Public Administration Leadership Research Articles

Teaching Leadership in Public Administration

Graduates of public administration programs regularly find themselves in roles accorded substantial responsibility and authority. It is therefore crucial that these programs provide effective instruction that helps students develop leadership skills and attributes. The dilemma is that leadership concepts are not susceptible to traditional didactic instructional approaches, which are cognitively based. Leadership learning is best accomplished in the affective and behavioral domains as well as in the cognitive. We present a pedagogical model that we believe is more appropriate for teaching leadership in public administration, public policy, and public affairs. This model marries the key competencies of effective leaders with suitable teaching orientations. We illustrate how this model may be applied by describing a graduate leadership course we have developed and taught.

Leadership in Administration

This article discusses the nature and practice of leadership in public administration, from an explicitly American perspective and for the specific setting of democratic and constitutional government. It draws on some classic literature as framework and then discusses leadership principles and practices distilled, independently from differing views and experiences, by Colin L. Powell and Rudolph W. Giuliani. The purpose here is to highlight varying approaches to the vital role of leadership in administrative processes. The article then considers the moral foundation of leadership judgments. The public interest is the defining responsibility of the government official. The essence of leadership is moral judgment—which principles of action should embed. That the public interest is difficult to define, and subject to political controversy, does not detract from the moral basis of official duty and responsibility. What happens when ethics and morality are neglected manifests in the recent corporate scandals in the U.S.

Realism and Public Administration

Support of a political system of constitutional democracy that works has been an enduring purpose of American public administration. Politics is a central reality of the field, connected with decades-long struggles to elevate ideals of reasonable law; professional expertise; bureaucratic economy, efficiency, and effectiveness; and governmental responsiveness and civic responsibility. Failures of politics of constitutional democracy to work reasonably well have stimulated past changes in American public administration. Today, politics is again fundamentally redefining the field by shifting government away from professional practices toward technocratic spoils dominated by partisan executives. Meanwhile, politics itself begs for responsible redefinition. Associated with growing partisan domination of public administration by presidents, governors, and mayors for over a generation has been a chronic absence of popular trust in politics and government. These are today's inescapable realities. Enormous pressures exist to change frameworks of administration. But today's reforms are moving inexorably away from professional public administration leadership and toward layering of partisan political technocrats in service of executive politics and elections. Increasing use of grants and contracts provides resources that can be used to cement political coalitions and further blur the distinction between technical and political. What can be done? How can public administration possibly help to deal with these twin problems of expensive, media-era politics and failed popular trust? Realistically, can reasonable faith in constitutional democracy be restored and sustained? Crises of Political Confidence? Government is broke and politics is broken! Those are images that may warrant a question mark, but they prevail as today's routine exclamations. Examples are legion. Senator Bill Bradley (D-N.J.), for example, did not simply announce his retirement last year. As did many others, he quit, proclaiming American politics broken. He lamented that being in government in a time of distrust is like walking across booby-trapped terrain. Senator Cohen (R-Maine) likewise departed, noting that today's shock media contribute to a climate in which public servants are held in disrespect. Congresswoman Pat Schroeder was equally blunt about getting out, saying that she was tired of working seven-day weeks for a public that lacks civic understanding. In short, failed trust runs in two directions. Respected political reporter David Broder has written of intensifying partisanship and inability of a governing party to public confidence for more than a moment. If reads Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projections and 1996 election campaign promises together, travel appears well underway down a road to certain calamity in the next century. Reporting projected deficit increases, the CBO notes, even if policymakers ultimately enact legislation to balance the budget by 2002, the demographic trends that arise after 2010, if not addressed, will undermine efforts to keep the federal debt from burgeoning over the long term...[to] levels that the economy could not possibly sustain (Reducing the Deficit: Spending and Revenue Options. Washington, DC: Congressional Budget Office, 1996, 1). Challenges Underlying Political Turbulence Strategy in politics seems largely driven by today's polls and tomorrow's headlines and sound bites, by imperatives of campaign finance, and by connections with powerful special interests and political action committees. Many politicians, like other addicts, have become dependent on transitory fixes. Even those who may seek recovery can scarcely focus longer than a day at a time. Turbulence seems to prevail, frustrating responsible politics. Today's challenges to workable constitutional democracy require strategies beyond addicts' one day. …

Need for a Shift toward Public Administration Leadership

Need for a Shift toward Public Administration Leadership

Society Perspectives: Creative Leadership in Public Administration

Society Perspectives: Creative Leadership in Public Administration