PP500: Public Administration and Management

Unit 8

Leadership in Public Administration

Professor Jamie Scripps

jscripps@kaplan.edu

Housekeeping

FeedbackQuestions?

Readings

Read chapter 6 in the textAdditional readings:

Fairholm, M. (2000) “Reclaiming Leadership in Public Administration.” PA Times.

Public administration: Doing the right things right in service to society.

Article Overview

The article “Reclaiming Leadership in Public Administration” focuses on leadership in public administration and why the topic of leadership is often avoided.

Discussion Board Topic

Is it Good Leadership?

Read the article “Chicago Parking Meter Rebellion” Discuss if Mayor Daley’s decision to privatize parking meters was good for the city.   Do you think the mayor thoroughly thought about his decision and the effect it would have on the city economy and the residents of Chicago?

Assignment: Group Project

Work with your to group to allocate the funds in your reduced budget in a simple table using Microsoft Word.

Your table should represent the 4 quarters of the fiscal year, and should identify at least six major responsibilities of the agency.  

In addition, be sure to summarize your reasoning in 2-3 paragraphs.

 

Bureaucracy and Leadership

If an organization is highly structured — some would say bureaucratized — the possibilities of leadership are limited.

Bureaucracy and Leadership

This is so because more of the decisions concerning management of organizational affairs are already settled questions and thus are not ordinarily subject to being reopened. In this sense, bureaucracy is not conducive to leadership.

Chief Executives

Who are the chief executives referred to in your text?

Executive Leadership

Executive leadership differs from leadership within the ranks of administrators themselves in several different ways. VisibilityLack of specialized knowledgePersuasion

Executive Leadership

American chief executives are highly visible to the public and are perceived as being able to provide both political leader-ship and policy initiative; they are also usually considered responsible for the operations of executive-branch bureaucracies.

Executive Leadership

Most chief executives lack specialized knowledge and must rely on persuasion rather than on command authority.

Discussion Question

How can chief executives succeed as leaders without specialized knowledge?

Political persuasion or “jawboning”

Power of chief executives to convince legislators, administrators, and the general public that their policies should be adopted; jawboning is quite literally the primary tactic, that is, talking, used by presidents, governors, or mayors to achieve this goal.

Information

A major factor in chief-executive influence is control over, and the uses of, information. The president and other chief executives may be dependent on bureaucratic sources of information (even within their own executive establishments).

Discussion Question

It is said that in politics, knowledge— and therefore information— is power. How can chief executives assure themselves of an adequate flow of accurate information?

Leadership roles

DirectorMotivatorCoordinatorInnovatorCrisis Manager

Leader as Director

Refers to the challenge of bringing some unity of purpose to an organization’s members.

Leader as Motivator

Key task centering on devices such as tangible benefits, positive social interaction, work interest, encouragement by job supervisors, and leadership that is self-confident, persuasive, fair, and supportive.

Leader as Coordinator

Involves bringing some order to the multitude of functions within a complex organization.

Leader as Innovator

Formalized conception of the “spark plug” role in a group setting. As part of the catalyst role, a leader is also expected to introduce innovations into an organization.

spark plug – being the one who makes it happen.

Leader as Crisis Manager

Involves coping with both immediate and longer-term difficulties, more serious than routine managerial challenges.

Discussion Question

Executive power seems to increase after every emergency or crisis situation.

Can you think of an example of this?

Discussion Question

Why doesn’t executive authority simply revert to what it was before the crisis occurred?

Challenges of Administrative Leadership

Directing and Reconciling Personal and Organizational Goals

Motivating Others to Do What is Best for the Organization

Coordinating and Integrating ActivitiesInnovating and Pointing the WayServing as External SpokespersonManaging Crises

Leadership Approaches

TraitsSituational

Traits Approach

The traits approach stresses leader personality and individual aptitudes—ambition, drive, ego, interpersonal skills, charisma—and identifies the characteristics commonly shared by leaders.

Traits v. Situational Approach

The traits approach has been largely replaced by the situational approach, which assumes that successful leadership depends on personal traits, task-related elements, interpersonal relations, organizational structure, and group values.

Situational Approach

The situational approach is now predominant among most scholars and observers. There has been renewed interest in the study of relational leadership within organizations and of personality traits as they relate to behavior. However, emphasis remains on the situation in which leadership takes place.

Relational Leadership

Leaders must not only be competent at traditional skills such as goal setting, conflict management, and motivation, but must also be able to acquire information from group members and adapt their leadership styles to fit the needs of followers.

Effective Leadership

What makes for an effective leader?

Who are examples of effective leaders in government today?

Effective Leadership

Are leaders born, or made, or both?

Effective Leadership

Generally, an effective leader is one who respects organization members’ talents and individuality, listens to group opinions, interacts with members on a “democratic” basis, treats others fairly and openly, and is consistent and equitable in evaluating work done by members.

Effective Leadership

Applying these leadership precepts to concrete situations is not a simple matter, however. Leaders must be competent, receptive to comments from followers, supportive, fair, and able to direct without intimidation or coercion.

Questions?