UpdateCentre for Public Policy and Management Autumn 2007

Changes afoot at CPPMThese are exciting times at Manchester Business School for work in government and public services. Following a review earlier this year, the School plans to bring together all its work in the public and government domain in a new institute, which will be launched in early 2008. We plan to bring you more news of this in the next issue of Update, including details of some new appointments which further strengthen our international profile and capacity in this area. We have already moved to establish a new division of innovation, management and policy within MBS, headed by Professor Jeremy Howells. It contains two staff groups focused on health management and on government, and groups dealing with cultural economy, science policy and innovation.

We also have some changes in our management and leadership arrangements to report. Kieran Walshe will be stepping down from co-directing the Centre after three years in this role, and taking study leave during 2008. He will focus on research and writing particularly in areas like poor performance and turnaround in public services and public services regulation and inspection. On his return, he will be taking on the directorship of the university’s Institute of Health Sciences, which brings together researchers from across the University and local NHS trusts (in primary, secondary and mental health care) to advance the development of evidence-based health policy and practice. Naomi Chambers will be taking over as the head of the health management group in MBS and Colin Talbot has taken on the role of head of our government group. They will continue to steer the Centre as the reorganisation and new institute take shape.

We have been very sorry to say goodbye to Karen Hughes and Jean Lagan, two of our administrative staff who have moved to posts elsewhere in MBS, and to Kiran Sahota who has taken up a new job with ODS(UK). We wish them all well in their future careers. We welcome newly appointed divisional assistants Nighat Din and Alison Smith who have joined the team supporting the new division.

Names and contact detailsLawrence Benson Lecturer0161 275 7790. lawrence.benson@mbs.ac.uk

Julian Bond Senior Fellow 0161 275 7780. julian.bond@mbs.ac.uk

Alan Boyd Research Associate0161 275 2923. alan.boyd@mbs.ac.uk

Stephen Brookes Senior Fellow 0161 275 0552. stephen.brookes@mbs.ac.uk

Naomi Chambers Senior Fellow0161 275 7964. naomi.chambers@mbs.ac.uk

Nick Clifford Senior Teaching Fellow and Business Development Manager 0161 275 6531. nick.clifford@mbs.ac.uk

Richard Common Senior Fellow 0161 275 2919 richard.common@mbs.ac.uk

Gill Harvey Senior Lecturer0161 275 2902. gill.harvey@mbs.ac.uk

Carole Johnson Lecturer 0161 275 3794. carole.johnson@mbs.ac.uk

Su Maddock Senior Fellow0161 275 6400. susan.maddock@mbs.ac.uk

Ann Mahon Senior Fellow0161 275 2913. ann.mahon@mbs.ac.uk

Adrian Nelson Research Fellow 0161 275 3790. adrian.nelson@mbs.ac.uk

Amanda Shephard Fellow0161 276 5880. amanda.shephard@mbs.ac.uk

Liz Smith Research Associate0161 275 3791. liz.smith@mbs.ac.uk

Ann Shacklady-Smith Senior Fellow 0161 275 3798.ann.shacklady-smith@mbs.ac.uk

Eileen Spencer Research Associate0161 275 2889. eileen.spencer@mbs.ac.uk

Colin Talbot Professor and Co-Director0161 275 0508. colin.talbot@mbs.ac.uk

Kieran Walshe Professor and Co-Director0161 275 3852. kieran.walshe@mbs.ac.uk

Jay Wiggan Research Associate0161 275 2916. jay.wiggan@mbs.ac.uk

Centre for Public Policy and ManagementManchester Business SchoolBooth Street WestManchester M15 6PB

Tel: +44 (0)161 275 2908Fax: +44 (0)161 273 5245E-mail: cppm@mbs.ac.ukwww.mbs.ac.uk/cppm

Visiting and honorary staff

Tineke Bosma Visiting Fellow

Donna Bradshaw Visiting Fellow

Carol Brooks Visiting Fellow

David Colin-Thome Honorary Professor of Primary Care Development

Penny Cortvriend Visiting Fellow

Anna Gaughan Visiting Fellow

Jeff Girling Visting Fellow

Frank Glascott Visiting Fellow

Neil Goodwin Visiting Professor of Leadership Studies

Joan Higgins Emerita Professor of Health Policy

Bradford Kirkman-Liff Visiting Fellow

Nick Manning Visiting Professor

Christopher Pollitt Visiting Professor

Patrick Spaven Visiting Fellow

Administrative staff

Nighat Din Divisional Assistant 0161 236 3435 nighat.din@mbs.ac.uk

Lyndsey Jackson Research Administrator0161 275 0550. lyndsey.jackson@mbs.ac.uk

Alison Smith Divisional Assistant 0161 275 0944 alison.smith@mbs.ac.uk

The Herbert Simon Institute

Gillian Appleby - Administrator0161 275 0565. gillian.appleby@mbs.ac.uk Matt Baker - Editorial Executive0161275 0554. matthew.baker@mbs.ac.uk

Who are the future leaders?

News

Academics from across the Herbert Simon Institute have been congratulated for kick-starting a national debate ahead of this year’s Comprehensive Spending Review. To mark the launch of the Treasury’s spending plans, which will identify the investments and reforms needed across all government departments until 2011, academics from across the University published the first ‘Alternative’ Spending Review.

Edited by Colin Talbot and Matt Baker and published by Manchester University Press, the publication provides a comprehensive and detailed critique of current and past performance across government departments, while also making the case for radical reforms and investments. It has already been hailed as a “major contribution…to spark a national debate” by Tony Wright MP, Chair of the Public Administration Select Committee.

