PUBLIC SECTOR Public Sector, Vol. 29, (3) 2006 Articles Developing leadership in the New Zealand public service New Zealand involvement in local government development in the Solomon Islands Meeting the challenge: Elements in reducing and managing risk in social work practice News Annual prizes awarded at Victoria University’s School of Government for 2006 Volume 28 Number 2 2005 1 Publisher Institute of Public Administration New Zealand. P O Box 5032, Wellington, New Zealand. Phone +64 4 463 6940 PUBLIC Fax: +64 4 463 6939 Email: [email protected] The whole of the literary matter of Public Sector is copyright ©2006 – IPANZ Editor SECTOR Allen Petrey 2006 Volume 29 Number 3 ISSN 0110-5191 Layout Hettie Barnard Editorial Office c/- The Publisher as above Contents Editorial Committee Articles Tom Berthold Ralph Chapman Developing leadership in the New Zealand public service Chris Eichbaum by Murray Short ............... ..................................................................................................... 2 Geoff Lewis Allen Petrey Gaylia Powell New Zealand involvement in local government development Michael Reid in the Solomon Islands Carol Stigley by Mark Dacombe ....................................................................................................................8 Advertising Jay Matthes Meeting the challenge: Elements in reducing and managing risk in Phone:+64 4 463 6940 social work practice Fax: +64 4 463 6939 by Rob Laking ....................................................................................................................... 15 Email: [email protected] Scope News IPANZ is committed to promoting in- formed debate on issues already significant in the way New Zealanders govern them- Annual prizes awarded at Victoria University’s School of selves, or which are emerging as issues Government for 2006 ........................................................................................................18 calling for decisions on what sorts of laws and management New Zealanders are prepared to accept. Book Review IPANZ arranges seminars and workshops Roderick Deane: His Life and Times – Michael Bassett and Judith Bassett for people to debate these issues. Much of by Judy Whitcombe ..................................................................................................................20 this debate is reflected in Public Sector. Information for Authors Obituary See our web page at www.ipanz.org.nz/pub.html R.F. (Ray) McCullagh BE, FIPENZ, MIEE 1925–2006 ......................................22 Subscriptions The Institute welcomes both corporate and individual membership and journal subscrip- tions. Please see the subscription form on the inside of the back cover. The views published in Public Sector do not necessarily represent those of IPANZ or those of the authors’ employers. Public Sector Volume 29 Number 3 2006 1 Article Developing leadership in the New Zealand public service Murray Short Leadership Development Centre, Wellington Introduction Personal Attributes are seen as the underlying indicators of leadership potential and they tend to be more innate and The Leadership Development Centre (the Centre) considers difficult to develop. These include agility of thinking, integrity, that the quality of leadership is critical to the success of ability to connect with people, energy and drive, and personal organisations. Leadership is essentially about aligning people strength and courage. As these are difficult to develop and and action with the purpose and direction of an organisation indicative of potential, the Centre uses them for assessment and creating energy through motivation and inspiration. purposes to, for example, determine who enters the Executive Leadership Programme. The Centre was established to develop leadership capability in the public service and it has been in operation for three years. The Leadership Abilities are strategy forming, culture shaping, The Centre is a Trust run by a Board of Chief Executives senior official nous, managing people, business acumen, elected by the 40 public service and other state agency mem- stakeholder management, cultural sensitivity, and responsive- bers. We offer a range of services to senior managers and the ness to Mäori. These abilities are the focus of development for agencies themselves. the Centre’s programmes and services. The Centre’s funding comes from agency subscriptions, fees Pathways and Experiences are the variety of life and career for services and events, and government funding of part of experiences that people bring to the leadership role. The the cost of one service, the Executive Leadership Programme1. Profile indicates that there is value in breadth of experience in terms of both varied career paths and other life experience. The Centre has seen a substantial increase in the use of its Experiential learning is also central to the development focus services and as a consequence has expanded its resources to of the Centre’s programmes. match the demand. The Centre now has 16 staff, up from a base of six when it was established. The Profile is therefore an inclusive model of leadership in the sense that it includes the range of management skills and Over the three years of operation, the Centre has grown in its competencies rather than focusing exclusively on leadership understanding of the nature and current state of leadership in aspects. This informs the approach taken by the Centre and the public service, its importance for organisational effective- consequently the term leadership is used throughout this paper ness, and the most effective ways of building leadership in the inclusive sense. The Centre considers that comparing capability. This paper sets out some of those insights. and contrasting the two is not helpful, particularly in terms of development. We prefer the approach implicit in Mintzberg’s seminal ‘The Nature Leadership in the New Zealand public of Managerial Work’, which includes key leadership behaviours as service part of the management role conferred by hierarchical status. The Centre develops leadership capability within the context Management is the role which creates suitable conditions for of the Senior Leadership and Management Development organisational and individual performance. It develops and Strategy, which is one stream of the development goals for the communicates purpose, strategies and plans; sets up operating systems state services as expressed by the State Services Commission and conditions; obtains and deploys resources; and operates internal (the SSC)2. As a key part of this Strategy, the SSC developed a and external accountabilities. standard for leadership in the public service, the Leadership Good managers will have a number of leadership qualities so that, Capability Profile (SSC, 2003). The Profile has three main in carrying out their role, they gain alignment and energy from others aspects; Personal Attributes, Leadership Abilities, and Path- (Leadership Development Centre, 2006). ways and Experiences. The Profile is a type of competency model and can be readily aligned with such models, although In the Centre’s view therefore, leadership is part of good the attributes and abilities are described at a higher level. management. It is the set of behaviours good managers use to 2 Public Sector, Volume 29 Number 3 2006 inspire active followership by ensuring that people are aligned When working with managers on their career planning, the with the organisation’s purpose and direction and energised to framework is used to indicate the development emphases fulfil them. The outcome of such management and leadership (based on the Leadership Capability Profile) that flow from is the achievement of results through others; results that their particular career aspirations. So, for example, if a man- exceed what could otherwise be achieved through the contri- ager aspires to lead a large and complex organisation (Organi- bution of individuals. sational leadership) then the greatest emphasis needs to be on the abilities associated with ‘culture shaping’, ‘managing One aspect of leadership that the Profile does not incorporate people’, and ‘business acumen’. In contrast, if they aspire to a is the concept developed by Elliott Jacques (Jacques, 1998) of senior functional leadership role such as in financial manage- different tasks and competencies at different levels of manage- ment then the technical abilities remain an important emphasis. ment. This concept is central to the Australian equivalent of the Profile, the Integrated Leadership System (APSC, 2002) Organisational leaders cannot maintain the technical leadership and the Centre considers it is particularly important in terms role across the increasingly diverse range of functions they of leadership development. become responsible for as they move into more senior posi- tions. Furthermore, all leaders need to be cautious about The concept is that at each level of management the tasks are exercising a direct role even in the area of their own technical different and the timespan over which discretion is exercised expertise because this can have the effect of disempowering increases. This requires different sets of knowledge and skill as those in the organisation who have that function, as illustrated leaders gain experience at the various levels. So for example, in the following passage from a recent article in Harvard first level management is predominantly about managing the Management Update. performance