Appliance of Public Senior Executives Competences for Municipality Activity Efficiency Development

Abstract

Globalization, economic crisis, political changes, increasing expectations of society and dissatisfaction with policy implemented by the government visibly increases the changes in civil service institutions as well as conditions the necessity of strategically thinking and active senior executives in civil service. The performance results of public sector mostly depend on senior executives` professionalism, competences in leadership, ability to focus and motivate civil servants so they can reach set goals. Therefore, one of the most important tasks in every country is to create a professional and competent civil service, which would be able to function effectively in rapidly changing and complex environment. The necessity of well-prepared and competent public senior executives in present modern institutions is increasing. There are many classifications of competences in the scientific literature. Summarizing these classifications of competences, the authors distinguish two main groups of competences: common and strategic competences. Group of common competences, which are required to take particular position, consists of following competences: personal, social, professional and managerial. Meanwhile group of strategic competences consists of four main competences: cooperation, single-mindedness, possession of vision and leadership. According to respondents’ statements it was determined that in group of common competences (which consists of personal, social, professional and managerial competence) the least demonstrated competence of senior executives of Lithuanian self-government administrations is managerial one (that involves logical, analytical, systemic thinking and so on). In the group of common competences, social competence oriented towards cooperation, partnership, training and development was assessed as most positive. During assessment of strategic competences, it was determined that all criteria of strategic competences groups (cooperation, single-mindedness, possession of vision and leadership) where assessed by the respondents as important. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.ee.28.5.17743