Further praise has come from the Financial Times, with Public Policy Editor Nick Timmins congratulating the authors for an innovative publication.

“No Treasury minister would be likely to sieze on this alternative CSR and implement every word of it,” he said. “But like almost everything that comes out of the Herbert Simon Institute, this is thought provoking stuff, and well worth a civil servant’s whistle” Colin Talbot, director of the Herbert Simon Institute at MBS added that the publication had arisen because there was so little debate about where public money was being allocated. “The current government promised a full national debate, involving Parliament and the people, about our national priorities in the lead up to the 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review,” he said. “There has been precious little evidence of that. The Government and Civil Service have largely continued their time-worn tradition of keeping all the debates about priorities and policies firmly within the Whitehall village. “Hopefully this publication will help in some small way to prise the door just a little more open.” http://www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/

Calling for a national debate Health scrutiny report published Findings from the Health Scrutiny Evaluation Project have now been published, and can be downloaded at http://www.mbs.ac.uk/research/publicpolicy/image.aspx?a=23

The project, carried out by Centre of Public Policy and Management researchers in collaboration with colleagues elsewhere in the University of Manchester, tracked health scrutiny work in eight case studies at local authorities from across England, over an 18month period between 2005 and 2007.

The research suggests that health scrutiny is developing fairly well, although there are barriers to overall effectiveness which may also impede its development in the longer term. The report also makes a number of key recommendations for improving the situation. Scrutiny has made some valued, if small, changes to plans and services; and in cases where it has emphasised a collaborative approach, has developed useful relationships with service providers. Democratic accountability of the NHS is exercised in a variety of ways, and one of the challenges for health scrutiny committees is to match their approach to local circumstances.

For further information, contact Carole Johnson at Carole.Johnson@mbs.ac.uk or visit the research project pages on the CPPM website.

Evaluation of North West Improvement Network (NWIN) The Centre for Public Policy and Management has been commissioned to evaluate North West Improvement Network (NWIN), in a £300,000 project lasting three-years. NWIN is a government-funded partnership of 46 local authorities and five fire authorities in the North West of England that aims to support service improvement. The evaluation is using a realistic evaluation approach and has three main strands:

1. How does organisational development contribute to improved performance? This strand, led by Liz Smith, is surveying officers and councillors who have attended NWIN

events to find out what the impact has been on their learning.

2. How do local authorities use improvement processes, systems and tools to bring about improvements in performance? This strand, led by Alan Boyd, is conducting case studies in six ‘good’ and ‘excellent’ rated authorities to find out the ways in which authorities make use of resources such as those that NWIN offers.

3. How do managers and leaders in local authorities shape and affect organisational performance? This strand, led by Adrian Nelson, will survey a cross-section of authorities over a 12 month period, taking a 360o view on leadership.

Further information about the project is available at http://www.mbs.ac.uk/research/publicpolicy/current-projects.aspx, or from Adrian Nelson at Adrian.Nelson@mbs.ac.uk

What do the public value in sport and culture?Academics from the Centre for Public Policy and Management (CPPM) have been working closely with Sport England in recent months to carry out a public value test.

Building on similar work through the Public Value and Performance Regime Consortium, Dr Steve Brookes and Dr Jay Wiggan have helped develop a guide to assist officers and members in creating and demonstrating public value. Funded by the Department for Communities and Local Government as an Improvement Pilot, it is intended that this work will now be widely disseminated.

MBS academics shine at EHMA conference Members from Manchester Business School were among those giving key presentations at this year’s European Health Management Association (EHMA) annual conference, which took place in Lyon.

Over 200 participants from 32 countries attended the conference, which debated the theme of managing values in health care. Dr Naomi Chambers, Director of Executive Education at MBS, who has been appointed President of EHMA from 2007-2009, led a debate on whether values matter, asking how far European values are distinctive and arguing the case for a re-invention of the notion of health capital.

Similarly, Ann Mahon, a Senior Fellow in Health-care and Public Sector Management at MBS, examined the opportunities and limitations of learning from health care systems with contrasting and conflicting values using a literature review and a case study involving the UK and US.

Next year the annual conference will turn its attention to the politics of health and will be held in Athens on 25–27 June 2008 (members and non-members are both welcome to attend and to present).

EHMA is a membership organisation which exists to build bridges between researchers, teachers, managers and policy makers to improve health management in Europe. It acts as an independent ‘honest broker’ in the field of EU health policy, carries out research of relevance to its members, and facilitates best practice in management and leadership in healthcare through its programme reviews and special interest groups.

Membership of the organisation brings access to a powerful international network of people intimately engaged in health and healthcare but with less interest in academic or management hierarchies.

For further information about EHMA including its special interest groups, the annual conference and benefits of membership, email naomi.chambers@mbs.ac.uk

An academic from Manchester Business School has organised a one day conference to discuss the role of government in creating the conditions for the future spread of innovation in the public sector. Dr Su Maddock, director of North West Change Centre at Manchester Business School organised the conference, which is due to take place in London on 1 November, with the National School of Government in partnership with the Young Foundation and NESTA.

Designed for senior civil servants and innovation leaders working across the whole public service system, the event will feature case studies of successful innovation commissioned by the National School from the Young Foundation and others.

Currently on secondment from MBS at the National School of Government, Dr Su Maddock said the conference would highlight examples of radical innovation in health, social care, local transport and community policing among other areas.

