RETHINKING LEADERSHIP
FOR THE PUBLIC SECTOR
Leadership is a topic attracting mixed reactions in the Australian context,
and in the public sector in particular. At one level, there is recognition of
the need for leadership if public sector organisations are to be better able to
respond to the changing expectations of political and community stakeholders
(Mellors 1996; Barrett 1997). Yet one also senses an ambivalence surrounding
leadership, sometimes expressed through questions such as: Is it leadership
that we need or better management? Doesn't a focus on leadership imply an
uncritical acceptance of corporate models? Isn't there a danger of maverick
leaders hijacking or distorting government agendas? Staff might ask, won't an
emphasis on leadership reinforce the power of existing elites?
This paper contends that, to deal effectively with the more difficult
and contentious issues they face, public sector organisations do require
leadership, but of a type somewhat different from conventional models. Referred
to here as learning-centred leadership, the approach involves fostering the
conditions under which people, working together, are better able to create new
visions, productively deal with underlying issues, generate fresh insights and
change work place cultures.
Learning is seen not as an end in itself but in terms of building the
capability of organisations, groups and individuals for effective action.
The development
of such capability requires a reassessment of the meaning of leadership. This
has two aspects. First, there is a need to examine the relationship between
leadership and management. Contrary to the conventional wisdom in Australia,
this paper takes the view that leadership and management are different and this
is a difference of consequence. It is suggested that in this country there has
been a tendency to view leadership through a management lens, with public
sector organisations tending to over emphasise management at the expense of
leadership. One impact is a disproportionate focus on operational aspects and
crisis management as distinct from building capability to be effective tomorrow
(AbeII 1999).
The second aspect
of reappraising leadership is to consider the values and assumptions underlying
leadership practices and development programs (Heifetz 1994). Leadership can
mean many different things, and unless underlying meanings are made transparent
there is a potential that leadership development efforts may be only
partially effective or even counter productive.
The paper reviews established concepts of transformational leadership
and distinguishes learning-centred leadership from charismatic approaches to
transformation. Learning-centred leadership is proposed as a frame through
which leadership can be viewed, rather than as a specific program or
methodology. The approach, in a public sector context, is concerned with
increasing the capacity of organisations to implement the priorities of
government effectively, achieve cultural change and deal productively with
difficult and emerging issues.
Implications for leadership practice and development are discussed, with
a focus as much on organisational as individual development. Three key areas
are proposed for attention by individual agencies: the development of an
infrastructure to support collaborative leadership, clarification of supportive
organisational values, and the development of skills, particularly in
conversing productively about difficult issues. It is recognised, though, that
the development of leadership capability, no matter which approach is followed,
is problematic.
The Need for Leadership
It is difficult to discuss the need for leadership before exploring the
meaning of the term, so for the moment the reader is asked to accept the
proposition that leadership is concerned with deep-reaching change,
particularly when shifts in underlying assumptions and beliefs are required. As
Behn (1998) points out, without leadership by managers, public sector
organisations would be unable to achieve what governments require of them. He
points to factors underscoring a need for leadership including the possibility
of ambiguous or unclear directions from government, the danger of capture of
agencies and programs by sectional interests and the need to deal with
organisational dysfunction, such as when parts of an organisation are pursuing
conflicting agendas.
While the need for leadership at top management levels in establishing
policy and directions might be accepted, subsequent implementation is often
seen as a relatively technical, linear matter - more a question of effective
management than leadership. However, as Beer and Eisenstat (2000) suggest,
implementation efforts frequently go awry, and for reasons which could be
avoided. They identify six sources of
implementation error: top-down or laissez-faire senior management style,
unclear strategy and conflicting priorities, an ineffective senior management team,
poor vertical communication, poor cross functional coordination and inadequate
down-the-line leadership skills and development. Later in this paper it will be
suggested that creating the conditions under which these sorts of problems are
less likely is itself a leadership challenge.
Many of the problems that government organisations - and governments -
face are messy and ill defined with different possible interpretations and
pathways for action. The terms 'wicked problems' (Harmon and Mayer 1986:11) and
'adaptive problems' (Heifetz 1994:8) have been used to describe such problems,
the main characteristic of which is that there is no technically correct answer
waiting to be found. Contemporary examples include balancing the needs of
salinity management and farmers, reconciling development and heritage values in
urban areas and dealing with youth homelessness. Part of the leadership
challenge in working with such issues is to harness and integrate the knowledge
and expertise of diverse people and groups, to make explicit and scrutinise
underlying assumptions and to build common ground and momentum for change.
Without leadership, the likely outcomes are reactive decision-making and
unsatisfactory compromises that leave the deeper issues largely unchecked.
Achieving cultural change is another leadership challenge facing public
sector managers. One example is the need in the health services to create a
more open culture in relation to acknowledging and dealing with clinical errors
and to gain greater involvement of clinicians in quality improvement efforts
(Leap 1994; Wilson et at. 1995). In relation to place management
initiatives, Walsh (2001) observed: 'improving responses to local communities
will require attention to issues of culture and relationships and an end to
compartmentalised mentalities and behaviour in the public service at all
levels'. Cultural change is always difficult, particularly in cases like those
described where behaviour is based on deep beliefs and assumptions that may
have been shaped over decades, if not generations. There are many intricacies
for leadership in culture change, including dealing with strongly held emotions, encouraging
people to question what has been taken as given and not least the fact that
change leaders may be steeped in the same culture themselves (Schein 1992).
While one is wary of over simplifying highly complex issues, it is difficult to
see how such changes could come about in the absence of positive leadership.
Organisations may
state that they are already focusing attention on leadership and its
development, and no doubt in various ways they are, perhaps with great success
in some cases. The intention here is not to diminish these efforts or to
suggest that present approaches are 'wrong'. Rather the aim is to encourage
reflection on the values and assumptions underpinning those approaches and to
open up possibilities for enhancing what is presently being done. One area
where some reappraisal could be useful is in the relationship between
leadership and management.
