Assignment 4: Public Leadership Presentation Due Week 10 and worth 150 points Condense information from Assignments 1, 2, 3, and additional criteria in order to develop a creative and appealing PowerP
PUBLIC LEADERSHIP AND DIVERSITY 10
Public Leadership and Diversity
PAD 515
May 16, 2020
(Revision)
Role of Public Leadership
Leadership is about giving a direction to the entity in which people and other forms of resources collaborate for a certain purpose. Public organizations aimed at delivering public goods and services; require public leadership that can bring a positive change, reformation, and innovation in their services. Organizational challenges are already enormous due to the large size of the workforce within state-controlled organizations. One of the interesting features of modern organizational challenges that state-controlled organizations face pertains to the rapidly changing sociopolitical environment. Leadership role in dealing with such challenges and with all the complexities refers to public leadership. Unlike any corporate organizations where the hierarchical structure provides leadership role to multiple individuals i.e. CEO, President, or Executive Director at the top of the hierarchy, and duties are assigned as per their role, the public leadership is about coordination between multiple leaders for a certain issue or challenge. For example, passing a bill on safe driving requires coordinated efforts on part of various departments that includes pressure groups, national and local politicians, police, government ministries, local government officials, and civil servants. Public leadership aims for understanding and acting in the best interest of the public, and the ability of solving the problem comes with understanding the problem. Problem identification and providing remedy can be performed effectively if it is analyzed with the lens of ‘public interest’. The basic aim of public leadership is to ensure the interest of the public in the long-term and not just short term because they focus on making a better place for the public. The factor of motivation in servicing as a public servant comes with higher moral values that include thinking about the public interest, and ensuring long-term benefits to the society while delivering public goods and services.
The public managers and professional public leadership work at the local and national level with delegated authority from the elected representatives. They carry out activities on behalf of the government and unlike private organizations, the organizations they are serving cannot change their ‘markets’ or fundamental purpose. There exist two distinct approaches to leadership within public administration, that is, traditional and non-traditional leadership (Sanchez, Thornton & Usinger, 2008). The traditional approach provides little room for independence to work and the public servants are supposed to deliver on behalf of their respective elected politicians. The decision of defining public interest lies solely with politicians and the other two crucial pillars; policy-making and implementation are performed by policymakers and public servants, respectively. The problems facing public leadership are diverse and often contain ethical dilemmas. First, an ethical dilemma is the carrying out of orders that the politicians pass which might not reflect the personal choices of a public servant. If there is some problem with the orders of politicians, carrying out those orders can have personal and societal implications. For example, Guy Adams (2014) explains the incidents of the holocaust and the way they were carried out by public servants as per their duty obligations (Sanchez, Thornton & Usinger, 2008). Henceforth, public interest and ethics are central to the public servant's jobs, and effective public leadership requires taking ethical responsibility of raising concern within the workplace environment, as they are the first in a line of implementation. Secondly, there also exists a contradictory wish that places public servants with choices and making choices that yield optimum results are difficult ethical decisions. For example, when a social worker sends a child to foster family due to neglect on part of the child’s parents, there is another alternative available and that is the improvement in parenting. It is a difficult choice to make as it can backfire if improving the parenting turns out to be not effective, or sending away the child results can result in depriving the family of their union (Eagly & Chin, 2010). In such a case, effective public leadership has to understand the root causes of the problem and provide a suitable remedy. These remedy ranges from counseling to sort out financial troubles that the parents are facing which end up neglect on part of parents.
Gender Roles in Public Leadership
Gender plays a significant role in defining leadership styles. The personality traits i.e. social and personal characteristics of both males and females are reflected through their leadership. In general, it has been found out that men, being authoritative leaders, orders, or provides direct directions to their employees in comparison to the females who provide encouragement and motivation to find the right direction. A female public leader has more of a participative style of leadership and encompasses the traits of transformational leadership in general. Stereotypical understanding of leadership exists due to the traditional role of men as leaders, though their style of leadership is more of authoritarian nature. Females are appreciative and encouraging towards the young lot, as compared to the male leaders. They are more efficient at work, and can multi-task without creating stress because in general, women are supposed to handle different kinds of work at one moment. Lastly, they do not escape from hard work with disregard to factors like creativity and innovation, etc. One cannot completely make a statement about male and female leadership, being better than one another. In reality, both males and females can be effective leaders but their motivation comes from different factors. Among the public leaders, the most significant male leader in recent history is the Martin Luther King Jr. who changed the life of the African Americans in the United States of America. He held peaceful protests but he made sure that everyone can hear his voice. He had intelligence, self-determination, and confidence by which he made his way to the top and made his place in the hearts of the public. He used the blend of transformational and authoritative leadership styles to spread his message. The famous 20th-century female leader was the Martha W. Griffiths who spoke up openly for the rights of women and include their cause in the civil rights movement. She was headstrong and had influencing power by which she made her way in politics, the world of male leaders. She was the epitome of the female leadership having courage and compassion for her people. She was an inspirational leader for women of that era and years to come. She used a democratic and transformational leadership style to address the problems of women and gender bias in the 20th century.
