The nexus of good governance and leadership Sylvester Odhiambo Obong’o and John Wilkins Governance is ‘the formation and stewardship of the formal and informal rules that regulate the public realm, including its political, economic and social dimensions. Good governance enables the development of public value through institutions and processes that promote accountability, transparency, predictability, capacity and participation’ (Chhabra, 2008). Goodness, as in the ‘public good’, is a relative term. A lingering question is what comes first – good governance or good leadership? Many would say that one cannot exist without the other. There is a symbiotic relationship between governance and leadership. But what seems true is that good governance can survive bad leadership, whereas effective leadership is rarely sustained under a governance regime without virtue. The strategic challenge Public service today is a crowded intersection – there can be no public sector reform without capacity development, no transformation of networked government without collaborative leadership and no innovation without stewardship by strategic leaders. These dilemmas are exacerbated by the paradox of politics, where nothing is what it seems and perception is reality. The environment can be daunting to sort through, even for seasoned managers, never mind for newly appointed or first-time managers who need to know where to start. Public leaders want strategic managers in their organisations. Results from a 2014 survey of Canadian deputy ministers and chief administrative officers (Evans et al., 2014) point to their top four priorities: • Building leadership capacity (92.7 per cent) • Focusing programmes on measuring outcomes rather than outputs (78.7 per cent) • Implementing new innovative methods of and solutions to public service delivery (75.4 per cent) • Enhancing attitudes and values of staff (72.6 per cent) Strategic leadership requires experience and judgement. Rapid change, complex issues and generational turnover raise expectations of accelerated knowledge gathering. Fledgling public managers are expected to grow up quickly, learning in five years what used to take 20. There is no manual or formula for acquiring the knowledge and insights needed. Governments require strategic managers who can lead programmes that cost less, deliver better service and add public value. Strategic public managers: • Benchmark international good practices that are transferable to local governance and leadership • Advocate whole-of-government approaches that align the principles of good governance and citizen-centred service • Cultivate political acuity and business acumen together in relations with political and public service leaders • Network government to develop public service capacity, institutionalise change and account for results • Foster teamwork proactively to implement strategies that lead to sustainable change and results • Embrace self-awareness as a comparative advantage for effective performance and career development • Proactively identify and resolve problems that impair organisational change and outcomes In short, strategic public managers manage up, down, across, out and every which way. They are part teacher and part spirit worker. They enable communities of interest and practice to flourish. A new brand of leadership exercising strategic competencies is prophesied. We need well balanced, dedicated people who practice a style of management that can be called ‘engaging’. These people believe that their purpose is to leave behind stronger organisations. Leadership competencies Competencies are the behaviours that enable organisations to attain their strategic objectives. Along with trust, competence is integral to horizontal goal-setting approaches in public service motivation. To be successful, leaders need to know the corporate culture and continuously improve upon their general management capabilities. But competence is in the eye of the beholder. In 1969 the Peter Principle popularised the view that ‘managers rise to the level of their incompetence’. The principle has been reframed for today’s organisations, workplaces and people. ‘Managing upwards’, subordinates find creative ways to promote greater interests while subtly limiting the havoc superiors might otherwise have wrought (Peter and Hull, 1969: p. 8). A generation of public managers has been raised in a counter culture vested in claims of competence. A cottage industry of human resource specialists and consultants feasts on the spoils, with mixed results. Competency frameworks cascade standardised roles, attributes, behaviours and measures across the performance landscape. Competency approaches are expected to help identify the skills, knowledge, behaviours and capabilities needed to meet organisations’ current and future personnel selection needs. On the one hand, this aligns variations in strategies and priorities. On the Commonwealth Governance 64 Handbook 2014/15
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