1 Administrative Leadership in the Context of Governance Paper for the XVI Annual Conference of the International Research Society for Public Management Panel on Leadership in the public sector: back to the future? Rome, Italy 11-13/04/2012 Prof. Dr. Montgomery VAN WART California State University San Bernardino - Department of Public Administration [email protected]Prof. Dr. Annie HONDEGHEM KU Leuven - Public Management Institute [email protected]Prof. Dr. Geert BOUCKAERT KU Leuven - Public Management Institute [email protected]Silke RUEBENS KU Leuven - Public Management Institute [email protected]
27
Embed
Administrative Leadership in the Context of Governance · administrative leadership with the formal and hierarchical functions, adaptive leadership which is meant to facilitate change
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Transcript
1
Administrative Leadership in the Context of Governance
Paper for the XVI Annual Conference of the International Research Society for Public
Management Panel on Leadership in the public sector: back to the future?
Rome, Italy
11-13/04/2012
Prof. Dr. Montgomery VAN WART
California State University San Bernardino - Department of Public Administration
The position of the classical bureaucrat is based on authority but his main prerogative is to follow the
rules and procedures effectively as required (Van Dorpe, Randour, Hondeghem, & de Visscher, 2011).
The bureaucrat has a neutral role to play and will only do what he is instructed to do. They are
limited in their actions by the rules that are set out by elected officials and their political appointees
(Selden, Brewer, & Brudney, 1999).
The stewards of the public interest put the public interest above all (Selden, Brewer, & Brudney,
1999). These leaders see themselves as the guardians of public goods and value. While they establish
democratic accountability by following the law, they are highly concerned with all citizens, including
disadvantaged groups. That gives this role a more diversity-oriented perspective (Fernandez, Cho, &
Perry, 2010). While all roles properly implemented promote ethical practices, the role of steward
embraces the most complex notion of ethics as multi-dimensional that balances and has respect for
the legal, managerial, and societal functions that administrators must fulfill.
The manager has authority based on his position within the organization. He tries to maximize the
efficiency of the organization. He is responsible for directing, coordinating, and controlling. He is
mainly task-oriented because he is primarily concerned with the activities of his subordinates and the
goals of the organization. He sets out clear agreements about results, resources, and responsibilities
(Steen & Van der Meer, 2009; Van Dorpe, Randour, Hondeghem, & de Visscher, 2011; Selden,
Brewer, & Brudney, 1999). Managers use strategy in a planning capacity.
Administrators acting as entrepreneurs are change agents within organizational contexts. They seek
to minimize rules and maximize outcomes, so there is often a preference for market mechanisms,
performance indicators, and an achievement oriented style. Entrepreneurs use strategy as a means
of competition. Entrepreneurs are also responsible for creating or identifying new ideas as well as
championing and implementing them.
The role of the leader is mostly focused on people rather than on the task. Internally, the important
needs of coaching, motivating and developing are emphasized (Van Dorpe, Randour, Hondeghem, &
de Visscher, 2011). It is the internal part of relations-oriented management that focuses on a
supportive leadership style (Fernandez, Cho, & Perry, 2010). People oriented behaviors are critical for
leaders, such as consulting, team-building, and conflict resolution. Leaders understand that the work
of the organization is done by subordinates who are a critical resource for the success of the agency
and must be nurtured as much as possible. Externally, the role of leader is about good relations with
outside groups and cooperative partnerships. This leads to a collaborative style.
The main characteristic of the professional is his/her autonomy and externally-based legitimacy
based on education, expertise, and strongly-instilled disciplinary high standards. They tend to be as
connected to their peer group as to their organizations. Professionals tend to be identified by a
systematic body of knowledge, a professional culture, restrictions on the use of their title, a self-
imposed code of ethics, and substantial authority over clients (Van Wart 1998). Because of their
professional autonomy they also have an important role to play as policy advisor (Steen & Van der
Meer, 2009; Van Dorpe, Randour, Hondeghem, & de Visscher, 2011). This is common for senior
administrators who may be assisting either politically appointed executives or elected officials
themselves. In this role the administrator recommends ideas for policy stemming from fixing
systemic problems or utilizing best-practices knowledge. The administrator also drafts language for
9
rules and laws, promotes policy discussions where empowered to do so on behalf of elected officials,
and crafts implementation guidelines and rules when policies are adopted.
