Among his responsibilities were scholarly work on the Confucian classics, especially the Four Books, as well as lecturing the emperor in public study sessions.

However, Zhang Siwei's father died within a year, which forced him to enter the traditional 27-month mourning period, during which he had to return to his ancestral home and could not serve in government.

Shen was not the oldest of the Grand Secretaries, but his personality and relatively neutral stance on Zhang Juzheng's crimes made him a good candidate for the post.

However, he could not take sole or even primary responsibility, as the problem could primarily be blamed on the meddling of overzealous, and largely younger, officials willing to martyr themselves for what they saw as a righteous cause.

[2] Shen was generally seen as a successful First Grand Secretary, as he avoided major external conflicts, especially with the Mongols under successors of Altan Khan, and handled internal disasters adeptly, such as flooding of the Yellow River.

Shen was known for being sincere and humble, and applied a "human touch" and "subtle management of personnel" to achieve his aims.