The people side of leadership and developing executive leadership in the public sector

¶ … quality of leadership, and of the leaders themselves, can influence and organization's success and contribute to its failure. Two recent articles in the professional journal, the Public Manager, discuss the role of leadership in public organizations and how leaders can be more effective. The two articles are similar in that they address the question of what makes an effective leader, but they differ in their overall focus and conclusions. Jeff Turner focuses almost exclusively on technical skills of leadership and how leadership fits into the organization's structure and how it influences the organizations strategic success. Mark Leheney, in contrast, argues that effective leadership relies on people skills, not process or strategizing.

In his article, "Developing Executive Leadership in the Public Sector," Jeff Turner first explicates the current crisis in public sector leadership, mainly that the leaders in place are ineffective. They are perhaps good managers, but good management does not equal good leadership. Leaders, Turner says, must be able to guide an organization toward its strategic goals and respond to the unique challenges of working in the public sector, including frequent policy changes, distrust of political leaders, competing goals, resource shortages and competition with the private sector. What's the solution, then to the predicament, according to Turner? Increasing leadership capacity by creating a "deep bench" of leaders throughout the organization, not just at the top (51). Turner explains that there are several indicators that indicate whether or not a leader is effective: self knowledge; personal accountability; strategy setting; engaging others; and harnessing insights (51-2). Notice that only one of his categories, engaging others, is focused strongly on the people skills of being a leader; the rest are technical skills and self-focused. Turner does turn to people skills when he mentions organization-specific qualities of leadership -- engaging and persuading the team toward the strategic goals. Still, Turner's focus is on a leader's effectiveness at a higher level, that of organizational objectives.

Can good leadership be taught? Can a leader be made? Turner thinks so, and he sets out specific practices and training approaches for developing strong leaders. First, Turner argues, leadership development needs to be firmly seated as a job for senior management, not for human resources (52). Only by being mentored and exposed to senior leaders can emerging leaders find their way to effectiveness, he argues. Leadership development programs, to be successful long-term, must be integrated into the agency's operations. Senior leaders need to be held accountable for developing junior leaders, and leadership accomplishments should be measurable.

Mark Leheney, in his article "The People Side of Leadership: An Overlooked Opportunity," focuses on the necessity of outstanding interpersonal skills in leadership. Leheney's article not only differs in substance from Turner's, it also differs in style. In a demonstration of his own principles, he writes with a personal feel (addressing the reader often) and beings by asking each of us when we've had another person commit to helping us, and how powerful the experience was. This sets quite the different tone from Turner's strategy and process-focused article, and it serves Leheney's thesis well. The readers matter.

Leheney's position is that people skills are not only important for good leadership, they are often overlooked. He argues that leaders are often great technically yet terrible with people, either because they don't make the time or they don't have the skills (15). Too many leaders, he says, focus on tasks and the work, not on the people performing the work (16). Leheney sets out a plan for a leader who is interested in making the commitment to his or her people. There are four crucial steps: learn to listen; share information; recognize successes and mistakes; and celebrate uniqueness. Only when a leader makes these skills part of his or her leadership repetoire can he or she be effective as a leader. Leheney's article includes Practice Tools for each of the four skills, so leaders can integrate these skills into everyday conversations with their colleagues.