The utility of roles is their broad applicability and for overarching discussions; on the other hand,
roles are still at a relatively high level of abstraction. The next conceptual framework, competencies,
provides a more detailed perspective on leadership actions that can be used in pragmatic and applied
contexts, and for detailed scholarly analysis.
COMPETENCIES. The finite aspects of leadership are normally called competencies (Winter 1979;
Boyatzis 1982; Quinn et al. 1996; U.S. OPM 1999; Hollenbeck, McCall, and Silzer 2006). Leadership
involves, among other things, a series of characteristics (traits and skills) which the leader brings to a
leadership setting, and a wide variety of behavioral competencies (Van Wart 2004). As study after
study has indicated, standard management in which systems changes are minimal still requires a
tremendous repertoire of skills, typically ranging from ingrained personal attributes to behaviors that
contribute to the effectiveness of task, people, and organizational functions (Katz 1955; Bass 2008).
Managing change dramatically compounds these requirements (Kanter 1983; Kanter, Stein, and Jick
1992; Van Wart and Berman 1999). Being sensitive to ideas, norms, and preferences outside the
organization further complicates leadership. For our discussion, we can define administrators as
those bureaucrats, stewards, managers, entrepreneurs, leaders, and professionals who work in
government settings. Having to fulfill these roles sets up a daunting task for leaders because of the
variety of challenges faced over relatively short periods of time. Thus, while leaders do not need all
significant competencies all of the time, it is amazing how many they do need on occasion, and how
important even rarely used competencies can be in specific situations. The study of major leadership
competencies, then, provides not only a useful tool in translating different situational needs (e.g.,
hierarchical, market, and network), but acts as a developmental tool given the inevitable need for
nearly all competencies over time. Here the Leadership Action Cycle (see Table 3) is used to identify
the traditional leader competencies, in terms of traits, skills and styles, as well as three types of
leader behaviors (Van Wart, 2012)
10
Tabel 3: The General Management and Leadership Competencies Associated with Administrative Activities (Leadership Action Cycle) (Van Wart, 2012, p.166)
11
The elements of the leadership action cycle reviewed here are three: leader characteristics, leader
behaviors, and leader styles. Leaders come to various situations in different stages of readiness.
Leader characteristics are a large part of that readiness. While no absolute set of characteristics is
necessary in all leadership situations, certain traits and skills tend to be significantly more important
than others. Traits are those characteristics that are primarily inherent and become a part of one’s
personality, while skills are characteristics that are primarily learned. This is not to say that traits
cannot be enhanced, especially through training and/or indoctrination; nor is it to say that some
people do not have a natural gift for some skills. For example, some leaders tend to be perceived as
self-confident and this tends to be an innate personality characteristic; nonetheless, those with
excellent technical training and substantial experience become far more self-confident. The traits
that are commonly held to be most useful to leaders in a variety of situations include: self-
confidence, decisiveness, resilience, energy, need for achievement, willingness to assume
responsibility, flexibility, service motivation, personal integrity, and emotional maturity. Skills that
researchers have found are of the highest utility for leaders are communication skills, social skills,
influence and negation skills, analytic skills, technical skills, and the skill of continual learning.
Leaders act. These actions or behaviors can be thought of as occurring in three domains. First,
leaders have tasks to accomplish. Their organization, division, or unit has work that it must produce,
no matter whether that is an actual physical product or a relatively nebulous service. Some of the
standard tasks of leaders include: monitoring and assessing work, operations planning, clarifying
roles, informing, delegating, problem solving, and managing innovation. Second, leaders have
followers and it is the followers who actually accomplish the mission of the organization. Thus, good
leaders never lose sight of the fact that they accomplish their goals through and, as importantly, with
others. Common people-oriented behaviors include consulting, organizing personnel, developing
staff, motivating, managing teams and team building, managing personnel conflicts, and managing
personnel change. Finally, leaders are expected to know more than how to design and coordinate
work processes; they are expected to know how the product of these efforts will integrate and
compare with other organizations and external entities. If production and people constitute the
mission of leadership, then organizational alignment and adaptability constitute the vision of
leadership. Today more than ever, good leaders must not only be competent in their profession and
skillful with people, they must have well-articulated visions that are compelling to a wide variety of
constituencies. Commonly accepted organizational behaviors include scanning the environment,
strategic planning, articulating the mission and vision, networking, performing general management
functions, decision making, and managing organizational change.
