Leadership In Public Administration and Management (Part II)

 By: Ter Manyang Gatwech,

Oct 12, 2015 (Nyamilepedia)–– Leadership is the act of controlling , guiding or directing a group of people, society or an organization. It may also refers to the use of power and authority to fulfill the objectives of the group or a community and therefore, leadership get some types these include, Democratic leadership, Authoritative leadership, Authoritarian leadership, Charismatic leadership, Paternalistic leadership, leissez faire leadership, Pragmatic leadership and Sage leadership. Hon: Ter Manyang Gatwech should ask the question; which kind of leadership we have now in Juba, South Sudan. Is it both Gen: President Salva Kiir Mayardit and Dr. Riek Machar Teny practice any above mentioned? My profession, am Public Administrator, our work is to implement the government policies.

“The difference between a good administrator and a bad one is about five heartbeats. Good administrators make immediate choices. […] They usually can be made to work. A bad administrator, on the other hand, hesitates, diddles around, and asks for committees, for research and reports. Eventually, he acts in ways, which create serious problems. […]

“A bad administrator is more concerned with reports than with decisions. He wants the hard record, which he can display as an excuse for his errors. […] Oh, they depend on verbal orders. They never lie about what they have done if their verbal orders cause problems, and they surround themselves with people able to act wisely because of verbal orders. Often, the most important piece of information is that something has gone wrong. Bad administrators hide their mistakes until it’s too late to make corrections.”

Public administration often fails to establish good contacts with citizens, either due to a low degree of its professionalism and impartiality, or to its attitude towards citizens. According to the survey, the mistrust of citizens in relation to the Government and ministries mostly prevails, and in some cases, the disproportion is enormous.

Public administration and the whole public sector are going through a radical change of their position in relation to economy while the elimination of ineffective and bureaucratically burdensome methods of direct interventions in the economic sphere from the totalitarian era does not mean any liquidation of the economic regulatory function of the State and the related tasks of public administration. We assume that the functions and tasks of public administration can and must be derived from identified and recognized public interests since securing them is the reason of its very existence.

The way in which general or public interests are accepted and satisfied is a cross-section of historical traditions, the concrete development stage of the respective society, the existing institutional framework of public administration as well as the enforced political emphasis.

The orientation of public administration towards securing public interests can be understood as its direction towards the solution of concrete problems of individual citizens and population groups and towards securing the functioning of the society as a whole. In this respect, public administration is interconnected with public policy, the aim of which is to identify, express and recognize public interests and to choose adequate means of satisfying them. Of course, the process of identifying, recognizing and satisfying public interests is always influenced by politically and ideologically affected interpretation.

In the Czech Republic, the public administration reform has been neglected after November 1989 also because politicians cast doubt on the very existence, extent and importance of public interests and they got, as an understandable reaction to the totalitarian nature of the communist state, oriented towards creating maximum space for satisfying individual interests. Leadership in Government: The subject of leadership in government is not fully understood despite the fact that it is often mentioned as a critical element that accounts for government’s success or failure.

Serious reflection about leadership and its relationship to performance is less common. Almost all commentators on the subject of leadership mention that effective leaders have a vision and share that vision with members of the organization. A vision is not something precise. Rather, it provides the person who assumes a top-level position with the opportunity to share his or her ideas about what the organization should become, what it should do, how it should perform, and, perhaps most important, what the role and responsibilities of members of the organization should be.

A vision is abstract; it is broader than goals and it is more expensive than a mission statement. Management and leadership are often used interchangeably, but there are important differences between them. High-performance organizations have both strong management systems and effective leadership. We all know what the essential management functions are.

They include: -planning and budgeting -organization and staffing, -controlling and problem solving. These are the traditional and essential functions found in all large organizations. These functions provide the foundation of higher education university degrees in business and public administration as well as short- term training programmmes. We constantly try to improve human resources methods and financial practices in organizations.

High-performance organization processes certainly need effective management processes to produce positive results-but they are not sufficient to guarantee long-term success. Tatsuo Oyama’s article, “Education and Training Japanese Government Officials: Current Trends and Policy Study Aspects”, surveys the education and in- service training of Japanese civil servants.

His conclusions are telling and they point out the knowledge gaps of current civil servants. However, in reading between the lines, one can find a substantial shortcoming in the lack of attention to leadership qualities, clearly missing from the formal and informal curriculum. Here is a short list of those qualities: -Establish direction.

This refers to the importance of vision-providing members of the organization with a sense of what the organization is, and what it might be. Vision creates the sitting for the members of the organization to see how their performance fits into the “big picture” -Align people by creating an environment of cooperation in the organization. It is soften said that much of what is done in organization is done groups. Leadership includes the facilitations of teamwork by creating the appropriate atmosphere. -Motivate and inspire members of the organization.

While effective managers produce stability in organizations and therefore important for the survivals and maintenance of organizations, leaders who have the qualities listed above are capable of producing positive changes.

These changes may be new services, improved services, and, more broadly, even new mission. In conclusion, when management is strong but leadership is lacking, short-term positive results are likely to occur, but significant organizational changes will not take place.

When management and leadership are both strong, the organization is likely to be successful in undergoing large-scale change. The last combination is not only desirable but also achievable. It is the task of public administration educators to make this point to the next generation of public servants.

The Truth Must Be Told………………………………………..

The author is  pursuing his Masters of Public Administration and Management at Cavendish University Uganda and reached me via- termanyang24@gamil.com or twitter, @Ter-Manyang. By 2020, Mr. Ter is plans to enroll in PhD in Public Administration and Leadership