadership is to blame.
Role Definition in the Organization
Homeland security management is responsible for assigning roles to the staff to accomplish operations concerning national security. According to Mitchell, this task can sometimes be difficult to realize, which will, in turn, point to the management (Walsh, 2020). There are significant holes in the national homeland security policy. The policy articulates principles for homeland security, although it is ambiguous, without a clear, coherent strategy for execution. The strategy, therefore, fails to specify tasks for the organizations being absorbed and fails to establish each agency’s connection to the DHS. The DHS website, for example, offers links to agencies being absorbed; yet, several of these agencies do not have a mission statement relating to their duties in the DHS, nor do they acknowledge their subordination to the DHS. Uncertainty arises not just about the functions of specific agencies but the roles of municipal and state governments. Clarification of the duties and responsibilities within and among the different levels is required for the department to function.
Similarly, under the DHS, the effectiveness of several agencies may suffer. Concerned is the chance of reducing the federal emergency management agency’s (FEMA)role in assisting local governments during natural disasters. The DHS is obliged to oversee funds to first-responders and help local governments with training and reaction plans. This expanded set of tasks may jeopardize FEMA’s ability to fulfill its original purpose due to a lack of staff and resources. Another agency that will play a new role under the DHS is the Customs Service. Customs Service will need to battle terrorism, much to the chagrin of companies, believing that more duties for it would result in higher transportation costs. The leaders in the department work hard to ensure roles are defined appropriately. It won’t be long before the management provides a solution for the role definition problem.
The DHS was created to increase coordination and decrease redundancy among the organizations responsible for securing the United States homeland. In principle, creating a single all-encompassing body should result in enhanced information-sharing and responsibility among the numerous stakeholders. However, the leadership of the organization is helplessly reluctant to implement the role definition due to a lack of enough insight into the several sub-departments in the organization. Their poor efforts are supported by the poor communication among the frontline workers responsible for reporting role vacancies to the management.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the department of homeland security plays a big role in ensuring national security countrywide. However, this will not be so if the management involved in getting the job done fails to solve the department’s important issues. The DHS should improve its leadership through communication and culture as an investment in the organization and workforce to help the department execute its purpose. Leadership in DHS should be well-defined in funding solutions, role definition, and communication to allow the department to realize its goals. Additionally, leaders at higher ranks should change and associate with the department closely to avoid detachment from the organization’s mission.
On the other hand, organizational culture requires rich and logical cultivation to give the leaders a manageable approach when it comes to administration. It is critical to remember that leaders shape the culture, and culture drives organizational outcomes. Without those pillars, DHS will be unable to reach its full potential, and staff morale and engagement will suffer. In the next chapter, the committee covers the importance of assessment, evaluation, and reporting in the planning and monitoring of any workplace program, including measuring and assessing leadership development and organizational communication.
References
Beckner, C. (2021). Reassessing homeland security intelligence: A review of the DHS office of intelligence and analysis. Center for a New American Security.
Cordero, C. F. (2020). Reforming the Department of Homeland Security Through Enhanced Oversight & Accountability. Washington, DC: Center for a New American Security.
Haupt, B., & Connolly, K, C. (2018). Measuring cultural competence in emergency management and homeland security higher education programs. Journal of Public Affairs Education, 24(4), 538-556. Web.
Lambert, D. E. (2019). Addressing challenges to homeland security information sharing in American policing: Using Kotter’s leading change model. Criminal Justice Policy Review, 30(8), 1250-1278. Web.
Walsh, P. F. (2020). Intelligence leadership and governance: building effective intelligence communities in the 21st century. Routledge. Web.