“Although innovation tends to emerge on the margins of established practice, whether in the community or in public bodies, the input of senior civil servants can either make or break initiatives,” she said. “We need systematic change to reinforce innovation in the public sector. This conference is a must for those serious about shaping the innovation agenda.”

For more information contact Su Maddock at su.maddock@nationalschool.gov.uk

Supporting public innovation

Delivery lies just below the surface (and you ignore it at your peril!)Like the proverbial iceberg, Local Area Agreements are visible just above the surface of the water. But the vast majority of its infrastructure for delivery is well hidden. This is one of the conclusions from research that is being completed by CPPM’s Dr Steve Brookes and Dr Carole Johnson in which they seek to identify the challenges of turning the written agreements into delivery on the ground. The overall conclusion is that while the agreements have drawn partners together in a much more meaningful way in the creation of a shared vision and encouragement of joint working, the evidence of effective implemen-tation is much less tangible. Frustrations with the negotiation process, lack of flexibility by central government and less mature delivery and intelligence gathering arrangements have been cited as some of the major factors. Funded by the North West Improvement Network (NWIN) it is now envisaged that the findings will form the basis of continued development for those involved in the implementation of Local Area Agreements.

will start with a debate to determine what knowledge and capability public leaders need within an increasingly complex public sector environment. Professor John Bennington from Warwick Business School, Professor Colin Talbot from MBS and Petra Wilton from the Chartered Management Institute will lead this discussion. A further debate follows in which participants will be asked whether public leadership can be evaluated. Led by Professor Nick Tilley (Nottingham Trent University) and Professor Jean Hartley (Warwick Business School), the seminar will seek to identify the appropriate ways in which leadership in the public sector can be assessed.

Professor Keith Grint (Cranfield University) will then set the challenges for public leaders in practice and will look at the way in which leaders themselves construct the environment within which they lead and examines the impact for leadership on the ground. Participants will then be able to listen to the conversation between David Blunkett and Sir Michael Bichard in relation to their leadership of the Department of Education before receiving a series of three papers which looks at leadership theory in practice.

The fifth and final seminar will take place at Manchester Business School in February or March with the overall findings being presented back to the Economic and Social Research Council in April.

For more information please contact Dr Stephen Brookes at steve.brookes@mbs.ac.uk

Born to lead? Do doctors make good managers and how do they develop the skills to make this transition? By Kieran Walshe

David Nicholson, the chief executive of the NHS, recently said that he wanted to see a doctor applying for every NHS chief executive appointment. But is it a good thing for doctors to take on such senior management posts? Are they up to the job, and how do they develop the skills and capacities that a chief executive needs?

Ever since the creation of the NHS, doctors have wielded considerable organisational power, but the days when hospitals were run by medical superintendents are long gone. Professional managers have been in the driving seat since the 1970s, and these days very few chief executives are doctors. Even in primary care, the direct power of GPs has diminished. Of course, every NHS organisation has its medical director, and most have doctors involved as clinical or service directors across the board.

But the realities of medical engagement in providing organisational leadership and direction are very variable. While some doctors get deeply involved in the realities of management, and the often challenging nature of strategic decision-making, others are reluctant to cross the no-mans land between the professional and managerial communities, for fear of being caught in the cross-fire. Old professional loyalties die hard, and when push comes to shove, medical managers are often unwilling either to take on professional vested

“ No one would think it reasonable to reassign a breast surgeon to take on ophthalmic surgery instead – yet we make exactly this extraordinary demand on many doctors when we ask them to take on the jobs of clinical or medical directors with little or no training”

IS IT A GOOD THING FOR GPS TO TAKE ON SENIOR MANAGEMENT POSTS?

interests or to confront clinical colleagues. The nature of medical career structures and management roles does little to help. Most clinical directors know that at some point they will go back to being a consultant and that they are likely to work in the same hospital with the same colleagues for many years – perhaps for their whole career, and those factors make it difficult to manage properly. Becoming a medical director can be a risky further step away from clinical practice, and though most medical directors try to stay clinically active, there is no clear career path for them – certainly not one which leads naturally to the top job as chief executive. And GPs who take on a role for their local primary care trust often face similar problems of ownership and conflicting affiliations.

Moreover, little has been done in the past to prepare or support doctors who take on management roles. It has often been assumed that their clinical careers have prepared them for the demands of management, but little could be further from the truth. No one would think it reasonable to reassign a breast surgeon to take on ophthalmic surgery instead – yet we make exactly this extraordinary demand on many doctors when we ask them to take on the jobs of clinical or medical directors with little or no training.

Important steps are already being taken to remedy this. The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges and the NHS Institute have collaborated on a joint project on enhancing engagement in medical leadership, which is to recommend that teaching management and leadership should be part of medical undergraduate and postgraduate training, and a growing number of NHS trusts commission development programmes for their medical managers, or fund them to undertake postgraduate degrees in healthcare management or business administration.

In conclusion, David Nicholson might be right to say that having more doctors as chief executives in the NHS would be a good thing. The best medical managers bring great intelligence, empathy for patients, understanding of the business of healthcare and professional credibility to the role. But they need to make it to the top on merit, because of their excellence as leaders and their demonstrated capacity and capability in senior management – not just because they can work a stethoscope. More investment both to train and develop future medical managers and to provide stable and secure career paths and prospects is needed if Nicholson’s expressed ambition is to become a reality.

