How Elon Musk’s Leadership Style Will Make Or Break DOGE

The newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by tech billionaire Elon Musk and businessman Vivek Ramaswami, has the potential to revolutionize how the United States government functions.

As a futurist and innovation expert who’s participated in numerous corporate and government innovation initiatives, I commend this effort to deliver more for less to Americans at a time when belief in government is at a low ebb. However, achieving success in this new endeavor could prove to be as complex as colonizing Mars.

According to research by McKinsey, 70-90% of complex, large-scale corporate and government change initiatives fail to reach their stated goals. Yet, if anyone can pull this off, it’s likely to be outsiders with a proven track record of success at doing difficult things. As I wrote previously in Forbes, Musk has been able to disrupt every industry he’s entered: money transfer with PayPal
PYPL
, renewable energy with SolarCity, electric vehicles and batteries with Tesla
TSLA
, and space entrepreneurship with SpaceX. But these are all for-profit businesses, not government agencies.

Below are five leadership suggestions for making DOGE a moonshot success:

1. Realize this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to serve. According to McKinsey, the biggest reason large-scale initiatives go awry is the failure to set fact-based high aspirations. With DOGE, the stated goals are clear: to dismantle bureaucracy, cut regulations, restructure agencies, and save taxpayers a whopping $2 trillion! My advice to Musk: You can make a lasting impact if you take the high road and adjust your approach. The abrasive leadership style you used to lower costs at Twitter (firing 6,000 employees) will backfire here. DOGE is a unique opportunity to transform an organization that doesn’t belong to you. It belongs to all of us.

2. Do your own thinking, and don’t let others rule you. To succeed, Musk must resist the tendency to “stick it to the bureaucracy” or punish agencies such as the EPA and SEC that prosecuted him in the past. Also, to forget about clearing out the so-called “Deep State,” which doesn’t exist. Everyone is watching to see if Musk will succumb to partisan paradigms or Silicon Valley groupthink, which assumes that technology is the answer to every problem. As someone who researches the habits of leading innovators, I admire the way Musk does voluminous research, challenges conventional thinking, learns from failure, and experiments constantly while taking calculated risks. My advice to Musk: Form your own opinions and make decisions with an open mind, in short, be your own man. Don’t abandon the habits and best practices that got you where you are. Be willing to adjust your leadership style and adapt them to serving the government. If you pull this off, the appreciation and love will be worth it in the end.

3. Seek out innovators in government. Having served as an innovation coach to organizations as varied as the Army Corp of Engineers, DARPA, and VA Hospitals, my experience is that there are talented, dedicated, out-of-the-box-thinkers and doers within our government. The problem is they are not always heard. They may have practical ideas about how to do things better, cheaper, and faster, but there is no incentive to take the initiative for the hard work of innovation. My advice: Musk needs to acknowledge that the federal government does function: air traffic controllers keep planes flying, polluters get punished, Medicare checks go out, warfighters get trained and armed, FEMA workers show up at disasters, and taxes get collected. Instead of denigrating them, figure out ways to inspire and empower them instead. Find ways to lift them up, while challenging them to do better. My advice: make everyone in government a hero. Challenge them to join you in this once-in-a-lifetime endeavor to upgrade and revitalize the federal government.

4. Crowdsource for winning ideas. Idea crowdsourcing is the process of engaging employees, customers, suppliers, or other relevant audiences to contribute ideas to help an organization improve its products, services, or processes. Crowdsourcing ideas and creating a process for selecting and prioritizing those ideas will be critical to DOGE’s success. Outdated rules, like agencies being required to spend all allocated funds by year-end, drive wasteful spending and need changing. Modernizing antiquated data systems will enhance decision-making, accountability, and efficiency. Federal agencies need to be encouraged to identify efficiencies to improve outcomes, not just cut budgets. Federal employees need to be equipped with modern tools and strategies. Private-sector principles to improve citizen experience must be applied. The focus needs to be on shared goals and avoidance of partisanship.

In sum, Elon, this is your defining moment. Not just to modernize government but to inspire it to meet the challenges of the 21st century. Future generations will remember what you accomplished. If only you will lean in to serving America’s citizens in this time of need.