This is federal government stuff, and usually wouldn’t be mentioned here, but I found this interview with former DOJ attorney Daniel J. Metcalfe fascinating. He compares the management styles of various attorney generals from the Watergate era all the way up to Alberto Gonzalez. Money quote for me about Gonzalez’s style:

After all, it was “the group” that did it (whatever that might be), and they achieved presumptively benign “consensus” (at all costs) before moving forward. You can imagine how important this is to someone whose primary interest in most any government action is to make sure that it doesn’t somehow get in the way of securing that next (but not necessarily last) position before the end of a presidential administration. And remember that there’s little downside to operating in this way if your basic view of government (in line with your inexperience) holds little respect for it in the first place. In other words, if it doesn’t really matter so much to you how well or efficiently a government activity is handled, just so long as it eventually is handled, then the thinking is: Why not handle it in the way that most effectively minimizes personal risk? What this breeds, of course, is an utter lack of individual responsibility — the very antithesis of good government.