The main role for political leadership seems to center on getting projects started and funded. At the project level, leaders are the people who understand the political dynamics and know how to navigate through the turf obstacles. Some project leaders achieved an important level of credibility from serving in the agency for many years. They were able to maneuver projects through difficulties largely because of their understanding of the agency and its business processes, particularly with the knowledge of existing work practices and the history behind them.

In Indianapolis, the Mayor was the dynamic force behind the creation of e-government services. In New Jersey, the governor declared it a priority to build a Web-based portal for local governments to access state government agencies a priority and created a line in the budget for it. NYS SED decided to use portal technology to comply with the federally mandated reporting process but also took advantage of that situation to add applications that local school districts wanted.