Upper governmental bureaucrats everywhere live under the imperative of thinking of the contin- ued justification of the activities of their bureaucracies. What are the possible ways of modifying programs and methods? How appealing to whom arethe alternatives? What are the dangers to be avoided? Are the achievements impressive? Is there a firm and possibly growing body of public awareness, satisfaction, and support?These and similar considerations haunt the thoughts of the prudent governmental officer. What he does with these thoughts may depend upon the form of govemment and political system within which the officer works. Council-manager government, by placing the manager directly in public view, accentuates public interest in how this kind of bureaucrat operates as a political leader. Not only is he inevitably in public view.but the range of his operations is broad. and the fate of his community may be determined in part by the public goals his thoughts lead him to set for his government. Recent awareness of the broad roles in policy leadership admitted by some city managers has raised the question as to whether council-manager government is developing now as an accept able political system. In other words, given this bent, is it still a popular govemment or is there a danger that an undemocratic political system is being contrived? It is the view here that the relatively recent willingness of city managers to admit generally that they are community leaders does not retlect a marked change in their role. City managers betted particularly by the International City Managers' Association, have been concerned about the image of themselvespresented to the public.The role ofthe manager has been, after all, in the process of being structured; and the fortunes of the managers and the Association depended upon public acceptance of a described role, The description of the role as it affects policy leadership has varied from time to time and place to place. Looking at three "styles" of city managers as these roles have been described will Ithink, point up the relatively minor nature of the recent changes. One should not think of these styles" as ahistorical series. Although some case might be made for a historical trend, the emphasis here is on the presence of policy initiating elements in all the styles of manager that have been described.