Leadership and
Management - A Question of Competencies?
Most, if not all,
Australian jurisdictions have developed competency frameworks for their senior
executives (Morley and Vilkinas 1997). While their approaches vary somewhat,
these frameworks generally share an implicit assumption that leadership and
management at senior levels are much the same thing, or at least cannot
usefully or meaningfully be distinguished. Perhaps the most authoritative
support for this view comes from Enterprising Nation, report of the
Industry Task Force on Leadership and Management Skills, better known as the
Karpin Report (Industry Task Force 1995). Drawing on the findings of specially
commissioned research (Craig and Yetton 1995), the task force took the view
that, rather than trying to distinguish between leadership and management, 'the
more pertinent questions centre around the broad areas of competence that
managers in the new structures require' (Industry Task Force 1995:135).
In their research
report for the task force, Craig and Yetton noted (1995:1185) that thousands of
leadership studies had failed to discern any traits, behaviours or qualities
that could be reliably used to set leaders apart from others and to form the
basis of leadership selection and development. They further concluded
(1995:1213) that 'since the search for the leadership panacea has failed
everywhere else, it seems a bit pointless to try and find or develop
specifically Australian leaders ... However, there is a whole range of theories
and techniques that have been shown to improve organisational performance.
These all deal with managerial competencies'.
While management
competency frameworks have their value, for example in providing a structure to
guide processes such as selection or 360-degree feedback, one would be wary of
relying too heavily on them. Ultimately, any framework reflects the biases and
assumptions of its creators. A review of the various SES frame works in terms
of their underpinning - and perhaps implicit theories - of leadership could be
a useful research project.
In the writer's
view, Craig and Yetton and - by extension the Industry Task Force - have erred
in conceptualising leadership as being primarily a matter of the
characteristics and behaviours of individual 'leaders'. They correctly
recognised that there is more to organisational effectiveness than focusing on
the potential and actions of high calibre individuals, and this apparently led
them to play down the contribution of leadership. Perhaps for this reason, the
Task Force on Leadership and Management Skills focused mainly on management
(Sheldrake 1997).
A more useful
approach may be to conceptualise leadership, not in terms of the attributes of
individuals, but as a mode or action quite distinct from management, as
advocated by Harvard professor John Kotter (1990). Kotter argued that
leadership and management, are two sides of a coin; leadership being about
coping with change while management is about ensuring stability and continuity.
Kotter saw both leadership and management as necessary with organisations
needing to find and maintain a suitable balance between the two modes.
Organisations need to develop leader-managers with capability in both domains,
while recognising that some individuals will have preferences for management
and others for leadership. Similar
distinctions between leadership and management have been made by other authors
including Bennis and Nanus (1985:217-18)
Before developing
the contention that the distinction between leadership and management is one of
consequence for the public sector, it is necessary to consider further the meaning of
leadership and management and, in particular, to critically assess the values
and assumptions implicit in each. It is important to acknowledge at this point
a potential danger in creating a bi-polar distinction between leadership and
management, in that too much may be made of the difference (Barker 1997). The
ability to hold leadership and management apart is necessary if organisations
and individual executives are to be able to consider what leadership means to
them, in their context, and how much of their effort is being devoted to
leadership. Equally, the distinction between leadership and management must be
a soft or 'permeable' one, recognising that both leadership and management are
required, that there is a degree of overlap between them, that many or most
managers probably do some of each, and that different balances between
leadership and management may be required at different levels of the hierarchy
(with senior managers focusing more on leadership).
It is also important to recognise the realities of leading and managing
in contemporary public sector environments, among them intense pressures for
achieving results, maintaining accountability, using resources efficiently and
responding quickly to changes in direction or priorities. In order to enable a
clear assessment of the values implicit in leadership and management, however,
consideration of the effects of these pubic sector realities is head over until
later in the paper.
The Management Mode of Operating
According to Kotter (1990), management - as a manner of operating rather
than a formal role or set of roles - is concerned with such aspects as planning
and budgeting, organising and staffing, and controlling and problem solving.
Management, from his perspective, is concerned with predictable and orderly
operations.
Extending Kotter's view, the focus of management, as distinct from
leadership, can be seen as being on ongoing concerns, such as delivering
results for customers or clients, solving routine problems, improving business
processes and ensuring control and account ability through monitoring,
measuring and reporting on performance. The emphasis is on rational analysis
(Barker 1997) and the 'harder', more explicit aspects of organisation such as
plans, policies, tasks, service level agreements and the like.
This is not to say that the management way of working is simply
concerned with tangibles and not with people. Management is sometimes described
as 'getting things done through people'. This can take different forms, on a
continuum from a directive approach to a more empowering style.
The directive approa.ch relies on formal authority and implies
unilateral decision making, although desirably informed by consultation with
those affected. Directive approaches can be necessary in situations where
external circumstances dictate a particular response, or where unpopular
decisions need to be taken. Consider, for example, the local government council
in which top executives decide, after consultation, that the only resources for
an important service enhancement can come from a reduction in over time for a
group of staff. As the staff are opposed to such a decision, the only way it
can be taken is by direction - although desirably with the reasoning made
explicit.
A problem with directive approaches, however, is that they can be at
odds with the need to build staff commitment to change and improvement. If used
excessively, such approaches can encourage a self-fulfilling logic among senior
executives, that they need to act decisively as staff are not 'on side'.
In a more empowering approach to management, the strategy involves
clarifying directions, assigning responsibilities, allocating resources,
ensuring people have the skills and other supports needed, and holding them
accountable for results (Quinn and Spreitzer 1997). However, as these authors
suggest, such an approach is likely to place little emphasis on the development
of people in ways that enable them to contribute fully as members of the
organisation. Moreover, as the management mode implies a strong operational
orientation, problem solving is likely to be confined to task or technical
matters, where reaching agreement on a solution is relatively straightforward.
An empowerment-oriented management style, by itself, is unlikely to create the
conditions necessary for dealing with the deep and multifaceted issues implied
in cultural change.
