Public Service Leaders as ‘Change Agents’ – for Whom? (original) (raw)

2011, Public Management Review

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sublicensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.

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Public leadership: perspectives and practices

2008

Dewey Number: 303.34 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Cover design by John Butcher Images comprising the cover graphic used by permission of: Victorian Department of Planning and Community Development Australian Associated Press Australian Broadcasting Corporation Scoop Media Group (www.scoop.co.nz) Cover graphic based on M. C. Escher's Hand with Reflecting Sphere, 1935 (Lithograph).

PAD 6439 LEADERSHIP IN PUBLIC SERVICE

Course Description: This course focuses on leadership in public service from both theoretical and practical perspectives. Students will have opportunities to explore their strengths and weaknesses as managerial leaders and to develop competencies in these areas. While students will learn about the major theoretical frameworks, they will focus on an applied action research model that is useful in analyzing and developing oneself and others for public service in public and nonprofit organizations. The main goals of this course are (1) to help students deepen their appreciation of the importance of public service leadership in our democratic scheme of governance; (2) to enhance their ability to think analytically about prospects and challenges of leadership in public service; and (3) to enhance their ability to make good arguments concerning how public service leadership issues might be addressed. By the end of this course (combined with their own experience and skills), students will be able to recognize and define public service leadership issues at all levels of government, to offer insightful analysis of public governance issues that they encounter in practice, and to ask critical questions, offer good suggestions, and make sound arguments concerning how such issues might be addressed or solved. The focus is not so much on the material as it is on you—your personal vision or model of leadership and the development of competencies to help you become a better leader of self, groups or teams you might work with, organizations, and also within boundary-crossing or community contexts. This course emphasizes experiential learning, meaning you will be asked to look for ways to apply what you have learned in your real life, outside the classroom, and reflect on what experience teaches you. You will also have the opportunity to work with colleagues in a team project to try out ideas and practices from the readings. It may sound cliché, but it is very true that what you get out of this course will be a direct reflection of what you choose to put into it.

Leadership through change: a public sector perspective

The research study reported in this management project examines the issues of leadership through change in the UK local authority public sector. Using the work of Senge as a guide and as an action research project, my objective was to facilitate successful positive change in the service in which I practice as a leader and manager. Consideration was given to how I could improve my work as a leader to become what Senge describes as a leader who steps ahead, who has the ‘courage, capability, and credibility to inspire change at many levels’ (Senge & Kaufer 2000:1). The project tracks and examines that process over a three year period. A major conclusion of the project is that Senge’s work appears to have provided a useful perspective to enable examination of past events and current reality. The project also appears to support Senge’s view that leaders have a significant role in sustaining change by helping to create energy through vision and passion and in managing the forces that limi...

Public sector leadership: new perspectives for research and practice

International Review of Administrative Sciences, 2013

In this article, we aim to portray the state of the art in public sector leadership in order to recommend directions for research and training practice. To this end, we review the scattered strands of literature on public sector leadership (PSL) and classify them in a single framework. The results of the study suggest that public sector leadership is emerging as a distinctive and autonomous domain in public administration/public management studies, although the debate is still underdeveloped compared to business administration studies. Leadership skills truly do matter in improving the performance of public sector organizations, and it is highly likely that the optimum leadership style is an integrated one: Public sector leaders should behave mainly as transformational leaders, moderately leveraging transactional relationships with their followers and heavily leveraging the importance of preserving integrity and ethics in the fulfillment of tasks.

The New Public Service: Serving Rather than Steering

Public Administration Review, 2000

The New Public Management has championed a vision of public managers as the entrepreneurs of a new, leaner, and increasingly privatized government, emulating not only the practices but also the values of business. Proponents of the New Public Management have developed their arguments largely through contrasts with the old public administration. In this comparison, the New Public Management will, of course, always win. We argue here that the better contrast is with what we call the "New Public Service," a movement built on work in democratic citizenship, community and civil society, and organizational humanism and discourse theory. We suggest seven principles of the New Public Service, most notably that the primary role of the public servant is to help citizens articulate and meet their shared interests rather than to attempt to control or steer society.

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