Something has got to change! And maybe, just maybe, your generation, equipped with high ideals and the passion to pursue them, can get the job done.

Face it, working in government can be a nightmare! Over the course of my long career in public service at the state, county, and local levels, I think I’ve pretty much seen it all. Those of you who are inside the bureaucracy have probably seen your share of it as well—painful inefficiency and ineffectiveness, dead wood, archaic one-size-fits-all policies and procedures, lack of accountability, poor morale, low productivity, lack of training, outdated technology, unfair promotion practices, ineffective management, and insufficient staffing—to name a few. I could go on, and I’ll bet you could too.

Of course there are exceptions. But all too often, public servants find themselves trapped in just such a dysfunctional environment, which can easily give way to a feeling of frustration, disillusionment, cynicism, and maybe even hopelessness. As one boring day follows another, you sometimes wonder how you got there and whether your career has any purpose at all.

But it doesn’t have to be that way! The antidote for all this lies in one simple word: LEADERSHIP.

I have seen firsthand the countless legions of good, hardworking, dedicated public servants who populate our organizations. I have seen struggling, frustrated people who long to do a good job, people who thirst for purpose and meaning in their work and their lives. But all too often, these good people are stuck in a bad system, not of their own making, as victims of a leadership void.

At its root, public service is all about people! In the broadest sense, it’s a process of providing for the health, safety, and welfare of our people and our communities in many and varied ways. Ultimately, it’s about perpetuating our society and enhancing our very quality of life. This makes public service itself both meaningful and honorable, affording a career in which one should be able to take pride in both personal contributions and organizational achievements.

But public leadership, that’s a calling even more special, one that offers an incredible opportunity to significantly shape the future and make a marked difference in the lives of many. And when the public leader becomes a passionate and courageous visionary who can inspire followers and guide the ship of state into uncharted waters, new heights can be reached and profound change can emerge. Such transformational leaders answer the highest of callings in public service and are, indeed, a cut above the rest!

My guess is that you have made the same observations about dysfunctional government and want to change it. Regardless of how you have found your way into public service, by choice or by chance, you have now come to understand this leadership void and want to do something about it. You know in your heart that things can be better, both for those served by our public institutions and for those serving in them. You aspire to be one of those special leaders whose contributions are singular and lasting, a leader who makes a difference for your organization, for your people, and for our society. If that’s truly the case, I can help you!

However, let me be clear. If efficient “public administration” is your only interest—a career of organizing, supervising, tracking, measuring, and reporting—don’t bother to read any further. If you will be satisfied with being a milquetoast manager who simply makes sure your people show up when they are supposed to and put the right papers in the right box, just gently place this book “back on the shelf.”

But if it’s change you want to achieve—significant, dynamic, bone-crunching, transformative change through leadership—then this is the book for you! If you want to transform archaic, inflexible, unresponsive, rule-driven, one-size-fits-all bureaucracies into high-performing, results-oriented, flexible, customer-focused models of good government, a role where you are a cynicismbuster who restores faith in our public institutions, then please read on.

Now, I know that sounds all well and good, but transformation in government is not easily achieved. As I will discuss at length, the public sector is a unique animal with its own set of characteristics and problems. Public leaders must deal with many challenges and limitations not faced by their private-sector counterparts. That doesn’t mean that transformation in the public sector is not possible. It just means it takes a special brand of leader to do it.

You may think that you are just an ordinary person not capable of such transformational leadership, not wealthy, not Ivy League, not born into a leadership legacy. Or maybe your career to date has gone in a different direction, and you just suddenly and unexpectedly landed in government. Public service wasn’t part of your plan.

I need to tell you that I am just such an ordinary person who grew up in a working-class, blue-collar family in rural Upstate New York. I wanted to be an architect, but somehow I just “woke up” one day and found myself in government, and I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it at all! After many failed attempts to escape the bureaucracy, I eventually grew to understand and embrace public service and learned that organizations could be changed dramatically through leadership. I came to see public leadership as the high calling to which I alluded earlier and a wonderful way to make a meaningful contribution to our way of life.