Leadership is perhaps one of the most studied concepts within the wider discipline of organi-sational study and yet it remains elusive in terms of definition or measurement. Over 20 years ago, as I embarked on my early leadership aspirations, I was asked on a promotion board “What is leadership?” My (then uninformed) response was that the strength of a leader can be assessed by looking at the results that the leader’s team achieves and acknowledging that the members of the team did what they did because they wanted to and saw the reason for doing it. My promotion followed and my interest in leadership – both as a leader and in the study of the subject – has continued from that moment onward and my earlier description of what is leadership has been dear to my heart throughout.

Back to the question, what is leadership? My view is that we need to think differently about leaders in the modern organisational world and I make three points to emphasise this. The first point to accept is that any number of leaders can be present in any organisation and that it is often the situation that determines who is the most effective leader. Readers may recall the film Flight of the Phoenix, which is based around the story of plane crash survivors in the Gobi desert working together to build a new plane. The leader who emerged was the one with the requisite skills to get the aircraft airborne once more but not the one with the most appealing charisma.

A second point is that it is not necessarily the innate skills of leadership that are required, as important as these are, but rather what relevant mix of leadership styles are needed to wed the task to the people but within the context of the organisation’s big picture aims.

The third and final point is to suggest that in an increasingly complex world characterised by networks and inter-relationships it is the strength of relationships and the trust and legitimacy that it generates that will be the real test of leadership in the 21st century.

While the three points that I have made will be of equal relevance to leadership within the private sector, they also underline the challenges within the public sector. The ESRC funded ‘Public Leadership Challenge’ seminar series (which is likely to come to its conclusions at the 6th International Studying Leadership Conference in Warwick in December) has emphasised these points. Against a background of relentless public sector reform the seminar series has highlighted a need for adaptive approaches in tackling the often intractable issues that beset public sector delivery. As well as the seminar series, research undertaken by Manchester Business School in conjunction with the North West Improvement Network has also identified the difficulties in dealing with the complex and inter-related issues that face collaborative working.

This is why we need to think differently about leadership in the public sector. It is about sharing leadership across the range of organisations that make up partnerships in the achievement of a shared vision. But it is also about distributing that leadership throughout each of the constituent organisations in a way that secures the ‘buy-in’ from those at the grassroots of delivery. In securing this buy-in there is a need to ensure that leaders are in possession of the real facts (as opposed to constructed facts), have confronted the brutal facts (to quote the American Guru Jim Collins) and pursue implementation with real vigour. This can only be done if all partners are committed to not only the vision but also sharing and analysing the data and delivering services in a co-ordinated way. It is about the development of intelligent relationships – taking a shared responsibility for dealing with the complexity in a way that secures trust and legitimacy and in using an evidence-based approach to delivery.

The ESRC seminar series is being led by Steve Brookes of Manchester Business School. It is currently moving towards the fourth and penultimate seminar and will take place as a symposium within the 6th International Studying Leadership Conference at Warwick Business School on 14th December. The seminar

Leaders and intelligent relationshipsWhat should managers be doing to deliver excellent public services? By Steve Brookes

Manchester Business School has been working in collaboration with Birmingham’s Health Service Management Centre and the National School of Government to deliver a ground-breaking programme in the West Midlands. The Public Services Leadership Collaboration (PSLC) has now achieved national recognition with the award of a contract by the Department of Health to deliver the programme in other Strategic Health Authorities across England.

Over the past year, the NHS in the West Midlands has successively identified nearly 60 people, three cohorts of senior managers (already executive directors in their organisations) and clinical leaders, all with the potential to progress to becoming chief executives. The task of the PSLC is to deliver a year-long extended intervention for each of the cohorts – through taught modules, work-based projects, exchanges and action learning sets – which will prepare the participants for the top job.

We developed the curriculum following guidance from the West Midlands NHS and their expert commissioner, Neil Goodwin, who is also a visiting professor with MBS. The aim is to create a cadre of senior managers that share a sense of community and a good understanding of how current reforms can enable NHS organisations to combine elements of collaboration and competition to deliver world class standards.

Participants spend 14 days on the modular programme, four days of Action Learning Set meetings and also take part in work-based projects and exchanges during the course of nine to twelve months, which represents a major investment of time at a crucial point in their careers. This programme focuses on ensuring that there are effective ways of making every hour count – through significant investment in design and facilitation – rather than by further extending the number of ‘teaching’ days. A particular feature has been the use of cohort tutors to connect the inputs closely to the themes, draw out the major issues and implications that are emerging for participants and provide containment and continuity for participants as the programme unfolds.

PrinciplesThe work is underpinned by some key principles, comprising the need to:

• Give managers the skills to maximize their effectiveness in their current role while enabling them to develop the expertise required to progress to chief executive positions;

2. Policy and strategyLeaders cannot separate themselves from the context in which they deliver and it is essential that they are able to understand that context and translate it for others. This theme enables participants to deepen their insight into the policy-making cycle and process, and to see how they could contribute as ‘policy entrepreneurs’ rather than as ‘policy victims’. It also sets policy trends for public services in an international context to serve as a counterpoint to the myopia which can affect hard-pressed leaders.

3. Delivery and performanceDelivery is an essential feature of leadership and requires a high level of self awareness and the ability to work with and through others.

Additionally leaders need to be able to analyse information and act on what they find. This theme considers execution and control, and in particular the enhanced use of financial intelligence to drive strategic implementation.

