During this impressionable stage of Neal's exposure to a large bureaucracy, he was alert to lessons about leadership. He was quite taken by the style of a particular branch chief, who was responsive and encouraging to Neal's staff team when they performed well even on small tasks. As an indication of her confidence, she gave the team increased responsibility. Because she was personally secure, Neal found "She was unthreatened by the progress of her followers, realizing that as they grew and improved she was succeeding as a leader." Thus she took "delight in [the] development" of her subordinates. This approach appealed to Neal enough that he sought to incorporate it into his own approach to leadership. By contrast, he later became disillusioned with the department's overall approach to its internal management priorities. As he would later tell an audience at Brigham Young University, 'in one federal department. . . the methodology of filing came out by directive and assumed a preeminence over our primary task. This trend was symbolically accompanied by the domesticating appearance of sweet potato folage on the desk (which was accompanied by my disappearance from that department in search of better tasks).