Gender Diversity in Public Leadership
Male and females both have their defining characteristics which influence their way of maintaining people or organizations. Both kinds of leadership are necessary for effective functioning and considering that there have been an increasing number of females’ in different fields of life who reach to the position of executive or leaders. My experience of working with a female leader at the workplace can be explained through the constructivist approach, as there are multiple factors which influence their leadership style. For one thing, their behavior towards young males and females is always positive and of concern, and it is due to the repute they want to secure for women as a good and effective leader. I have worked both with male and female bosses and both of them have their positive aspects. Females believe in direct connection with the employees but males tend to be more involved with the work-related aspects of the relationship. One basic element of ‘courage’ to remove personal biases in pursuing goals that are in the best public interest is central to public leadership. On the contrary, if personal agendas are at the top of shelve, or a public leader lacks the courage to channelize public as per public interest, the resulting impact is an ineffective public leader. It is common to both males and females and it depends on the effectiveness of the leadership. As a weakness, lack of ability to manage effective collaboration and communication between various stakeholders, or parties to the issue, becomes a weakness of public leaders. A Public Leader needs to take into account the communication skills for effective cooperation and collaboration amongst various parties to the issue. Both male and female leaderships have the same basic roles but they choose directions according to their traits.
Social and Governmental Changes in the 1990s
The events occurring in the 1990s owes a great deal to the international political transformation from bi-polar to the unipolar world with the end of cold-war politics. Within South African politics, figures like F. W. de Klerk, Desmond Tutu, and Nelson Mandela rose to power and took a significantly different turn in world history by negotiating peace, and avoiding civil war (MacKinnon, 2020). The alliance of Klerk and Mandela is the end of the apartheid system, and the introduction of a universal suffrage system that ends racial segregation, and White-minority rule. To avoid racial civil war, Klerk released Mandela from prison who was imprisoned for a lifetime and had already spent twenty-seven years in prison by the time. His efforts of permitting anti-apartheid marches, legalization of banned anti-apartheid political parties, dismantling the nuclear weapons program of South Africa, and freeing imprisoned anti-apartheid prison are well known. Mandela, on the other hand, also proved himself an effective public leader that managed to win the 1994 elections and became the first Black President, and first democratically elected Black President of South Africa. Mandela collaborated with White-minority after making a political alliance with Klerk forming the Government of National Unity (MacKinnon, 2020). Klerk became ANC-led coalition’s Deputy President and pursued liberal economic policies. Mandela with socialist and Marxist economic ideologies pursued the liberal economic policies as measures after keeping in view ‘public interest. ’ De Klerk opposed the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and desired total amnesty for the crimes committed under the apartheid system.
The relationship between Mandela and Klerk strained over time, but the relationship was political in nature and they never sacrificed ‘public interest’ due to personal conflicting views on issues. Apart from Mandela’s pursuing liberal economic policies, issues like land reforms and poverty eradication were top on the political and economic agenda. Along with the promulgation of a new constitution by Klerk & Mandela, Mandela created a commission to investigate past human rights abuses committed by anti and pro-apartheid, and chaired by Desmond Tutu. Tutu remained a prominent figure from the African continent, especially the preaching and advocacy issues that raised applause and concerns from almost every corner of the society. He emerged as an anti-apartheid activist, and most prominent of South Africa, after assuming the role as Bishop of Lesotho (Kokobili, 2019). His efforts to dismantle the apartheid system of white-minority rule and racial segregation are remarkable, and he rose to prominence after becoming general-secretary of the South African Council of Churches. His efforts of the introduction of women priests, campaigning for gay rights, Israel-Palestine conflict, opposition to the Iraq War, and criticism of Jacob Zuma and Thabo Mbeki’s regime (Schwella, 2013) are well known among a wide range of subjects. The unique feature of the three prominent figures is the element of courage to face criticism because they felt something is in the public interest, along with advocating for public reforms that benefited the society. There self-less journey and goodwill earned them repute globally and two of the figures won Noble Peace Prize.
Personal Reflection as a Public Leader
Personal strengths and weaknesses play a vital role in ensuring the success of public leadership in delivering goods and services that are in the best interest of the public at large. I believe that I have the power of persuasion and encouragement by which I can motivate my employees on a personal level but one weakness which I have is the lack of experience in public speaking, which I aim to improve with time. The encouragement and motivation can influence people and in this way, leaders can translate their motivation and goals to reality with the help of employees but by public speaking, one can easily communicate to larger audience and influence people in less time.
References
Eagly, A. H., & Chin, J. L. (2010). Diversity and leadership in a changing world. American psychologist, 65(3), 216.
Kokobili, A. (2019). An Insight on Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s Struggle Against Apartheid in South Africa.
MacKinnon, A. S. (2020). Nelson Mandela: A Reference Guide to His Life and Works. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Sanchez, J., Thornton, B., & Usinger, J. (2008). Promoting Diversity in Public Education Leadership. International Journal of Educational Leadership Preparation, 3(3), n3.
Schwella, E. (2013). Bad public leadership in South Africa: the Jackie Selebi case. Scientia Militaria: South African Journal of Military Studies, 41(1).