Take the example of two departments, one responsible for maintenance and
one for operations, in a state
infrastructure agency. The departments are in continual conflict and relations
between them are poor. A particular conflict arises around the introduction of
a new business system. Top managers are able to get the departments together to
resolve this issue, but after this it is business as usual: the underlying
tensions continue to bubble away with adverse effects on productiveness.
Dealing
effectively with deeper issues, such as between the departments, implies the
need for an organisation to be capable of handling disagreement or contention
constructively (Goss et al. 1993). This requires an organisational
tolerance for differing perspectives, a respect for the contribution of others
and processes to help the protagonists find common ground. When there is
contention there is threat and discomfort, and these are at odds with the
values of stability, control and predictability central to the management mode.
While
organisations in which the management mode dominates often declare values like
respect, trust and diversity, the experience of people in the organisation is
likely to be that actual practice falls a good way short of the stated values.
Unless managers and staff believe that the stated values really do drive
behaviour, they are likely to be pessimistic about the organisation's ability
to deal with its problems, and mistrust, cynicism, blame and the avoidance of
threatening issues can figure strongly. Changing these dynamics is a leadership
issue.
Perspectives on Leadership
While many leadership frameworks can be found in the academic and
practitioner literatures, the attention here is towards approaches that can be
broadly described as transformational, drawing on the ideas of Burns (1978). Burns
emphasised transformational leadership as a process of mutual influence in
which leaders inspire followers by recognising and responding to their more
noble needs:
The transforming leader looks for possible motives in followers, seeks
to satisfy higher needs, and engages the full person of the follower. The
result of transforming leadership is a relationship of mutual stimulation and
elevation that converts followers into leaders and may convert leaders into
moral agents (Burns 1978:4).
His stress on the
higher needs is in keeping with a public sector emphasis on ethical conduct and
probity, and precludes the actions of charismatic but malevolent or
narcissistic individuals being considered as 'leadership'.
Two approaches to
transformational leadership can be identified. The first might be termed
charismatic transformation (Stace and Dunphy 1994) and emphasises the
individual leader as the agent of transformation or deep change. The second
approach, referred to here as learning-centred leadership, reflects a more
collectivist view of leadership, and emphasises processes such as dialogue and
other forms of reflective conversation to build shared understandings and
momentum for change. A distinction needs also to be drawn between leadership
and formal authority (Heifetz 1994). A good deal of the so-called leadership by
some people in positions of authority might more accurately be described as
management behaviour.
Much of the
popular leadership literature takes a charismatic transformational stance. The
emphasis tends to be on the individual leader as defining and articulating a
compelling vision for the future, as engaging and inspiring staff towards the
desired direction, and as building alignment of people, structures and systems
to support the vision. The leader's role as coach, facilitator and supporter of
people is commonly emphasised, as are contemporary social values such as trust,
respect and diversity. Examples broadly falling within this school of thought
include the works of Kouzes and Posner (1987), Tichy and Devanna (1990) and
Dess and Picken (2000).
While not denying
that some organisations, including in the public sector, may have achieved
dramatic change under charismatic chief executives, a number of issues arise
with such an approach to leadership. The possibility exists that the leader's
vision, or the strategy for implementation, may be flawed or out of step with
government priorities. The 'aura' surrounding the leader may reflect a cult of
personality, making it difficult - or at least risky - for others to criticise
the leader's views or to offer contending ideas. As a result charismatic
leaders may not receive the feedback necessary to prevent problems arising; for
example, differences of view around vision or implementation may be suppressed
or masked (Morrison and Milliken 2000). An excessive focus on the leader may inhibit the
development of a depth of leadership capability in the organisation,
potentially leaving it vulnerable in the event of new challenges arising or the
leader's voluntary departure or contract termination. While leaders seek the
'buy-in' and commitment of staff, it may be that what staff offer is
compliance, in the sense of making all the right noises in public but privately
switching off or even rebelling. Although leadership is necessary in public
sector organisations, the charismatic perspective is of limited utility as a
general model - notwithstanding that some individuals may demonstrate
charismatic qualities and behaviours to good effect.
Perhaps a fear of some of the aspects of the charismatic style
contributes to ambivalence towards leadership, as suggested in the
introduction, with concerns such as the maverick leader reinterpreting
government policy to suit their own agenda, or the ego-driven leader preoccupied
with self-promotion. If organisations do not have a viable alternative concept
of leadership to the charismatic approach, they can find themselves caught
between an understanding that they need leadership and their fear of
leadership. The response may be a top-down management style with declarations
upholding leadership-related values. Employees may also find themselves in a
bind. They can see the contradictions between espoused values and actual
practice. Yet they remain silent because of the perceived threat involved in
raising these issues with senior management {Argyris 1990). This dynamic can
fuel resentment, frustration and a disengagement with the organisation - all of
which make organisational goals harder to achieve.
Learning-centred Leadership
To begin with, a qualification: the term learning-centred leadership is
used here to enable a contrast to be drawn with charismatic leadership. The
intention is not to imply that there is one best way or style of leadership but
rather that there are differing underlying values, and that perhaps the core
values of learning-centred leadership are, generally speaking, more helpful to
public sector organisations than those of charismatic transformation.
The conceptual basis of learning-centred leadership comes from
organisational learning theory, reflecting the contributions of scholars such
as Argyris (in many publications, for example, 1990,1991), Senge (Senge 1990;
Senge et al. 1994) and Dixon (1994). Following the publication of
Senge's The Fifth Discipline in 1990, 'the learning organisation' was
something of a fad in this country, including in public sector organisations,
in the early to mid 1990s. At the time there was a tendency by consultants and
practitioners to focus on quick fixes and simple prescriptions, and when these
failed to deliver the desired results the learning organisation went the way of
all fads. However, organisational learning theory is much more than a fad and
has a significant history dating back over 25 years (Senge, quoted in Fulmer
and Keys 1998).
