More on the Public Service

australian policy online: "Posted: 14-12-2005

Jack Waterford reviews the Commonwealth Public Service Commissioner’s latest State of the Service report

FOR AN organisation which has talked so much and spent so much on leadership and improved management, the Australian Public Service has nothing much to write home about in terms of results – at least if the views of public servants themselves mean anything. A good many public servants find their leaders significantly wanting in leadership qualities and in ideas. Many leaders talk too little about ethics and values, and all too often do not provide good examples of them in action. Many public servants think their bosses poor managers of their fellows and have little confidence in their promotion decisions, or in the allocation of rewards or bonuses for good work." . . . . .

As the wheel turns, it emerges that the best results come from people who know what they are doing and why, and who are inspired by people who lead by example, who are seen as well as read, and whose own styles in managing people, in setting the moral and ethical standards, and in inspiring confidence in their fairness, set the models for their agencies. Alas, all too often, the modern leadership generation, and the one being cultivated below, is less distinguished for its leadership than for its capacity to manage processes rather than people.

Pete's Points

This is an article worth reading - in full!

On the one hand Jack talks about the one problem that is becoming gradually more and more insoluble. As the ageing bubble really begins to bite the brain drain from the Public Service becomes an increasingly bigger issue. Having people in organisations who 'know what they are doing and why' is becoming problematic as most public servants at least in the last 10 years or so are driven by the need to flit from job to job in a search for promotion or a better pay packet within a grade as different organisations have different pay levels for the same levels of responsibility. As these people flit from organisation to organisation they neither learn organisational policy nor good people management skills. As for being well read . . . well . .