Author Carolyn Ban delivers critical information on how managers from government agencies - that vary in mission, size, structure, resources, and leadership - cope with bureaucratic limitations and constraints. She reveals how organizational differences directly affect such considerations as the management selection process, the quality of management training, and the managers' career path.

And she analyzes how the role of manager can vary within and among organizations as exemplified by first-line "worker-managers" and "pseudo-supervisors" who have the title but perform very few of the functions of a supervisor.

Focusing on how coping strategies differ across agencies, the author probes how managers react to the constraints imposed by the civil service system and the budget process, and outlines the strategies they use when dealing with the lengthy and complex process of hiring and firing. The author also examines how managers implement the often frustrating mandates of personnel ceilings, hiring freezes, and reductions in force.

Using numerous examples and insightful stories, the book reveals the range of methods managers find to operate within or to circumvent the formal systems of constraint.