EvaluationOne of the measures of effectiveness is of course whether participants successfully step up to the position of chief executive. Already three participants across cohorts 1 and 2 have subsequently made that leap. Some, however, will come to realize that the top job is not for them. In addition the commissioner has put in place an independent evaluation and a post-programme assessment with participants and their sponsoring chief executives. Output from the latter will be in the form of personalized reports and a summary report aggregating themes and issues in an anonymised way.

We are now looking forward to delivering the programme for cohort 3 in the West Midlands from January 2008 and to discussions with other Strategic Health Authorities about how we might contribute to their plans for programmes for aspiring chief executives in their area.

For more information or a discussion, please contact Naomi Chambers, cohort and theme tutor and MBS lead on the Public Services Leadership Collaboration at naomi.chambers @mbs.ac.uk

• Acknowledge the presence of directors from a range of professional backgrounds and with varied experiences and expectations and thus providing opportunities sensitive to a wide range of learning styles;

• Support the promotion of a learning culture across the strategic health authority that builds mutually supportive cohorts and recognises the wealth of expertise that participants bring with them;

• Arrange inputs that challenge and stretch the participants whilst always being relevant to the learning objectives

• Attend to the relationship between reflection and action;

• Support the promotion and development of innovative practice, positive change, critical stances and “new ways of working” and

• Maintain the balance between the academic (the ‘what’) and the training or practical (the ‘how’)

ThemesWe developed the programme initially along five themes, although these have now been condensed to three:

1. Theory and practice of management and leadership

Leadership is a performance where the use of scripts, settings, language, voice and so on is central to the impact of leaders. We therefore examine the breadth of behaviours that the leader can call upon to enact leadership in the system and we urge participants to add to their performative repertoire. This theme also covers all aspects of the personal and psychological resources inherent in developing emotional intelligence as well as increasing the understanding of leadership theories and their application.

Preparing for the top jobA new leadership programme is helping senior managers make the step up to become chief executives in the NHS. Naomi Chambers charts its progress so far

The fashion of selecting military figures for business leadership has maybe passed its peak. However, the pendulum may have swung too much in the opposite direction. There is a growing recognition in some quarters that military leaders acquire many practical skills which are valued in corporate life. Indeed, they may have experiences that leading business and management academics such as Henry Mintzberg, and others like Jeffrey Pfeffer at Stanford University and the late Sumantra Ghoshal have claimed to be lacking in the Business School curriculum.

Here at Manchester Business School we run a three-week management development programme to help retiring military officers create a new career in civilian life. Its most distinguished alumni often return to provide evidence of ‘life after the military’.

Earlier this year Admiral Lord Michael Boyce visited the Business School to share his leadership experiences. He has a very distinguished record and describes leadership as the art of persuading people to do more than they think they can. After a number of submarine and surface commands Lord Boyce became Commander in Chief, Naval Home Command and Second Sea Lord: Commander in Chief Fleet and then First Sea Lord. During this period he was knighted and also held a variety of senior NATO commands. He became Chief of the Defence Staff at the beginning of 2001 and retired in May 2003. He was elevated to the peerage in June 2003.

Below, Michael Boyce answers questions on leadership in military and civilian life.

Q: There are a multitude of ways in which leadership has been described and defined. How do you see it?

MB: I can tell you what it seems to be

from my experiences. I like to say that leadership is the art of persuading people to do more than they think they can.

Q: What key differences have you experienced working in military and non military environments?

MB: There are obvious differences. In military life you are trained to lead, and also on how to be led, until the principles become ingrained. I mean training, not education. You train for leadership as you would train for a marathon. Also, the military conditions are different. You need to be able to depend on colleagues for your mutual survival. Decision making has more life and death consequences than in most other professions. But there may be need to show initiative when you may be in a position to consult more widely in civilian life.

Q: But there are similarities [between military and civilian leadership]?

MB: I would say there are general core components of leadership. Two of them concern decision-making and communications. Good decision making requires skills at assimilating information and applying analytic ability. These skills often have to be combined with decisiveness. Effective communications have to demonstrate clearly and convincingly the logic of their approach. I must also mention strength of character, the ability to delegate and show initiative.

Q: Why are women held back from leadership in the military?

MB: Times are changing. There is a very senior officer I can immediately think of in the navy for example, but she has succeeded on merit, not because of equal opportunities.

Q: One of the most popular current television programmes is ‘The Apprentice’. From watching the programme there is a perception that successful leadership is developed through bullying. Do you believe you have to be aggressive to be a good leader?

MB: Not aggressive. Historically you can point to contrary examples. One of my favourites is Shackleton. No, not at all aggressive. I don’t watch much television, but what I’ve seen, you wouldn’t advance far in the Military today with that sort of bullying style. You would not get past Major, Lieutenant, Colonel, maybe.

Q: How does leadership work in The House of Lords?

MB: The Conservative and Labour peers have a kind of ‘whip’ system [enforcement officers]. But managing cross benchers…that’s like herding cats! [MB is a cross bench or independent Peer]. Collectively though, it’s an excellent system. It wouldn’t work so well if there were elections when a constituency would vote for everyone. That would be different.

Q: What advice would you give an officer taking up work in civilian life?

MB: Something that surprised me. Perhaps it should not have. You will meet far more individuals who seem to have no concern beyond their own self interests.

Also, you realise you have your own military jargon; you will have to learn another dialect to be accepted. And there is a lot of stereotyping about the military mentality. There’s another difference worth mentioning: [corporate] directors are increasingly becoming legally responsible for the conduct of their company. This is becoming more widespread, applying to charities and trusts as well as PLCs.

