Leadership In Public Services Essay

The first issue of Public Administration Today highlighted the tremendous complexity and diversity of issues public sector leaders must manage today. Are current approaches to leadership development adequate to meet this challenge? Our experience would suggest they are not. In spite of sustained efforts in the 1980s and early 1990s to shift from control of inputs to managing for outputs, there is still much emphasis on cost and efficiency rather than effectiveness of interventions to produce results. More recent attempts to shift the focus of managers from outputs to outcomes are proving even more difficult. We anticipate that a further shift from outcomes to value creation will be needed in the future if the Public Service is to maintain its relevance.
Perhaps the most dramatic contemporary examples of value destruction through inadequate leadership are the continuing disasters in the rail and hospital systems in NSW. Despite repeated public enquires,
Inspiring a sense of purpose and direction, considering multiple perspectives and stakeholders (including “Whole-of Government” and, indeed, the whole of society), and creating sustainable and effective organization-wide systems become key activities.
Whilst experienced leaders can often identify good leadership capabilities in others, this is usually based on distilled experience and gut-feel rather than an explicit model of the type of thinking required for effective senior leadership in the public service. Because this understanding is tacit, it is difficult to identify those who might have the capability to be developed and who might not, and to develop people in whom these skills are nascent. A theory of leadership development is essential for informing these