The following definition from Dixon (1994:5) may help to convey
something of the nature of organisational learning:
[Organisational learning is] the intentional use of learning processes
at the individual, group and system level to continually transform the
organisation in a direction that is increasingly satisfying to stakeholders.
The intentional use of learning processes implies that learning is not
just a haphazard affair but something that needs to be consciously worked at. Dixon
(1994:5) emphasises learning as a 'dynamic process of the construction and
reconstruction of meaning'. She adds that 'learning concerns the processes the
organisation uses to gain new understandings or correct the current
understanding; it is not the accumulated knowledge of the organisation'.
Leadership from an organisational learning perspective is to do with
creating the conditions under which organisational members, jointly and
individually, can better make sense of, or interpret, issues and opportunities
they face that are not purely of a technical nature, and then take effective
action. Leadership, from this standpoint, is essentially about capacity
building (Heifetz 1994). Leaders at all levels can contribute to developing the
capacity of others in the system for getting to the core issues beneath
apparent problems, generating and testing ideas about what might be achieved,
and mobilising energy for action. The challenge of leadership development
becomes one of developing a 'leadership ecology' in which leadership is a
valued mode of operating throughout the organisation (Fulmer and Keys 1998).
One key leadership capability is in helping others to make meanings
clear. This involves enabling people to recognise what they may take for
granted and generate new ways of seeing, and helping them to apply these
understandings in action. When people are able to frame problems differently,
they open possibilities for acting that otherwise could well have been outside
their field of view. In this sense of assisting people to reframe issues and
opportunities and identify viable pathways for action, learning-centred
leadership is transformational. However, the transformation occurs not so much
through individuals responding to the appeal of a charismatic individual, but
through processes that executives and others design, nurture and model.
A learning-oriented approach to leadership may also avoid or minimise
some of the problems associated with the charismatic approach. The prospect of
the maverick leader is likely to be less of a problem if leadership
responsibility is widely distributed and ideas are contestable. For the same
reasons, there is less likelihood of egocentric individual leaders being able
to impose their ideas on others. As with the distinction between leadership and
management, however, it is important that the line between charismatic and
learning-centred leadership not be too heavily drawn. Building learning-centred
leadership capability implies the need for individuals to take leadership roles.
To the extent that individuals may demonstrate some charismatic qualities, such
as a high degree of self-confidence and enthusiasm, this may have some positive
effects in inspiring others.
To bring the analysis to a more applied level, leadership is considered
at each of the three levels proposed by Dixon (1994).
Leadership in
Enabling lndividual-level Learning
Fostering
learning at the individual level is not just a matter of supporting and
coaching people in acquiring new skills and knowledge. This is arguably a
management challenge, in line with the focus on operational aspects. The
leadership challenge implies such aspects as working with people to assist them
to become more self-aware, to clarify their assumptions and goals, and to
identify realistic strategies for moving forward. Such processes have been
termed generative coaching (Murphy 1995).
Managers
operating mainly in the management mode are likely to see their role as
analysing and problem solving, and providing advice, assistance and solutions.
From a learning-centred leadership perspective, the challenge is to keep the
other person in charge of their own learning and assist them to achieve deeper
insights into the problems they face, so that they might better identify and
implement action strategies. This is not a matter of trying to change people's
personalities or interfering in matters better left private; rather it is about
the tough challenge of engaging with another's work-related thinking processes
in ways that minimise defensive reactions and build capacity for productive
action.
As an example, a
middle manager works with a team leader in a human services agency to assist
them to deal with a conflict between two staff. The team leader assumes the
problem is caused by a 'personality clash' between the two staff. The middle
manager inquires into the thinking behind this explanation in ways that
minimise threat to the team leader while encouraging reflection. After some
deliberation the team leader comes to their own conclusion that the underlying
problem is to do with an unresolved issue about perceived unfair treatment in
favour of one of the workers. They now feel in a position to discuss the
conflict with the workers at this level, and are confident about being able to
handle the conflict productively.
This is a
leadership intervention since it operates at the level of underlying
assumptions rather than business as usual. The middle manager's role is not to
solve the problem but to assist the team leader remain in control of their own
learning and improve the prospect that they will be able to handle similar
situations effectively in future.
Leadership in
Enabling Group-level Learning
Leadership in
this context entails assisting a group to move beyond competitive or
dysfunctional dynamics in order that they may achieve more creative and deeper
understandings of the issues they face and build new insights as the basis for
action. The key process here is dialogue (Senge 1990; Ellinor and Gerard 1998),
an approach to conversation for enabling a group to discover shared meaning. A
dialogue is a quiet, reflective conversation in which differing perspectives
are encouraged, people tend to feel listened to and valued and there is a sense
of collaboration, working together to build a common understanding. However, it
is a mistake to think of dialogue simply as 'nice talk'. Paradoxically, the
dialogue process enables difficult issues to be tackled more directly and
conflicting viewpoints to be aired. Leading organisational development scholar Edgar
Schein (1993) observed, 'All problem-solving groups should begin in a dialogue
format to facilitate the building of sufficient common ground and mutual trust,
and to make it possible to tell what is really on one's mind'.
As powerful as it is, dialogue is somewhat counter-cultural in most
public sector and business organisations. It requires a suspension of judgment,
a temporary letting go of outcomes, attention to process, and a willingness to
talk issues through quietly - all of which can be against the grain of
day-to-day organisational life. Accordingly, building capability for,
sponsoring and supporting dialogue are key leadership challenges.
Leadership in Enabling System-Ievel Learning
Leadership at this level is about creating the conditions under which a
system or part of a system may increase its ability for effective performance.
While a range of strategies may be applied to foster system-level learning, one
is an action learning process, in which groups of staff work on key
organisational or business problems while simultaneously advancing their
individual and joint learning.
Royal Dutch Shell is one organisation to have made extensive and
effective use of such processes. In the words of one of the company's managing
directors, Steve Miller: 'Change your approach to strategy, and you change the
way a company runs. The leader becomes a context setter, the designer of a
learning experience - not an authority figure with solutions' (Pascale 1999).
