Public Servant Lifestyle

Professor Rob Paton, Chair of The Open University Master of Public Administration, discusses leadership in complex organisations.

Leadership and effectiveness - we need them, but cannot be sure what form they should take. The recipes and formulae are interesting – but they do not equip you for the real challenges.

Consider effectiveness, and today’s calls for outcome focus and more and better measurement.

The problem is that the requirements for effective performance measurement systems are inherently contradictory:

they must be quite narrowly focussed and comprehensive

they must be valid and reliable and cheap and easily administered

they must be widely supported and agreed and yet measurement is called for precisely when the value of the work is contested and viewpoints have diverged

they must be stable to allow comparisons, analysis and learning but also continually revised to ensure alignment with a churning policy environment.

Dysfunction

No wonder that measurement weakness and dysfunction come with the territory. Always, the refrain is, ‘next time we will do it properly’. At its worst, this can lead to performance fundamentalism – measurement becomes a dogma enacted literally, regardless of the costs to the organisation and its work.

Measures and reports are like religious observances when they are disconnected from life and practised obsessively. Even valuable attempts at reformation (like the ‘outcomes’ movement) can grist the fundamentalist’s mill: grants and contract administrators start to expect regular reporting of figures for multi-dimensional outcomes – in addition to the usual counts of activities, outputs, attendances…

In the face of this, some lose their faith. They consider performance and effectiveness to be nothing more than social constructs - matters of spin, reputation, who you know, opportunism, the next policy fashion, and making sure potential ‘dirty linen’ never becomes public. The wise stay committed to doing the most they can, and live in hope – but without illusions. They still take measurement seriously, but no longer literally. They abandon the technocratic fantasies of rational control and accept uncertainty. Their faith has space for doubts.

They know that measurement and reporting is often purely symbolic, absorbing much needed resources. They duck and weave with funders and the media – but they know better than to take their propaganda seriously. They may even sense that over-enthusiasm for quality and excellence can be self-defeating. ‘Good enough’ is often better for organisations. They understand that the organisations they lead, like all others, have their shadows.

This thinking applies to leadership too. You must be close to clients – but also to funders. We need visionaries, but not unrealistic ones. Effective leaders are also practical. You must be entrepreneurial, engaged and dynamic – but, hold on, we didn’t mean you to be unaccountable, opportunistic and unreflective because at the same time you must be principled, thoughtful, and steady.

People-Focussed

Yes, the sector needs people-focussed leaders, concerned and compassionate, adept at building relationships – but that must not mean being indulgent, or engaging in self-serving networking. So you must be mission-driven but not so that you upset partners, or burn out your staff.

Rather than idealising one trait and overlooking its dangers, you need a subtler, more fluid and holistic understanding of the balances and tensions that leadership necessarily involves. A mature commitment is balanced and flexible, integrating conflicting values. By contrast, the energetic idealism of youth, though it can be so productive, is marked almost always by polarisations which can undermine or provoke too much resistance.

Handling incompatible expectations and pressures, balancing multiple accountabilities, upholding conflicting values – these very personal challenges are at the heart of public and third sector leadership. But avoiding the pitfalls of reactivity and high-minded egotism requires the ability to access and speak from deep commitments and considered positions. This is why leadership is so personal. It’s about finding your own voice, not reading a script.

Article by Professor Rob Paton, Chair of The Open University Master of Public Administration in which accountability, measurement and leadership are major topics. This feature has been supplied by The Open University.

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