Former Homeland Security Chief Chertoff Addressed "Meta-Leadership" Challenges at HSPH/HKS Program

Established seven years ago, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) integrates 22 agencies, while working closely with the Department of Defense, intelligence agencies, and state and local public health offices. When he was U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security and head of DHS, Michael Chertoff was routinely charged with achieving collaboration across these organizations. He shared his insights about such “connectivity” while addressing participants in the National Preparedness Leadership Initiative (NPLI), a joint program of HSPH and the Harvard Kennedy School, on December 11, 2008.

The five-year-old NPLI has more than 225 participants, including senior leaders from the CDC, U.S. Coast Guard, FEMA, DHS, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Defense, the State Department, and state and local preparedness and response organizations. The NPLI’s co-directors are Leonard Marcus, lecturer in the Department of Health Policy and Management and director of the Program for Health Care Negotiation and Conflict Resolution at HSPH, and David Gergen, professor of public service and director of the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Chertoff said his job was the first Cabinet-level post to have a specific mandate for “meta-leadership,” a framework and practice method developed at the NPLI that links stakeholders.

Because there is no single person with authority over all federal, state, and local officials, “you have to cajole and persuade,” said Chertoff. But, he added, “People are willing to listen if you are willing to give them information.” He advocated for an abundance of advance planning and joint training as ways to build bridges between federal, state, and local agencies.

The challenge of integration and collaboration – a concept called “connectivity” in NPLI terms – is the toughest part of the job, according to Chertoff. He reminded the audience that it took 40 years to integrate what is now the Department of Defense. (Prior to 1947, the country’s military activities were managed by the Departments of War and Navy.) In contrast, the DHS has existed less than a single decade, and Chertoff said the department has made tremendous progress.

“Preparation rather than inspiration is the best recipe for meta-leadership,” he said.

Chertoff was appointed Secretary of Homeland Security in January 2005 and was head of DHS when Hurricane Katrina hit that summer. While FEMA bore the brunt of criticism for organizational confusion in response to the hurricane, Chertoff used the lessons learned as a wake-up call to transform the entire agency.

Observed Marcus after the talk: “The Department of Homeland Security has made significant progress since Hurricane Katrina. Secretary Chertoff spoke about connectivity between federal, state, and local officials. When you look at the people coming through the NPLI program, you can see that we are building both the conceptual and the pragmatic strategy for building those bridges.”

Reflecting back on his years at the agency, Chertoff recalled that his most satisfying days were those spent with frontline personnel – from riding on horseback with the Border Patrol in the Arizona desert to being aboard a Coast Guard cutter in the Arctic. “We doubled the size of the Border Patrol. There hasn’t been another 9/11. These are things of which I am proud,” he said.

Looking to the future of DHS, Chertoff recommended that the agency concentrate on low-probability/high-consequence events, such as pandemic flu, because those kinds of events are where the federal government can have the greatest impact.

DHS invested significant preparation for the transition from the Bush administration to the Obama administration, said Chertoff. He stepped down as head of DHS this year. Former Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano is now Secretary of Homeland Security.

--Eric J. McNulty.  Photography (c) Tom Fitzsimmons.

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The NPLI was established in 2004 to help ensure that public officials are prepared to meet the challenge of mass casualty terrorist attacks through training and research.

The meta-leadership framework is part of the initiative’s curricula and was developed by Leonard Marcus and Barry Dorn, co-director and associate director of the NPLI, respectively; Colonel (Ret.) Isaac Ashkenazi, formerly Surgeon General of the Israel Defense Forces Home Front Command; and Joseph Henderson, formerly director of the CDC Office of Terrorism Preparedness and Emergency Response. The initiative is supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Coordinating Office for Terrorism Preparedness and Emergency Response.

“Graduates of the NPLI program report that this framework has made a significant difference when applied in their real world,” said Marcus. “For example, several related that what they learned through the NPLI had informed their response to Hurricane Gustav and preparations for the Obama inauguration. They reached out to each other and coordinated their actions more pro-actively than they otherwise would have. This sort of meta-leadership in a crisis or other major event has important public health impact insofar as agencies are better able to serve the population and reduce the loss of life.”  

The framework has five dimensions to teach leadership skills:

1) personal self-knowledge and awareness;
2) situational diagnosis;
3) leading one’s organizational base;
4) leading up, or understanding and delivering on the expectations of one’s superiors; and
5) leading connectivity among people and organizations over which the leader does not have direct control.

Marcus said that the meta-leadership framework and vocabulary have become common across a swath of the government preparedness and public health communities. He and other NPLI faculty have presented seminars on meta-leadership at the CDC, DHHS, and the Homeland Security Council of the White House. A national series of seminars for business, non-profit, philanthropic, and public leaders — the Meta-Leadership Summits for Preparedness sponsored by the CDC Foundation and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation — is under way.