This is an extract taken from Tudor Rickards’ blog: Leaders We Deserve http://leaderswedeserve.wordpress.com/Tudor Rickards is a Professor of Creativity and Organisational Change at Manchester Business School. He can be contacted at tudor.rickards@mbs.ac.uk

Leadership: a military perspectiveA former military leader reflects on his subsequent experiences in business and politics. By Tudor Rickards

TUDOR RICKARDS PROFESSOR OF CREATIVITY, MANCHESTER BUSINESS SCHOOL

ADMIRAL LORD MICHAEL BOYCE

IMAGE TOIVO LAGERWEIJ

CounsellorsThe Counsellor role – which some unkind souls might prefer to call the consigliere role – is the one for which the British Civil Service has long claimed ‘Rolls Royce’ excellence – providing policy advice to Ministers. The UK is fairly unique in this respect. In most democracies one of two options are chosen: in the first, senior officials who directly advise ministers are permanent civil servants with a legally or constitutionally defined separate role (as in France) and in the second option they are political appointees brought in by incoming administrations.

In the UK we have permanently appointed officials but – in the words of the famous Armstrong doctrine – the civil service has no constitutional personality separate and apart from that of the government of the day. Or, as I have frequently described it, our Mandarins are not ‘neutral’ they are serial monogamists, wedded to the current government or minister but always ready for a quickie divorce and remarriage.

This creates a very unique relationship (and set of tensions) about the role Mandarins play for Ministers. It also makes it almost impossible to ascertain whether the policy advice given to Ministers is brilliant or useless – only Ministers are ever held to account and policy-advice is secret. There have however been serious concerns raised about the quality of policy advice and interestingly although the recent Departmental Capability Reviews looked at strategy, delivery and leadership – strangely they didn’t look a policy capability.

Chief ExecutivesThe second role is that of Chief Executive – senior civil servants run things. In the UK the amount of public services run directly by the civil service is fairly small, about 10% of the total (depending on how you count) compared with countries like Greece or Ireland where most of the public service is run directly by government. But even so, well over a half-million people work for the services run directly by government, including in the huge revenue and customs, job centres and prisons services.

Back in 1988 the so-called ‘Next Steps’ report was scathing about senior civil servants abilities in this area. Mandarins were constantly looking up, towards Ministers, and rarely down towards the services they managed, the report concluded. The solution offered was to create ‘executive agencies’ that would have their own Chief

Executives – separate from the policy Mandarins – who could concentrate on delivery. Some called this the apartheid solution – separate (but supposedly equal) roles for Counsellors and Chief Executives. Except of course this division was never so simple – Counsellors still had to run things and Chief Executives frequently had important policy advisory roles.

The recent Departmental Capability Report delivered the lowest marks for the ‘delivery’ area, suggesting that this role is still underdeveloped in Whitehall, despite nearly 20 years of reform.

CollaboratorsAs already mentioned, Whitehall runs only a small proportion of public services. Most – 90% – are run by a mixture of semi-autonomous agencies, quangos, trusts, boards, local services and of course by local government. But the greater part of these are also mostly funded from Whitehall and supervised, more or less closely, by them.

A key role therefore is that of ‘Collaborator’ – or, to put it another way, the task of running ‘joined up government’, both within Whitehall and between it and the myriad of service providers (including these days many voluntary and private-sector agencies).

In this role there is an unfortunate tendency in Whitehall to ‘default’ to the Chief Executive role, when what is clearly needed is much more

Mandarins or leaders? The role of civil servants

“Leadership? We don’t do leadership, that is for Ministers.” This would have been the likely response of a senior Whitehall Mandarin 20 years ago, before first management and more recently leadership became fashionable.

But having discovered ‘leadership’, there seems to have been few really serious attempts to pin down what exactly is the scope, limits and possibilities of leadership in a Civil Service context. Rather, a few ideas have been imported from the private sector – such as ‘transformational leadership’ – with very little real appreciation of the problematic issues surrounding leading in Whitehall.

Reviewing some of the international literature on leadership in public service, and especially the vexed issue of the relationship between senior elected and non-elected officials – suggests four distinct roles for senior civil servants: Counsellor, Chief Executive, Collaborator and Conservator.

is in areas like taxation, benefits and criminal justice, where we put strong barriers in place – legal, constitutional and institutional – to stop elected politicians abusing their powers. The first line of defence of this system are the civil servants and their willingness to say ‘no, Minister’.

Leadership in the Conservator role can be much more positive than this. When, for example, a local authority Chief Executive hosts a conference on “Ambridge 2020” they are trying to create a degree of consensus about the future that cuts across the institutionalised conflicts which party politics represent. Within limits, this is clearly a perfectly legitimate role. Similarly, when a civil service agency chief executive sets out to promote public consent and engagement with their service – for example in tax collection – they are playing this ‘public interested defender’ role.

Conflicts and ContradictionsThe four roles outlined above have some fairly obvious inherent potential conflicts and contradictions. The role of Counsellor and Conservator can obviously clash, for example, and this is one of the areas where some of the strongest dilemmas often arise for public servants. When a Minister expects ‘results’

it can be very difficult to say “but that is not possible for reasons x, y and z.”

There is a wide spread myth that first Margaret Thatcher and more recently New Labour ‘politicised’ the Civil Service. This is patently not true, what has actually happened is rather more subtle (and worrying). Senior Civil Servants have come to accept that Ministers can expect and demand ‘results’ and that having a ‘can do’ attitude is more important than “speaking truth unto power,” as Aaron Wildavsky famously put it.