Leaders also bring a set of leadership “styles” to situations. A style can be thought of as the
dominant pattern of behavior for a leader in a particular position. Rather than referring to all aspects
of leadership, style normally refers to a pattern of behaviors to deal with followers and the external
environment in different situations. Like leadership characteristics, styles are antecedent to
leadership in that they are prior aspects of the leader’s repertoire and to some degree are an explicit
method of accomplishing specific goals. Yet styles, like leadership characteristics, are expressed
through specific actions that leaders take in doing their jobs. Some leaders have only a few styles in
their repertoire, while others have many that they can use in various situations. Of course, just
because one uses a particular style does not mean that the leader uses the style effectively or in the
correct situations. Common mid-level style patterns identified by researchers include laissez-faire,
The challenge of faster individual and organizational learning: Policy needs to be increasingly
knowledge-based due to our knowledge-intensive economy (OECD, 2001). Increasing data and
information today implies that leaders must have the ability to digest and utilize it quickly (Allen,
Stelzner, & Wielkiewicz, 1999). Further, organizations must also be able to learn effectively,
especially in crises, by consciously creating and utilizing knowledge, and ensuring a learning culture
(Ingraham and van Slyke 2006). Leadership becomes more demanding as leaders must master more,
if not all, competencies (Van Wart and Berman 1999).
16
Faster individual and organizational learning necessary requires individuals who exhibit flexibility,
influencing and negotiating skills, analytic skills for problem solving, evolving technical skills, and a
knack for continual learning. Behaviors such as developing staff, motivating, managing personnel
change, and performing general management functions are important to advance this trend (Trottier,
Van Wart and Wang 2008).
What Impact Do These Shifts Have on the Competencies and Roles of Administrative Leaders?
Not all global trends will affect all countries equally, and in some cases there may be minor counter
trends (especially in the area of finances). Yet to the degree that the seven global trends affect the
administrative cultures and leaders themselves, we think the above trends will be predictive in terms
of roles and competency profiles of leaders.
Table 4: The impact of the seven shifts on Leadership roles and competencies
Shifts Impact on Leadership Roles Impact on Leadership competencies
Fiscal stress In times of fiscal stress the role of the entrepreneur becomes more important because of the increased need for internal efficiency through innovative solutions. But the entrepreneur cannot achieve this on his own. Therefore the role of the leader becomes necessary to inspire and motivate others to gather their strengths and take responsibility for the innovative solutions needed. To ensure the productivity of these solutions a manager role is also needed.
The competencies that are needed in this kind of situation are first of all organizational behaviors like scanning the environment, strategic planning and decision making. But innovative and productive solutions also need task-oriented behaviors such as monitoring and assessing work, managing innovation and creativity, problem solving, operations planning, clarifying roles, informing and delegating. This means that leaders need to adopt directive, inspirational, achievement-oriented, strategic, and collaborative styles. Finally they will need certain traits like resilience, energy, willingness to assume responsibility and analytical skills
Internationalization Internationalization increases the need for network leadership that can cope with the challenges of the environment. The professional can use his expertise to adjust the organization to these new needs. But again innovation is an important strategy to cope with external demands. Therefore the role of the entrepreneur is also important here.
Competencies that are needed to cope with internationalization are mostly organizational behaviors like scanning the environment, strategic planning, articulating the mission and vision, networking and partnering, performing general management functions, decision making and managing organizational change.
Cultural cohesion Coping with diversity without neglecting disadvantaged groups is an important aspect of the steward role. Another role that is necessary when facing this challenge is that of the leader to steer organizations where different cultures are brought
This shift has an important impact on people-oriented behaviors like consulting, planning and organizing personnel, managing teams and team building and managing personnel conflict. This means they need to adopt a participative and
17
together. collaborative style and therefor need social skills. An important trait for leaders facing this challenge is flexibility to cope with the hybrid cultures.
Lack of public trust High levels of cynicism can only be counteracted by a great amount of personal integrity as displayed by the professional. The role of the steward can also contribute to establishing renewed trust in the democratic accountability of administrative leaders.
Competencies these leaders need are organizational and task-oriented behaviors like articulating the mission and vision, networking and partnering but most of all the ability to inform. To ensure the trust of the public, they need to be able to communicate and have the necessary social skills as well as certain traits like service motivation, personal integrity and emotional maturity
Speed of change Managing change on the organizational level as well as on the personal level can be accomplished by the role of the leader and that of the entrepreneur.