More than that, I learned that such transformational leadership can result in a career that is fulfilling and rewarding beyond belief, a way to put purpose and passion in your life and meet that highest of human needs: leaving a legacy. Except for my family and my faith, it has been this opportunity to lead and drive transformative change that I value above all.

I only wish I had this book to read when I was getting started in my public career, as I could have made a difference much sooner and done it much better. My goal here is to share what I’ve learned with you so that you can make a difference much sooner, and do it much better!

Now, I need to tell you that this is not a textbook. It’s not based on years of research or academic study, and it won’t tell you exactly what to do or how to do it. There are no methods, tools, or techniques presented here. For that I direct your attention to the wealth of management and leadership literature written by expert scientists and thought leaders in the field. Throughout my career, this body of work helped me find my way, and I am certain it will help you.

In contrast, this book is a collection of short stories that I hope you will find entertaining, thought-provoking, and maybe even inspiring. The stories that I share with you are taken from my own life and work and are reflections on the leadership and life lessons of my personal experience and observations. Rather than showing you “what to do,” these stories are intended to show you “what to be” as a person and as a leader.

It is through these years of experience and observation that I have concluded that there are five distinct personal attributes that define transformational leaders. The attributes of respect, vision, courage, intuition, and credibility are what set these leaders apart from their brethren who simply hold down the job, put in their time, revel in the trappings of office, and preside over the mediocrity-without-end of the status quo.

I have seen this play out in state agencies, county departments, and in the halls of local government. I have seen it in public education and in the military. I have seen it at work in small ten-person offices all the way up to ten-thousand-person departments and beyond. Time and time again, I have observed that these are the characteristics that separate those who fundamentally change the shape of government and the course of events from those timid beings who will just accept things as they find them, assuming, “It is what it is!”

Quite unconventionally, some of my leadership stories are based in childhood experiences or family life and begin in a manner that may not seem relevant. Then, other more conventional stories emanate from the world of work, as you might expect. Some stories introduce you to real friends and associates, including three special mentors who showed me that ordinary people can, in fact, achieve extraordinary things. There are stories that take lessons from fictional characters, while others introduce you to family members including my parents, my kids, my little old grandmother, crazy Aunt Ruth—and, oh yes, I can’t forget the family dog.

Throughout the book, you will meet some outstanding public leaders whom I have known and worked with personally, ordinary people from humble beginnings who rose to do great things. Commissioners, college presidents, principals, superintendents, directors, and military officers, all otherwise ordinary people whom you would never hear about, who somehow drew lessons from their mentors and personal experience to become transformational leaders in government. Without knowing it, they passed these lessons on to me.

Each part of the book is developed around one of the five characteristics I mentioned above. But since life doesn’t exist in wholly discrete buckets, there is overlap in almost every story where threads or hints of the other themes are evident.

Further, I ask you to stay alert as you read, as there are many “lessons learned” that wend their way through the pages, even though they may not be completely central to the theme of that particular story. Some are mini-essays on observations or conclusions on related topics or issues, while others are just “sound bites” that may stick with you long after the book is forgotten.

The fact is I’ve tried a lot of things over my career. Thankfully, I got some of it right, and regrettably, some of it wrong, but I learned from it all. In telling my story, I talk about things I have studied, things I have observed, things I have done, and things that have happened to me. This collection of short stories is intended to illustrate how life, if we pay attention, provides useful lessons in many different ways, some quite unexpected.

While the routes to transformation are infinite and vary from one organization to another, I am certain that the leader of such transformation must exhibit these five personal characteristics, or the transformation will fail. My goal is to help you understand and mold yourself and your leadership legacy around these essential attributes.

Each of you will have your own personal story where your life and career will play out in its own special way. My stories are intended to inspire, stimulate thought and reflection, and help you see how you might become one of those transformational public leaders we so desperately need. If you can find a way to rise to this high calling, you will make a real difference in the lives of many and, in doing so, experience the joy and satisfaction of an incredibly rewarding career.

So, drawing on these many years of public service, and as did my own mentors and role models, I want to pass on the most valuable of these lessons to you, the new generation of passionate public leaders. Everything I have, both tangible and intangible, is a result of the wonderful opportunity I have had to spend a lifetime in public service. Writing this book feels like my final responsibility.