Project Proposal

Will lateral entry at the executive level help improve the

governance?
1. Abstract
Our Study revolves around the idea whether the lateral entry will help improve the
governance or not. Research survey by Azim Premji Foundation stated that expertise can be
outsourced but the leadership cannot. So, our objective is to examine the effectiveness of the
lateral entry at executive level jobs in the government.

2. Motivation
Office of district collector/magistrate, election commissioner etc. enjoys high credibility.
Government institutions such as UPSC, Election Commission are primarily manned by senior
civil servants. So, the selection to fill up the chairs of joint secretaries cannot be based only on
their expertise in that field. At this level leadership quality becomes more important and they
are expected to be ethical, humane, accessible, decisive, supportive, communicative and
capable of motivating the teams. Moreover, if officers are selected at a late stage, the chances
of moulding them into leaders diminish substantially. These motivated us to examine the
effectiveness of the lateral entry executives to improve the governance.

3. Methodology
We will rely on interviews and questionnaires filled by government employees at the
executive level.

4. Project Details
a. Environment
The interviewees would have worked in GOI in various capacities currently or in the
past. They will be a mix of varying seniorities. To perform the analysis, no software
will be used and it will be up to the judgement of the team to make inferences

b. Issues and Challenges

i. Subjectivity in Information
ii. Possible silos of information

5. Conclusion
We wish to highlight whether lateral entry will help improve the governance or not. We will
also be making set of key recommendations in hiring process of the lateral entry at executive
level such that candidate is both PO and PJ fit.

Members: Nikhil S - 33, Rahul V - 40, Rishabh Singh-43 , Shalu Singh - 48,
Trishul Paul Chowdhury - 61, Mohd. Faisal - 30