The notion of the senior executive leadership function as context
setting is some way removed from concepts of charismatic leadership. In
organisations emphasising collective leadership, top managers still play an
important leadership role, but the emphasis is more on helping others
understand what is important, clarifying meanings and shaping the way the
organisation responds to stakeholder pressures. A key capability from the
learning-centred perspective is an understanding of organisational development
and dynamics and an ability to influence these productively. To succeed in
collaborative leadership, top managers need also to have a deep belief in the
value of leading with people, not just 'from the front'. Of utmost
importance is the notion of top executives as 'lead learners' (Negroni 2000).
This implies that the executive is appropriately open to the ideas of others
and capable of seeing issues from multiple points of view, as well as being
able to recognise and question their own assumptions.
Four Domains of Learning-centred Leadership
While there are undoubtedly many ways in which learning-centred
leadership could be conceptualised, the four-dimension framework, as sketched
in Table 1, is suggested as a useful lens. The framework is not proposed as
comprehensive, more as indicative of some of the key areas of effectiveness and
required capabilities. A fuller articulation of the framework than is possible
here would differentiate senior and middle management leadership roles and
would point to more specific capabilities, including personal capabilities,
within each of the domains.
Table I:
Four Dimensions of Learning-centred Leadership
|
Strategic Leadership Working with
others to: understand changing external and internal environments, clarify a
preferred future (whether for the organisation or a particular program or
initiative), engage with 'current reality' (Senge 1990), build momentum to
achieve the vision, and develop alliances internally and externally. |
|
Leadership
for Knowledge Creation Enabling people
of diverse perspectives/backgrounds to integrate what they know, generate
novel perspectives and achieve deeper understandings about the underlying
nature of difficult problems facing the organisation, as well as strategies
for dealing with those problems. |
|
Values-based
Leadership Clarifying and
articulating values to guide staff in decision-making; creating a climate in
which values-related issues (such as ethical dilemmas) are discussed openly
and in which gaps between espoused values and the values being enacted can be
explored. Personally acting in ways that model the values espoused. |
|
Developmental
Leadership Working with
individuals and groups so as to strengthen their capacity for effective
action. Acting as coach, mentor and facilitator in ways that enable open and
relatively safe exploration of underlying assumptions and beliefs. |
What unites these four dimensions is that they involve processes of
collaborative inquiry into underlying assumptions and differing conceptions of
reality. This means colleagues working together to deal with deep problems,
handle the conflict and threat that arises, and devise and implement new
solutions and strategies. The leadership task is to create the context and
environment in which such inquiry can occur, to contribute as appropriate, to
facilitate and support the process, and to enable the insights gained to
stimulate new action.
The leadership process here is subtle. An executive needs to be able to
sponsor and orchestrate joint inquiry simultaneously, as with a dialogue
process, but also contribute as a colleague alongside others at different
levels in the organisation. Particular challenges include how to advocate one's
views while at the same time being open to the views of others, and how to
guide and shape the inquiry process without taking too much control. The
leadership role in collaborative inquiry involves interpreting and possibly
reframing the contributions of others, recognising and developing important but perhaps only
partly formed ideas, creating syntheses from diverging viewpoints and extending
the range of ideas considered. These capabilities are not suggested as
replacing those in the various senior executive capability frameworks (Morley
and Vilkinas 1997) but a learning-centred leadership perspective may imply a
need for some modification of those frameworks.
The process emphasis in each of the dimensions of the learning-centred
leadership framework is in marked contrast to the focus on tangibles in many
public sector organisations. For example, strategic leadership deals with -
among other things - the process of creating shared vision and using vision to
propel action in the desired direction. In many organisations, however,
'creating a vision statement' is a mechanical exercise that emphasises the
statement per se rather than the process of arriving at the statement
and using it to enable change. Not surprisingly, vision has become a management
cliché. The same applies with leadership for knowledge creation. The focus here
is on the leadership process of integrating and building knowledge by bringing
together different perspectives. In some organisations, however, the focus is
on the stock of explicit knowledge, that which can be captured and documented
in databases, rather than the knowledge creation process (Nonaka and Takeuchi
1995).
This focus on
process may seem problematic in outcomes-driven public sector organisations.
After all, the contemporary focus on outcomes is in part a response to what was
seen as a preoccupation with internal bureaucratic processes as ends in
themselves. The challenge here is different. As Langer (1989:5) puts it, 'every
outcome is preceded by a process'. The challenge for leadership practitioners,
from a learning-centred perspective, is to be more explicit and open about
their 'theories of action'. These are the implicit beliefs that executives hold
about the processes by which their plans and actions will bring about the
outcomes they desire.
Take, for
example, the case of a newly arrived head of a branch in a service delivery
agency. Part of her performance agreement involves making significant changes
to the product and service delivery methods of the branch. In conversation with
the writer, she observes that most of the branch staff have 'been here too
long' and are 'resisters', and that she will need to 'drive change through'. A
process perspective on leadership would suggest that the manager needs first to
reflect on her assumptions about what she means by resisters, why these people
are resisters, what specifically it is they are resisting about her plans and
actions, what other explanations there might be for their observed behaviour
and what all this means in terms of strategies she might adopt. A more mindful conception
of resistance might enable the executive to see the issues from the point of view
of different staff and perhaps even recognise that her own actions in 'driving
change' are feeding into the reactions she finds problematic.
A learning-centred, process-oriented perspective on leadership offers
promise in dealing with the implementation issues identified by Beer and
Eisenstat (2000), including poor communication laterally as well as vertically,
and ineffective senior teams. A process perspective encourages people to think
more dynamically about what is really going on, and to test their assumptions
and analyses openly. To take the issue about vertical communication, a process
perspective on leadership invites inquiry into what is occurring in the
organisation such that people feel unable to communicate openly up and down the
line. How does the problem look to people at different levels, including
one's own? What underlying factors, including possibly undiscussed or
undiscussable issues, are driving the responses of people in different parts of
the organisation? There may be strongly divergent and heated views on these
issues, but leadership involves assisting others to develop more grounded,
testable analyses of the problems they face.
