Reserved for participants of the ANZSOG Executive Master of Public Administration (EMPA) program.
This topic is about an omnipresent, yet curiously ill-understood, phenomenon in government: Leadership, and its relation to stability and change in public policies and public organisations. Calls for better, stronger, more authentic, more ethical leadership in the public sector are often heard these days - as indeed they have been on and off through the ages in most political systems. But what does it mean when people say they want better leadership? What does 'leadership' really add to the mix of institutions and processes that make up the business of government? What place can leadership have in a democracy? How is its exercise being facilitated and constrained by the institutions of democracy and the rule of law? How do political and bureaucratic leaders at the apex of government interact, and how can they exercise collaborative leadership in driving policy change and organisational innovation? These are the core questions of this topic.
This topic aims to identify and debunk pervasive myths in contemporary management speak about 'leadership'. Instead, more empirically sound perspectives on political and bureaucratic leadership, as well as the relationship between political and bureaucratic leaders, will be presented. Participants will be encouraged to apply these perspectives in diagnosing and dealing with leadership predicaments in relation to forging stability and/or reform of public organisations and policies.
Timetable details for 2021 are no longer published.