People-oriented and organizational behaviors like managing personnel change and organizational change are the most important competencies needed when facing this challenges. The competencies need to be strengthened task-oriented behaviors such as managing innovation and creativity and problem solving. Traits that are needed here are decisiveness, flexibility and continual learning. While demonstrating a supportive and delegative style.
Rapid mission evolution and policy coherence
To avoid fragmentation a more collaborative governance is needed and therefore network leadership needs to be stressed here. Leaders have the strength to inspire people to follow the mission that has been set out. The professional can use his integrity in times of confusion to steer the organization in the right direction.
This challenge impacts mainly organizational behaviors such as scanning the environment, strategic planning, articulating the mission and vision, networking and partnering, decision making and managing organizational change. The styles needed here are collaborative, participative, inspirational and strategic. The integrity of the professional is shown through self-confidence, personal integrity and emotional maturity
Faster individual and organizational learning
A knowledge-based society needs an administrative leader with a professional role that can create and utilize knowledge by learning. To inspire others to learn the role of the leader is needed.
First of all people-oriented behaviors like developing staff, motivating and managing personnel change are needed. Therefore they need to be flexible and have analytical and technical skills, the ability to influence and negotiate and continual learning. This occurs while still performing general management functions.
18
Variations in Governance Models among Countries
Leaders have different challenges, and therefore need different competencies because they have
experienced different levels of success in the past. They also face different challenges in the future,
even if global trends provide a good deal of similarity among clusters of countries. It is important to
understand why there will be significant variations. Knowing global trends is not enough to
recommend the types of leaders countries will need in the future with sufficient specificity. We also
need to look at the historical challenges that countries have inherited but not resolved. But even that
is not enough because there is also needs to be a great sensitivity to a country’s social and cultural
traditions. To make detailed and nuanced recommendations, all of these factors must be considered
and integrated. The next section reiterates these three factors in more detail. In the final section we
make five general recommendations for arriving at nuanced country-level leadership profiles.
Given Worldwide Trends But also Regional and Local Pasts, Needs, and Preferences,
How Can We Provide Better Recommendations for the Administrative Leaders of the Future?
Leadership Profiles for the Future Depend on Three Factors
First, countries must be appreciative of what they have done well and what has failed in terms of
historical implementation, no matter what the model. All countries use hierarchical, market, and
network elements in their governance structure. Shifting the blend of these models but ignoring past
performance may aggravate problems rather than fix them. For example, if administrative corruption
was a problem under a strong hierarchical system, then it is likely that a shift to a model with more
market and network elements, without fixing the problems in the hierarchical system, will result in
contamination of the market and network elements. Indeed, market and network systems are more
susceptible to corruption, so countries not addressing this problem head-on in a “traditional” system
are likely only to see the problem become more rife. Ultimately, while changing systems is not only
about fixing the past but moving to the future, it is dangerous to think that the problem is necessarily
the form of governance. Indeed, changing the form of governance may simply lead to an expansion
of problems.
Second, countries must be aware of global patterns and how they fit into them. Nearly all countries
will want to bow to global trends to some degree, but the patterns among northern continental
Europe, southern Europe, the advanced U.S.-Westminister countries, east Asian countries, China and
India respectively will not be identical. Almost all countries will want to follow global governance
trends because they are affected by the seven trends identified: fiscal stress, internationalization,
cultural cohesion, lack of public trust, speed of change, rapid mission evolution and policy coherence,
and the challenge of faster individual and organizational learning. Yet each of these trends plays out
differently in various country clusters. Fiscal stress in the U.S., British and southern European
contexts is playing out as a quantity of services debate, as a quality of services debate in northern
Europe, and yet is not a significant factor in the Chinese context at this time because of the continued
growth of their economy. Lack of public trust in public administration, as opposed to the partisan
political system, is relatively modest in the American, British, and northern European contexts, when
compared to the staggering problem in the southern European and Chinese contexts. For example,
the Tea Party and Occupy protests are largely about governance models and the political priorities in
the U.S. context; they have relatively little to do with public administration per se. However, the
19
90,000 protests that occur in China each year are largely aimed at administrative problems due to
local government corruption, not governance issues. That is to say, the protests are not so much
about the move from a command economy to a market economy which has been transforming the
country for the last quarter century, but rather quality of implementation problems which have
disenfranchised millions of peasants as their shared and informal property rights have been
abrogated by local administrative leaders.