Leadership and Management Reconsidered
Now that management and leadership have been reviewed, and learning-centred
leadership has been differentiated from the charismatic variety, we are in a
position to return to the question of the relationship between leadership and
management, and whether the distinction between them is of consequence to the
public sector. The discussion so far has suggested that the essence of the
distinction lies in differences in underlying values. Table 2 summarises some
of these values.
Table 2:
Values
underlying Management and Learning-centred Leadership
|
Values
underlying Management Perspective |
Values
Underlying Learning-centred Leadership |
|
· Outcomes,
accountability · Control,
stability, order ·
Analysis, deductive logic · Measurement,
monitoring ·
Leadership as province of individuals · Current
operations · Avoidance of
threat and conflict |
· Process before
outcomes · Deep change,
transformation ·
Creativity, insight, emotional awareness · Development,
inquiry ·
Collective and individual leadership · Capacity
building · Embrace of
diversity, contention and uncertainty |
It needs to be emphasised, as Kotter (1990) has done, that both
leadership and management are necessary; it is not a matter of regarding one as
more important than the other. The question is whether there tends to be an
imbalance between them and, if so, what are the causes and the implications.
Kotter (1990) argues that most people are over-managed and under-Ied.
This writer's experience, from discussions concerning leadership and management
balance with hundreds of Australian public sector managers in workshop
settings, is in line with Kotter's dictum. These managers not only tend to
regard their organisations as over emphasising management at the expense of
leadership, but report that in their own work they are driven overwhelmingly by
management imperatives.
One danger of an over emphasis on management is that managers will focus
on doing what they already do, although perhaps with an eye to fine-tuning and
continuous improvement. Building capacity for achieving effective
implementation, for dealing with contentious issues and for achieving cultural
change, however, might require that they do some quite different things as
well. Examples could include identifying and exploring emerging issues,
building a widely understood and shared strategic agenda, finding ways to
create new knowledge by integrating the perspectives of diverse specialties,
creatively exploring new ways to introduce and implement change, and building
external relationships. Many
agencies might respond along the lines of 'we do these things already'. The
question is how well they do them, and whether they devote enough attention to
these issues.
An example might
illustrate the point. The SES group in a development workshop in one agency
were asked to nominate the significant emerging issues that the agency would
need to engage with over the next three years. The assembled group had no
trouble in brainstorming a list of several issues. When asked what action the
group was currently taking in relation to these issues, the collective response
was 'none'.
An organisation
focusing too strongly on management is at risk of failing to deal effectively
with the major issues it faces. The danger is that the organisation is caught
up in reacting to events and managing crises, and is unable to give due
attention to the deeper or more long-term matters. In such organisations
important problems often fester unresolved or are the subject of organisational
politics and perhaps patch-up or mediocre decisions. There can be much wasted
effort in circling around the issues rather than dealing with them directly.
Why the Over
Emphasis on Management Values?
If, as has been
suggested, management is to do with ensuring stability and continuity and
leadership is concerned with deep change and transformation, a fundamental
tension arises between the two. The potential exists that decision-makers
operating chiefly from the control-oriented values of management will seek to
'reign in' any leadership-oriented efforts to break out of existing moulds or
question basic assumptions. By Kotter's (1990) definition, the change that is
synonymous with leadership is threatening to the status-quo orientation of
management.
Several other
factors can be seen as operating to reinforce an over emphasis on management
compared to leadership. The first concerns the unrelenting pressure on managers
and staff in the public sector to achieve more and better results. While a
results focus is critical, the achievement of those results can be compromised
if there is not also sufficient attention to the processes and dynamics of
change, as indicated in the earlier example of the new branch manager trying to
'drive through' change against resistance. Attention to accountability is also
vital. The danger is that managers can interpret this as implying a need for
direct control, thereby reinforcing a top-down management style.
Most public
sector managers, at least in the writer's experience, work under considerable
time pressures; there is always more to be done than can be achieved. Under
such pressures managers are likely, this writer suggests, to focus their effort
on the more urgent challenges they face. Important but less urgent issues
(Covey 1989:151) such as clarifying organisational values or developing a
shared agenda for the future, are likely to be relegated to second place. These
aspects may only be given attention when they become urgent or when there is a
crisis, making a proactive approach to organisational capability development
difficult to achieve.
The management
emphasis on achieving tangible results provides feedback and affirmation, which
are powerful rewards in themselves - particularly given the limited scope for
incentive pay and other material rewards in the public sector. While leadership
work may bring its own satisfactions, the organisational benefits can take time
to appear, resulting in a lack of immediate reinforcement.
Leadership, with
its focus on major change, necessarily involves risk and threat. What if people
don't like our ideas, or don't share our vision? How do we deal with those who
have different views, and especially with those who seem ambivalent about our
ideas, or oppose them, yet who may not indicate the basis of their reactions?
Leadership also implies a need to deal with emotional factors including the
fear of one's own response to the reactions of others. To those with a strong
bias to detached, rational analysis this can be a frightening prospect,
resulting in procrastination or complete avoidance.
Another dimension
to the threat issue comes from learning-centred leadership having a personal
aspect. The management paradigm, with its emphasis on analysis and tangibles,
sees problems as 'out there' and requiring a solution to be found by
examination of external factors. Leadership, with its emphasis on modelling and
reflection, requires the manager to ask in effect, 'in what ways might my
behaviour or approach be contributing to the problems that I am engaging with?'
Such a question implies taking personal responsibility for seeing ourselves as
part of the system we find problematic, rather than as separate from it. It is
much easier to side step this question and look for an external cause.
Implications
As well as the factors outlined, other pressures facing public sector
managers include operating within tight resource limits, dealing with multiple
competing pressures simultaneously, working with systems that might reinforce
the status quo, and the size and complexity of many government organisations.
