IntroductionFor quality service delivery among the civil servants to the general public, leadership aspects plays a greater role. The civil servants have to equip themselves with various leadership skills and knowledge for the betterment of their service delivery to the citizens. As public administration mainly involves the implementation of the government policies, leadership skills makes these policies to be properly implemented (Cox, 2009).
High standards of leadership go in hand with education. Education is the foundation and it keeps leadership role on those without related backgrounds and update on the new requirements and further the knowledge of the leaders. There are so many approaches that would keep the leaders updated on quality implementation skills. These approaches are as follows: introducing new leaders to national trends and giving them external mandates like paying for the performance. The leaders giving reports of high quality results and critical issues, sending leadership teams on benchmarking and allowing them pay visit to leading edge implementation facilities. Briefing that come from high quality leadership to employees helps as the employees educating the employees. These sessions are also helpful in imparting knowledge and improving their skills. The management should be keen to ensure the implementation skills.
On the process of exercising leadership in public administrations, there are several challenges encountered especially to those whom the policies are targeted towards. For example, ignorance of the policies, frequent violation of the policies and not according the policies weight among the citizens.
Issues Associated with Leadership in Public Administration
In the process of implementation of government policy and preparation of civil servants in working in the public service, several issues crop up. The issues must be tackled in a proper and clear way in order to exercise proper public administration (Cox, 2009).
One of the issues is the ignorance of the policies to be implemented among the citizens. To tackle this, the public administrators need to first of all conduct training on the various government policies and the effects associated to their violation. They can do this through organizing workshops, seminars and shows. During these occasions, the public administrators exercise their leadership skills in imparting these knowledge and skills to the citizens. The citizens are clearly made aware of the policies, effects of their violation and also the benefits of their implementation (Holden, 2006). During such occasions, the public administrators also get to know where and how the citizens feel oppressed by the policies and provide amicable solutions to their pleas.
Another issue is judgment based on color. Many a time during the implementation of government policies, most citizens feel and believe that it is always done with regards to color. This brings about racism. The public administrators based on the leadership skills they have should wipe out this belief among the citizens and create the sense of equality among them. The aspects of social and economic status among the citizens should also not form the basing of implementation of the policies. Instead there should be fair and equal consideration during the implementation process. This fairness will bring the aspect of equality among the citizens and thus will make the implementation process easy.
Another key issue in the process of exercising leadership in public administration is the consideration of titles held by various people in the society. This greatly brings about the essence of inequality making the implementation process difficult. The consideration of status quo during the implementation process makes some citizens to have a feeling that others are above the law and others are not. This clash in status creates a strong barrier thus making the process tedious (Holden, 2006). The public administrators though their leadership skills should carry out this exercise in a manner that no one realize this clash in status. In order to do this, it should first start with them. They should present themselves to the citizens in a way that no citizen will realize an aspect of seniority among them.
Another issue is the prioritization of the policies. The public administrators should employ the various skills they have in helping the citizens prioritize the policies. The prioritization of the policies will help the citizens understand the ones that have grater impacts on their day to day lives (Holden, 2006). By knowing this, the citizens would accord them greater weight thus implementing them first.
Remedies Associated with Leadership in Public Administration
Leadership in public administration should pay much attention to the people’s culture. Culture refers to the people’s way of life and the norms associated with their day to day life. While exercising leadership in public administration, one should carry it out in a way that does not violate the people’s culture in any way. This will create cooperation among the administrators and the citizens.
An administrator should also consider the leadership style to adopt during the administration process. For example, one can either opt for democratic leadership or collaborative leadership. Democratic leadership is where the leader builds consensus, through participation of other people in the organization. Here, the leadership views management and others’ positions in terms of responsibilities rather than status. In democratic leadership there is often consultation in decision making. The leader solicits, values, and takes into account the opinion of others in a given organization (Morse & Buss, 2008). The leader also invites other stakeholders and staff members in either making decision or shaping the organization’s vision. Since the leader sees the organization as a cooperative venture, he brings together everyone’s ideas which enrich the organizations possibilities in terms of prosperity.
Collaborative leadership is where its leader includes everyone in the running of the organization. Here, the leader has the responsibility of initiating discussion, pinpointing problems or issues that need to be addressed. He/she will keep the whole organization on track but not a particular department. Decision making here, is through collaborative process of discussion and many a times she depends on majority consensus agreement.
When these aspects of leadership are put in place, the implementation process will greatly be easy. This is because, the citizens will feel incorporated in the process thus making them feel lively. This is a workable strategy as I personally employed it when I was working on ways of exercising leadership skills in a community health centre. The employment of these leadership styles will greatly help the administrators in achieving their set objectives as it will motivate, inspire and influence the citizens (Van. 2008).
Conclusion
Leadership in public administration entails several aspects that the administrator should put in place in order to realize proper implementation of the government policies from the civil servants to the general public. For instance, they should create an environment where all the citizens feel equal to each other. The administrators should also employ leadership styles that ensure mutual participation of everyone involved in the activity.
The employment of both the democratic and collaborative leadership styles in administration greatly makes the process lively and mutual. The citizens feel incorporated in the process thus making the whole activity mutual.
- Cox, R. W. (2009). Ethics and integrity in public administration: Concepts and cases. Armonk, N.Y: M.E. Sharpe.
- Holden, M. (2006). Continuity and disruption: Essays in public administration. Pittsburgh, Pa: University of Pittsburgh Press.
- Morse, R. S., & Buss, T. F. (2008). Innovations in public leadership development. Armonk, N.Y: M.E. Sharpe.
- Van, W. M. (2008). Leadership in public organizations: An introduction. Armonk, N.Y: M.E. Sharpe.
