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“These public leaders rely on practiced skills like systems thinking, facilitative leadership, and performance measures, and they engage their constituencies and their workforces to achieve goals important to the entire community.”
Bristol, Rhode Island town officials today revealed the secret to their successful communication program that has ‘re-energized’ town departments and improved how things are getting done. ‘The Bristol Approach to Excellence,’ is the new program devised to keep department heads and citizens more updated on the progress of current town projects.
On a day-to-day basis, public leaders are skilled at providing services to other public organizations and to the residents they serve. Most importantly, they understand their jobs, not in terms of titles or position descriptions, but in terms of “who depends on me.” Public leaders are also adept at getting others to understand who depends on them and for what. They work with numerous stakeholder groups to continuously innovate in the delivery of public services and meet challenges. Also essential for any leader is the ability to engender trust—particularly public leaders. How they meet commitments and follow through even when things are difficult or uncomfortable is paramount to their ability to lead.
Read more about practices that are essential to public leadership on page 32 of the May 2016 issue of Public Management magazine.
Read the article, Newport cuts red tape, saves hours, by Sean Flynn at the Newport Daily News.
Newport town officials today projected a yearly savings of over $44,000 in staff hours to the city after completing the first phase of re-engineering an outdated citywide special events licensing application process. The change to the special events permits procedure is the direct result of Newport officials taking part in the program, ‘Leadership Matters RI,’ a joint initiative between the Pell Center at Salve Regina University, Newport, RI and the Public Sector Consortium, a national nonprofit dedicated to reinventing the practice of public leadership through learning and practice.
Can Private Sector Leaders Be Great Public Sector Leaders, And Is the Opposite True?
How Different is the Work and Can Private Sector Leaders Learn How to Become More Effective from Public Sector Leaders?
For years, politicians have been telling us the federal government needs to operate more like a business, but can a private sector leader truly be a great public sector leader? Is the reverse true? Successful leadership in business or government requires a mastery of communication and negotiation skills, and an ability to engender trust and credibility. But routinely ignored are the different responsibilities and skills required.