Perspectives on leadership, workforce, and organizational performance from the Boxer Advisors team.
Featured Article
Every fiscal year brings a familiar tension for federal agency leaders: the urgency of mission execution versus the long-term investment in the people who make that mission possible. In FY 2026, that tension is sharper than ever.
The Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey data tells a clear story. Agencies that invest consistently in leadership development — executive coaching, supervisory skills programs, and structured succession planning — outperform their peers on every engagement metric that matters: FEVS scores, voluntary attrition, and mission effectiveness ratings.
The agencies that wait — that defer leadership development until the 'right moment' — consistently find that the right moment never comes. Budget pressures, operational demands, and political transitions conspire to push development spending to the back of the queue. And the cost of that deferral shows up in the data: lower engagement, higher attrition, and leadership gaps that take years to close.
The FY 2026 window is open now. The agencies that act — that schedule their coaching cohorts, stand up their supervisory development programs, and engage their change management support before the fiscal year is half over — are the ones that will have the leadership capacity to execute their missions when it matters most.
Ken Boxer
Founder, Boxer Advisors
6 articles
Executive coaching in the federal sector isn't the same as coaching in the private sector. The political environment, the budget cycle, the civil service system, and the unique pressures of public accountability create a coaching context that requires deep sector knowledge — not just coaching credentials.
Ken Boxer
Too many agencies treat the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey as a compliance exercise rather than a diagnostic tool. The agencies that consistently improve their scores share one thing in common: they use FEVS data to drive action, not just to report results.
Ken Boxer
The federal government has spent billions on technology modernization over the past decade. The projects that succeed share a common characteristic: they treat change management as a core workstream, not an afterthought. The ones that fail almost always get the technology right and the people wrong.
Ken Boxer
A significant percentage of the federal Senior Executive Service is eligible to retire in the next five years. Agencies that have invested in structured SES pipeline development are positioned to manage this transition. Those that haven't are facing a leadership cliff — and the window to act is closing.
Ken Boxer
The business case for executive coaching has never been stronger. Multiple longitudinal studies now show consistent ROI in the range of 5-7x the investment — driven by measurable improvements in leader effectiveness, team performance, and retention of high-potential talent.
Ken Boxer
Most mergers and acquisitions fail to deliver their projected value — and the primary reason is almost never financial or strategic. It's cultural. The organizations that successfully integrate after M&A share a disciplined approach to leadership alignment, cultural assessment, and workforce communication.
Ken Boxer
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