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"The best executive is one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done," Theodore Roosevelt once observed, "and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it." Unfortunately, many managers have not heeded TR's century-old advice to practice self restraint, but instead needlessly over-manage, over-scrutinize, and over-frustrate employees. Such meddlesome bosses now are called micromanagers. A micromanager can be much more than just a nuisance in today's complex organization. The bothersome boss who second guesses every decision a subordinate makes, frets about the font size of the latest progress report, or inspects all of his employees emails not only frustrates and demoralizes his harassed workers, but seriously damages the productivity of the organization and, over the long run, may jeopardize the organization's survival. Unfortunately, micromanagement is a fact of management life. Why do so many people hate to be micromanaged, yet so many managers continue to do it? Why have we all worked for micromanagers—but have never been one ourselves? But have we? Maybe the noted management consultant and cartoon icon, Pogo, had it right when he quipped, "We have met the enemy…and he is us." Micromanagement now commonly refers to the control of an enterprise in every particular and to the smallest detail, with the effect of obstructing progress and neglecting broader, higher-level policy issues. Micromanagement has been practiced and recognized well before we labeled it as an organizational pathology. In 1946, Peter Drucker called for a "democracy of management" whereby organizations need to decentralize and delegate more decision making authority to employees. In 1960, Douglas McGregor described a Theory X manager as one possessing many of the characteristics of the modern micromanager, one who is poor at proper delegating but one who believes he delegates well. While micromanagement has always disrupted organizational life, it only recently has entered the workplace vocabulary, with the first mention of the term appearing in 1975 in an article in the Economist. Since then, increasing concern has been focused on the impact of picayune bosses.

An examination of the careers of two of George Washington's early bureaucrats— Joseph Nourse and Oliver Wolcott—deepens our understanding of the evolution of the American bureaucratic state and its mix of career employees and political appointees. In a career spanning 52 years, Nourse, the first register of the treasury, resembles the nonpartisan merit-based civil servant who spends an entire career in public service. Wolcott, the treasury's first auditor, resembles today's political appointee whose stay in government is temporary and who enters and leaves government according to the political winds. Nourse, Wolcott, and their colleagues proved to be efficient, honest, and set high standards for today's civil servants to emulate, although they stooped to the lower ethics of the time that allowed nepotism, spoilsmanship, and stock jobbery.

George Tenet served as director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 1997 to 2004, an intense period spanning the administrations of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush and covering the terrorist attacks of September 11 and the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Few other central intelligence directors have served for so long, so energetically, or amid so much controversy. This profile examines the steep trajectory of Tenet's career, his response to the al‐Qaeda threat, the role he played during the invasion of Iraq, and the eventual reorganization of the nation's intelligence community. It describes a public servant caught between the warring factions of the White House decision‐making process, his own agency's intelligence priorities, and, ultimately, his own conscience.

One frontier of ethics is a debate. Ethical scholars and psychologists look at how people act ethically and some argue that it is done from a point of view of rationality and others argue it is from habit or other less rational basis of decision-making. Some argue such decisions are made from a person's inner sense of morality which directly affects ethical behavior. Thus. morality is the result of long-term, irreversible cognitive development and the most dominant determinants of overall ethical behavior. A principled, highly moral person behaves ethic ally over the long haul and is, able to withstand short-term environmental pressures to act unethically. Others, argue that disconnect exists between moral thought and action. They say that moral development plays a less powerful role because the dominant factors affecting ethical behavior are more environmental, short-term, reversible, and manipulative. Thus, an otherwise highly moral person could be induced through brief but intense environmental changes to act quite unethically and even pathologically. This article addresses this debate.

This paper examines the use and misuse of polygraph examinations. Due to increasing polygraph use by government agencies, the paper focuses particularly on the public sector. Should a government employee be subjected to a polygraph examination and, if so, under what conditions? How credible are polygraph exams? To better answer these and other relevant questions, the paper traces the polygraph's development, describes its technical features, discusses the pros and cons of its use, and examines its ethical implications—an aspect given little scholarly attention. Finally, the paper proposes a consistent and more restrictive polygraph policy for government agencies and proposed criteria for deciding when and where polygraphs are appropriate.

ABSTRACTThis study explores the rationality of drug policy. It proposes a cybernetic relationship between actual drug severity, public salience of the drug problem, and anti‐drug funding. The study hypothesizes that increases in the severity of the drug problem will cause an increase in the salience of the drug issue. Increased salience in turn leads to political pressure and increased drug funding. As funding increases, anti‐drug programs become more robust and effective and drug severity decreases. When severity decreases, salience should in turn decrease. And so on. To test the cybernetic model, the study correlates trends of drug data from 1970 through 1996. It finds significant correlation between drug severity, measured by hospital emergency room drug episodes, and drug salience, measured by media coverage of drug events. The study finds correlations of drug funding and severity to be ambiguous, and finds no correlation between drug funding and drug salience. The findings do not support the overall hypothesis of a rational, cybernetic process but offer insights on drug policy dynamics.

Books reviewed:Arnold A. Rogow, A Fatal Friendship: Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr.John Steele Gordon, Hamilton's Blessing: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Our National Debt.Peter McNamara, Political Economy and Statesmanship: Smith, Hamilton, and the Foundation of the Commercial Republic.

Most state governments enforce antinepotism laws prohibiting public officials from appointing relatives to governmental positions. However, states define nepotism quite differently, & no two states restrict nepotism in the same way. Lawmakers passed many of the current antinepotism laws at the turn of the century, when women did not constitute a significant part of the workforce. Restrictions on nepotism now apply in situations not originally contemplated by their drafters. This article examines the implications of restrictions on nepotism, compares state efforts, forecasts where restrictions on nepotism are headed, & offers recommendations leading to more consistent state nepotism policy. 2 Tables, 25 References. Adapted from the source document.