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| Leaders of the Past |
Today’s leaders of the public sector are facing a number of
challenges which are keeping them from establishing their goals in the friendly
environment they first expected to be working in. However, some of these
challenges are the cause of the people who are being mistaken for leaders.
Other challenges exist due to the fact that the public sector is not yet ready
for leadership.
The public sector needs to improve its services in order to attain
the economic self-sufficiency it needs for more independence in their future
operations. Hence, there is a growing demand for the implementation of the
concept of leadership in the system of ideologies of the public organizations.
Leaders- and not managers- are said to be the only ones who are capable of carrying
out the task of delivering better services to the public. However, the leaders
of the public organizations “are often selected for their technical expertise,
and they lack preparation for leadership” Morse & Buss (2009). The same
public organizations often end up with having managers leading their teams
instead of leaders. That is why, according to Kotter, organizations failed to
create the needed change because they were “trying to manage change instead of
leading it” (cited in Suganya, 2012). Furthermore, according to a research
study aiming to identify the “Best leadership practices in Public sector
organizations in Western Europe”, public organizations are being challenged to
boost their performance and competence, and amend their attitudes towards
leadership.
Leadership expertise and technical expertise are two different
things. However, they are both fundamental in order to create competent and high-performing
public-sector organizations. An effective leader needs to have both. Beside the
technical knowledge that a person receives from formal education, one needs
practice and experience to have what it takes to become a leader. An effective
leader needs to “create positive organizational cultures, strengthen
motivation, clarify mission and organizational objectives, and steer
organizations to more productive and high performing outcomes” (Suganya, 2012).
Thereupon, government leadership concerns about evolving take into account
“creative thinking, collaboration, cross-organizational team building and leading
for results” (Suganya, 2012).
For a leader to accomplish his/her goals and objectives, s/he needs
to be in control of the entourage and environment. The environmental and
cultural structures of the public sector does not often promote for the concept
of leadership. On the contrary, it constrains leaders and prevents them from
developing true and effective leadership and eventually meeting the ultimate
goals of improving the services provided by the public sector. It is a
challenging quest to “cultivate a performance management culture” and to know
how to manage a situation where the environment is “hostile” and
“ever-changing”. It is also necessary to be knowledgeable of and keep oneself
up-to-date with the latest advances in information technology and make use of
the latter in order to keep up with the “increased demands for quality service”
and “sustainable development”. What is even more challenging, especially in
developing countries, is the fact that leaders need to deal with “increased
poverty, low performing employees, corruption and an acute shortage of
financial, material and human resources” (Suganya, 2012). That is why an
effective leader needs to anticipate both the benefits and downsides which the
team will encounter during the execution of a task, project or operation. S/he
needs to cope him/herself with the market demands and global economic shifts
and be ready for all types of sudden events.
The leader of the 21st century is being challenged to
work in a tricky environment, which is the public sector, where the managers
and employees are not yet fully ready to completely embrace the concept of
leadership. In order to reach their goals, leaders are yet to leapfrog a number
of challenges to prove themselves worthy of the title.
References:
Bozeman,
B., & Rainey, H. (2000). Comparing Public and Private Organizations:
Empirical Research and the Power of a Priori. Journal of Public
Administration Research and Theory: J-PART. Vol. 10, No. 2, Tenth
Anniversary Issue, pp. 447-469.
Morse,
Ricardo S. and Terry E. Buss, Eds. Innovations in Public Sector Leadership.
Armonk,
NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2009.
Suganya.
G., (2012). Strategies and Challenges in Quality Leadership in the Public
Sector. International Journal of Business Intelligence. Vol 01, Issue
02. P 57-60.