In the rush towards action, delivery and leader-ship the positive side of the old Sir Humphrey stereotype – the ability to say “yes, Minister” when actually meaning “no” – has been lost. One of Sir Humphrey’s most famous comments to his hapless political boss was, “that would be a very brave decision Minister”. His French – or indeed American – counterpart would doubtless be rather more direct.

There is a role for leadership in Whitehall – and indeed throughout public services. But it is much more subtle and nuanced and potentially laced with role-conflicts than is acknowledged in much of the current debate, which tends to be rather simplistic and ‘gung ho’. Real leaders know it is not actually that simple or easy to manage these paradoxes.

of a peer-to-peer approach and more collabora-tive and distributed leadership approaches. Several writers have addressed this problem – the US-based John Bryson and Barbara Crosby, for example, talk about “tackling public prob-lems in a shared-power world” whilst the UK-based Julia Middleton talks about “leadership beyond authority” – i.e. where you have to cooperate rather than instruct. These ideas have also been called ‘lateral leadership’ and ‘connective leadership’. Whatever you call it – getting things done in a complex system where you have only limited formal authority is very different from the Chief Executive role.

ConservatorsOur final role is the leader as ‘conservator’. I have borrowed this word from a US writer, the late Larry Terry. Essentially the conservator role is best captured in the idea of saying “no, Minister”. Civil Servants have a delicate role in upholding a broader public interest than simply that of the elected government of the day.

In many ways this goes to the heart of a central paradox of democratic governance – we elect governments that rarely have more than a modest majority of popular support but we expect everyone – regardless of who they voted for – to pay their taxes, abide by laws and consent to a wide range of engagements with the state. The Conservator role is about maintaining the universality of public service against sectional interests of the government of the day. The most obvious place this happens

“ getting things done in a complex system where you have only limited formal authority is very different from the Chief Executive role.”

“ Civil Servants have a delicate role in upholding a broader public interest than simply that of the elected government of the day.”

COLIN TALBOT PROFESSOR OF PUBLIC POLICY AND MANAGEMENT AND DIRECTOR, HERBERT SIMON INSTITUTE

After reports of senior civil servants being given iPods loaded with leadership lessons earlier this year, Colin Talbot explains the leadership skills required in Whitehall

Management and Leadership Programmes 2007As you would expect from a world-class university, we pride ourselves on offering programmes which combine academic rigour with a high degree of relevance to the real-world challenges faced by public sector managers. Using innovative teaching methods, we aim to support and contribute to the improvement of public services through capacity and capability building for individuals, teams, organizations and sectors.

Appreciative Inquiry for Change Leaders

Appreciative Inquiry offers a credible approach to generating whole system change, engagement and sustainable growth for organisations. This new programme is led by Dr Ann Shacklady Smith. It offers change leaders the knowledge and practical skills to implement Appreciative Inquiry at a time when there is an increased emphasis in the public sector for engagement with the community, for outward looking organisational development, and for responsiveness to consumer choice. Stakeholder teams who are involved in a large scale project will benefit from attending this programme together.

9-11 October 2007 and February 2008

For further information contact Steph Mullen 0161 275 2910 steph.mullen@mbs.ac.uk

Network for secretaries to NHS boards

This popular network, facilitated by Dr Lawrence Benson,addresses some of the most topical and controversial issues and is a means of sharing knowledge in a mutually supportive environment. Topics, which are chosen by network participants, regularly include role clarity, board relationships , NHS policy developments and governance models.

8 November 2007

For further information contact Emma Farnworth 0161 275 2927 emma.farnworth@mbs.ac.uk

Management Development Programme for Specialist Registrars

Specialist registrars face a range of pressures in their final appointment before consultant status. They are required to develop expertise in clinical governance, risk management, and teamworking and to understand government policy, NHS organisational structures, decision -making processes and medico-legal issues. The programme runs for 5 days and reflects nationally recognised training needs at this level.

25-29 February 2008

For further information contact Jean Buckley 0161 275 6541 jean.buckley@mbs.ac.uk

Local government programmes

Led by Nick Clifford, the sixth cohort of Transform In Salford started in September. Through a combination of action learning sets, core input days and development modules, more than thirty middle managers from Salford City Council will gain a much better understanding of change being faced in the City and their increasingly vital role in it. The City is now building on this programme to integrate the senior executives into the whole initiative and are again relying heavily on input from MBS in taking it forward. Nick is also leading the next phase of the AGMA Middle Manager Programme. Across the next year, eight cohorts with fifteen participants each will undertake modules focusing on capacity building. Set in the context of the policy agenda for local government across the sub-region and turning learning into real action in the workplace, the programme deals with future policy development, and delivery of policy-related tasks of sub-regional importance. Strategic mentors from local authorities across the whole city-region support the participants and help them to link learning with task performance and sub-regional priorities.

Tailored programmes

The Centre also offers individually designed executive development programmes tailored to a client’s specific requirements. These can range from one day update courses to long-term strategic partnerships, delivered on the client’s own premises, at Manchester Business School or elsewhere. Excellence in teaching and resources, developing a true understanding of your needs, and a commitment to exceeding expectations are key to the success of our tailored programmes. Recently commissioned programmes include Leadership Development, Effective Commissioning, New Approaches to Managing Long-Term Condition and Board Development.