Third, countries have to pay attention to the cultural preferences that have paved their past and must
be integrated into their futures. The Anglophone countries (e.g., Great Britain, the U.S. Australia,
New Zealand, South Africa, Canada, etc.) have a strong penchant for individualism economically,
expansive contractualism legally, and minimalism governmentally. Relatively speaking, northern
Europeans have a much stronger penchant for egalitarianism economically, minimal contractualism
legally, and moderate governmental corporatism. To ignore these long-term cultural and sociological
preferences would be foolish.
In sum, the governance and intertwined leadership patterns of countries will be affected by historical
issues, global trends and cultural preferences.
Achieving Nuanced Country Profiles for Administrative Leadership Will Require Moving from Ad Hoc
Management to Competency Management up to Talent Management
Overall Assessment of the Administrative Context: Countries wanting to have administrative
leadership profiles for recruiting, hiring, promoting and training will need to be conscious of the
context, and not simply accept global and regional trends, or consultants’ advice. First, what is the
current governance framework? That is, what is the balance of the three different models? How well
have the various models worked in the past, and to what degree do there need to be reforms to
improve the implementation of these models. What are the ramifications of this framework, and the
improvements in it, for leadership in terms of the competencies emphasized? Second, what are the
global and regional pressures that are affecting governance frameworks and therefore an evolving
administrative leadership profile? Third, what are the cultural and social factors that will continue to
have strong shaping influences on the governance framework, and thus administrative leadership
profile (Van Wart 1995).
Clear Sense of the Public’s Interests and How This Will Require Administrative Change (Mission
Alignment): From an overall assessment, country experts, leaders and human resource professionals
need to make determinations about what the public’s interest is. By integrating (a) historic trends
and issues, (b) contemporary environmental trends, and (c) ongoing cultural preferences, what
improvements in the administrative leadership models need to occur, and what will changes in the
overall governance framework have on administrative leadership profiles (Van Wart 1998)?
Strategic Plan: Once an overall sense of the new governance framework and administrative profile
have been conceived in global terms, a strategic plan to decide how to get there must be planned.
Such a plan will have an administrative base in terms of discussing the new leadership profile, but
may also have legislative elements as well. Just as importantly as the elements of the plan are a
realistic sense of timing, which should be sensitive to both sequencing of steps for change, and not
overly ambitious given the level of resources and support.
20
Competency Management as an HR Function: While the strategic plan should spell out the new
overall leadership profile, it will not normally provide the level of detail necessary to make concrete
adjustments to ensure change. The types of leaders needed given the new governance paradigm and
new administrative profile will need to be converted into concrete role and competency emphases
(Van Wart 1993).
Talent Management as a Strategic and Learning Organization Function: Knowing the new
administrative leadership profile is likely to provide competency management, but not necessarily
talent management. Competency management is an organizational perspective that ensures
articulation of the skills, abilities and styles preferred. Talent management integrates the needs of
the organization (competency management) and individuals (management of people through
motivation, development, coaching, etc.). Organizations with good talent management decide how
to groom leaders through recruitment (perhaps changing the interview process, seeking high
potential interns, or instituting lateral hiring at senior levels), training (such as more training or more
management training and less emphasis on law), incentives (e.g., changes in performance rewards
and disincentives), and organizational structures (for example, cutting outdated units, redeploying
human resources, and enhancing management audit for assistance).
Conclusion In this paper a framework was used that integrates three models of governance: hierarchical, market,
and network governance. These models help us to determine the roles and competencies of
administrative leaders that are needed in the future. Although understanding global trends is useful
in determining future leadership profiles that are appropriate for countries, it is hardly sufficient.
Countries have specific histories that must be understood and reckoned with, so that problems do
not simply resurface in new ways of doing business. Countries must be sure to customize their
governance framework and administrative leadership profiles with a keen eye to cultural
preferences. To provide a nuanced administrative leadership profile, one must start with a clear
assessment of the current and desired governance framework. Strategic planning is required to
ensure that a broad plan of attack with appropriate timing is clearly articulated. Finally, this plan
must be supported by detailed role and competency analyses that not only take into account
organizational needs, but realistically include the interests of employees thus assuring their buy-in
and cooperation no matter how challenging the change agenda may be.
K.U.Leuven –Instituut voor de Overheid – Public Management Institute Parkstraat 45 bus 3609 - B-3000 Leuven - Belgium