With all of these factors, it might be suggested that a learning-centred
conception of leadership is a romantic ideal for the public sector.
The writer agrees that developing and maintaining a learning-centred
approach is difficult in the public sector, indeed in any setting. It is
especially difficult when the priorities of governments call for sudden changes
of direction or decisions likely to be unpopular within the organisation, such
as outsourcing or downsizing. The question in relation to leadership is how to
deal with these difficulties. On the one hand, executives can use such problems
to justify a style that is essentially top-down management, albeit perhaps
dressed up with the jargon of leadership. Alternatively, they can elect to work
in a way that specifically recognises the unavoidable tensions between
leadership and management, and seek to reconcile these tensions as best they
can. The reconciliation process requires that managers consciously evaluate the
choices they face, rather than deciding implicitly. This can involve balancing
the focus on results and tangibles of management with the process and values
orientation of leadership. Such balancing is not necessarily an either/or
matter, a question of this or that. What is required is that managers take into
account the principles of leadership when working under pressure; for instance,
in explaining the thinking behind decisions which may seem to be at odds with
declared values, or explicitly testing assumptions. The more managers can
demonstrate that they are attempting to model leadership while getting on with
the business of managing, the more likely they are to be seen as credible and
believable, and to build staff satisfaction, capability and commitment.
This discussion has focused on the choices facing individual managers.
Making such choices and following through with action will
be much easier for managers if they are operating in an environment that
supports the development of leadership capability.
Building
Capability for Learning-centred Leadership
Readers will appreciate that there are many issues that an organisation
thinking of pursuing this path will need to deal with, some of which are
summarised in Table 3. Not the least of these issues is that getting started on
the process requires a measure of leadership to begin with. The capability
development process calls for sponsorship by executives with enough
self-awareness to appreciate their own leadership and management style and
their impact on others, enough awareness of the potential benefits of
collaborative approaches to commit to the effort and resourcing required, and
enough patience and persistence to maintain the focus under tough conditions
until an evaluation can reasonably be made.
A range of approaches will be required, variously emphasising the
development of organisational and individual capability, though this discussion
is concerned mainly with the former. It is suggested that approaches can
usefully be grouped under three headings:
Ø
Establishing an infrastructure to support leadership development and
practice
Ø
Articulating and nurturing values supportive of learning-centred
leadership
Ø Developing skills,
particularly in reflective conversation
The three broad approaches need to be regarded as mutually reinforcing.
Focusing on one without attention to the others is unlikely to be highly
effective.
Establishing an
Infrastructure for Learning-centred Leadership
Infrastructure in
this context refers to explicit aspects of the organisation that can provide
support or ‘light scaffolding’ for leadership efforts. Specific aspects include competency frameworks,
meeting structures, budget allocations, business plans, position descriptions
and performance indicators. For
example, competency frameworks can be reviewed in terms of their underlying
assumptions about leadership and management.
Aspects such as dialogue and mindfulness (focusing on observable
behaviour, avoiding rushing to judgment or attributing motives, reflecting on
one's own assumptions) may need to be given greater attention. Management
position descriptions and team role statements can be reviewed in terms of the
balance between management and leadership aspects.
In high-pressure
public sector workplaces, 'the lack of time' is often raised as an inhibiting
factor. If leadership is to be more than rhetoric, time for creating shared
understanding must be set aside and protected. Otherwise, the tyranny of the
urgent will soon take over. As well as making time, structures and supports
need to be established that legitimise and encourage this type of activity. As
re-engineering guru Michael Hammer (Hammer and Stanton 1997) observed, 'we need
to treat reflection as a business process'. This implies that leadership-
related practices need to have their place among organisational priorities and
to be resourced like other activities.
|
Table 3: Some
Issues in Building Collective Leadership |
|
How to ensure
more attention to leadership in public sector organisations operating under
intense pressures, which tend to reinforce management-related values? |
|
How to
reconcile the need for top-down executive decision-making in some
circumstances with the importance in leadership of congruence between stated
and enacted values and modelling of the desired behaviours? |
|
How to gain
support for capacity-building approaches to leadership when the outcomes may
be remote in time? |
|
How to
encourage executives and others to reflect on their underlying assumptions
and values about leadership? |
|
How to ensure
that developing leadership capability is treated as a discipline, like
learning a sport or a musical instrument? |
|
How to deal
with the reality that people yearn for 'practical' solutions but that some of
the most powerful approaches are counter-intuitive and require commitment and
practice to produce results? |
|
How to build
legitimacy and space for reflection, which is often regarded as people 'not
working'? |
|
How to help
executive managers reflect on how their own behaviour may contribute to the
problems they see? |
|
How to get
people elsewhere in the organisation to take responsibility for their
contribution to what is happening, rather than pointing the finger at others? |
An executive team
in a state government agency realised that its monthly full day meetings were
being taken up largely with information sharing and with routine and
operational matters. The team divided its meeting in half, to enable it to
spend 50 percent of each meeting on leadership-related issues. Another agency
with a staff of 500 sets aside one day per month for all managers to explore
common issues together, thereby providing an opportunity for the development of
a shared leadership focus while building understandings and strategies on
important issues.
The US Army has a
well-known process called After Action Reviews (Baird et al. 1999). This
involves a systematic debriefing process being followed after any significant
exercise, incident or project. Other organisations are using a range of
creative methods, including so-called strategic communities and communities of
practice, to ensure they learn effectively from their experience, and that the
knowledge of differing specialists is productively tapped (Cross and Baird
2000; Storck and Hill 2000; Wenger and Snyder 2000). While public sector
organisations would be advised against adopting these methods uncritically, the
models do point to possibilities for adaptation.
Articulating
and Nurturing Values
Supportive of
Building Organisational and Individual Capability
Statements of
organisational values have become almost obligatory for public sector
organisations. Yet such statements, in the writer's experience, are often seen
as little more than empty platitudes by staff. As with vision, the emphasis is
often on the statement, rather than on the process of building the statement
and then using it to guide and shape action in the organisation.