For further information contact Steph Mullen 0161 275 2910 steph.mullen@mbs.ac.uk

The Programme for High Value Managers

The Programme for High Value Managers is the result of a pioneering project at Manchester Business School – to develop a programme for experienced managers who are looking for a practical and shorter alternative to an MBA. Developed after discussions with over 40 companies, it is a business school programme for managers who want the best of an MBA without the added pressure of assignments and assessed work. The programme is designed for high value managers who need to get to grips with the latest thinking on business and management in order to contribute as fully as they can in their present or prospective roles. It is ideal for experienced managers who have been identified in succession plans to move into key jobs and who need practical preparation for these roles. These may be managers who are about to lead project teams, functions or business units or who are being developed for senior general management positions. The programme is also valuable for managers who need to challenge their company-specific knowledge and maximise their potential by engaging with managers and management practice from a range of business sectors. You’ll gain a practical understanding of strategy, finance and marketing, improve your facilitation skills for leading and managing and leave with a greater awareness of your management style and effective behaviours.

Week 1 10 -14 March 2008Week 2 14 -18 April 2008

For further information contact Joanne Cherry 0161 275 6403 joanne.cherry@mbs.ac.uk

We are constantly developing new programmes: check for details on our website: http://www.mbs.ac.uk/executive-education/index.htm

The popularisation of the concept of leadership in the public services is not difficult to understand. Wave upon wave of managerialist reforms have crashed over the public sector, so the current fixation on leadership in public sector management has an air of inevitability about it. However, to consider the inter-nationalisation of leadership, along with other managerialist approaches to public sector reform, raises serious questions about its usefulness in different environments. Is it possible to conceptualise leadership in the public sector beyond the Anglophone strongholds of public management in North America, the UK and Australasia? To answer this question, we need to look at the Sultanate of Oman, the context of which is far removed from the chiefly US corporate environment from which organisational leader-ship studies first emerged.

It is clear why there is an interest in leadership in the public sector. Within the context of demands for ‘good’ governance, there appears to be a growing need to address interconnected problems to achieve shared outcomes. Leadership is concerned with policy coherence. Moreover, there is the continuing need for public sector organisations to adapt and change, which requires leadership not just among senior managers but amongst all public

officials, elected and appointed. These pressures have found their way into the UK government. For instance, the Professional Skills for Government (2005) report called for public sector managers to demonstrate skills and expertise in leadership.

Despite the evangelist zeal of some writers on leadership in public services, the scope for leadership seems extremely limited in a public environment. In fact, do we want public managers to be leaders if it accords them the kinds of discretionary authority which is at odds with democratic governance? The problem becomes more acute once leadership is applied to the public sector in different political contexts and cultures. My own experience of public sector leadership in Oman is a case in point.

Situated on the south-east corner of the Arabian peninsular, Oman has witnessed rapid modern-isation over the last forty years due to the discovery and production of oil from the late 1960s. The present Sultan, Qaboos, ousted his father, the previous Sultan, in 1970 and set about bringing the country into the 20th century. It is not surprising that recent research reveals an almost overwhelming negation of the idea of leadership in an organisational sense in Oman, the result of politics, culture and institutional factors. This context Oman also shares with its Arab Gulf neighbours.

To begin with, the term leadership is directly associated with the Sultan; it is not a term

applied to either ministers or the corporate sector. Leadership is politically and culturally vested in one person. Policy outcomes, economic performance and international relations are ascribed to the leadership of the Sultan. This is reflected in Omani organisational life. For instance, one British consultant reflecting on her work on a long term project in Oman observed that anyone showing leadership ‘were targets for disapproval’. Moreover, leadership in Oman is not associated with organisational status, but determined by tribal or group affiliation rather than individual merits. The distinction between ‘in’ groups (tribe and family) and ‘out groups’ (expatriates etc.) in Arab culture also poses a fundamental challenge to leadership development in Oman, where the concept of ‘team work’ is nearly impossible to apply.

However, Oman has recognised the importance of human resource development for the country’s long term economic success yet leadership is not addressed. In Hofstede’s analysis, high-power distance and high uncertainty avoidance cultures, such as Oman, means security is more likely to motivate than the potential for the type of self-actualisation, implicit in Western derived leadership theory. This will also continue to reinforce the preference for public sector employment among Omanis. In addition, the gradualist and cautious mode of reform favoured by Oman is unlikely to predicate the type of continuous and transformational change typified by the dynamic, market-driven environments of the West that produces organisational leaders. Recent decades have produced a rigid bureaucracy still dominated by traditional values. Yet cultural values remain important for the country’s development:

‘For the leader of any developing nation there is always the problem of combining progress with conservatism. His Majesty maintains a delicate balance between preserving the traditions and culture of his country and introducing the modernisation needed to keep pace with the changes taking place in the rest of the world’ (Ministry of Information 2000: 15).

The lack of a cultural fit in Oman with notions of leadership has repercussions for other non-Western nations. In particular, ‘participatory styles’ developed in the US may not apply well in high power distance cultures where managers are expected to ‘lead from the front’. Hence, ‘leadership’ in the Middle East is directive and authoritarian, and accepts hierarchy and structure, which looks decidedly different from the type of team-based, participatory leadership that ensures ‘good’ governance.

Leadership in the public sector: A Middle East perspectiveWestern models of leadership are unlikely to fit with many cultures, as Richard Common explains

DR RICHARD COMMON WITH A RESEARCH FELLOW FROM PEKING UNIVERSITY AND PRESIDENT OF THE CHINESE TALENTS SOCIETY