Collins and Porras (1994) demonstrated the centrality of working with
values as a means of building high-performing organisations. They compared a
set of outstandingly successful companies with another group of good, but less
exceptional, companies. They found that the main differentiating factor was not
visionary leadership or use of the latest management practices, but commitment
to a clear purpose, beyond making money, and core values. The more successful
companies were able to maintain stable values over time while simultaneously
cultivating an ethic of change. Interestingly, in relation to statements,
Collins and Porras observed (1994:11), 'Creating a statement can be a helpful
step in building a visionary company, but it is only one of a thousand steps in
a never ending process of expressing the fundamental characteristics'.
The challenge for public sector organisations in working with values is
to attend to the subtle, process aspects, not only to 'the statement'. Working
with the subtle aspects involves exploring the values currently in use in the
organisation (values that might be inferred from observable behaviour), the
factors that drive these values-in-use, and possible sources of leverage that
would support behaviour in line with desired values.
Widespread involvement in the values clarification process is essential,
in order to build employee commitment to, and understanding about, working with
values. One vital aspect is to make the values operational, to specify the
kinds of behaviours that would demonstrate the values in action. Such
specification is necessary to deal with ambiguity in the interpretation and
application of values, and to ensure that members of the organisation think
through what is involved in applying the values. For example, Argyris (1990:106)
notes that 'respect' can mean deferring to others, or it can mean attributing
to others the competence to deal with their own issues, including emotional
reactions. The second interpretation is in line with building a leadership
community, the first is possibly at odds with it, since deferring to others
suggests a holding back from raising tough issues that might generate emotional
reactions. Of course, respect can also mean valuing a person's unique
background and perspective without undue deference.
While organisations will determine values according to their own needs,
a focus on learning-centred leadership implies a need for emphasis on the value
of openness, however this is expressed. In the writer's view, openness implies
people believing they are 'able to say what needs to be said, without setting
out to upset or provoke others.
As well as clarifying values, organisations need to make ongoing efforts
to ensure that the values are embedded and reflected in all organisational
systems and process. There also needs to be a periodic testing of the degree to
which employees believe the values are being upheld. In the earlier stages at
least, this might be via anonymous employee survey. Finally, senior executives
and others need to be able to deal productively with apparent departures from
value-based behaviour, and use these as opportunities to advance individual and
organisational learning.
Developing Skills in Reflective Conversation
Building shared understanding on difficult issues implies the need for
conversation. In order that new synergies can be developed from participants'
partial perspectives, such conversations need to have a reflective dimension to
them. Reflective conversation can be understood by thinking about the problems
that tend to bedevil conversations about difficult or strategic issues in the
workplace (Senge 1990). People commonly make little effort to listen to one
another - except perhaps to find a space to jump into the conversation! There
is a tendency for participants to compete with one another through scoring
points and defending and justifying their own arguments. Issues that might
result in embarrassment or threat tend to be avoided, ensuring that everyone
can save face. The discussion wanders all over the place with little sign of
progressive development. Assumptions are frequently made but rarely
acknowledged and questioned. In such conversations, the prospects for creative
integration of knowledge and for collective learning are minimal.
Some might argue that this is 'just human nature'. In the writer's view,
it is possible for people and groups to improve the quality of their
interaction, and thereby extend the possibilities for transformational thinking
and learning. In reflective conversations there is an emphasis on creating a
quieter 'space' for conversation, in which people more truly listen to each other (and to themselves), differing
opinions are seen as a source of data, and participants realise that they have
only a partial hold on the truth. An important leadership role for managers at
all levels is to support and model reflective conversation practices.
Enabling
reflective conversation requires the development of infrastructure and
organisational values as discussed, but there are some specific, trainable
skills involved. As described by Senge (Senge 1990; Senge et al. 1994),
these skills include advocacy, inquiry and dialogue, which was introduced
earlier.
Advocacy involves
articulating one's own views in ways that are assertive (as opposed to
dogmatic) and reflective. The challenge is to help others gain deeper insights
into why we think and feel about issues the way we do. Highly skilled advocacy
is characterised by recognition of one's assumptions, disclosure of feelings
and a willingness to receive feedback from others. Advocacy can be difficult
for people unused to asserting, appropriately, their deeper thoughts and
feelings. However, one might hypothesise that, with some training, just about
anyone could become more effective in articulating their ideas so that others
will better understand them.
Inquiry is the
process of asking questions in such a way as to enable others to reveal more of
what they know, without putting the person on the defensive. Inquiry is not
cross-examination. Rather, the aim is to assist the other person in making
public more of their thinking and feeling through the use of effective
questioning. Skilled inquiry involves the questioner probing deeply while
minimising threat to the other.
Like any
discipline, such as golf or piano, the central requirement for developing
capability in reflective conversation is continued practice. Executives can
support the development of collective leadership capability by practising and
modelling reflective conversation skills themselves and encouraging others to
do the same. The need for practice represents a huge challenge in many
organisations, where people are impatient for action and results. Often people
believe that once they understand the concept of reflective conversation, they
can apply the skills immediately. Practice in the workplace can seem like a
waste of time, but as any musician will testify, high-Ievel competence is not
possible without it.
Conclusion
Learning-centred leadership has been advocated not as a panacea or a
prescription but a way of thinking about leadership that might assist public
sector organisations in implementing new initiatives, in dealing with vexing
problems and in achieving cultural change. In its emphasis on the creation of
conditions under which people can make their most effective contribution, the
approach represents a distinct departure from charismatic leadership. It is
recognised, however, that individual leaders can have a dramatic and beneficial
effect on organisations. Leadership needs to exist complementary fashion to
management and the challenge for organisations is to develop and maintain a
suitable balance between them. For many organisations, this will entail giving
greater attention to the leadership component, in a disciplined and ongoing
manner. The difficulties of doing so, given the pressures faced by contemporary
public sector organisations, should not be underestimated.
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