Reforming the Public Sector: How to Achieve Better Transparency, Service, and Leadership

7. Leadership Competencies and Their Relevance to Italian Government Reform

Which leadership competencies are related to government reform? Since there are different types of reform, what are the specific competencies related to those distinct reform types? 1 What types of reform are currently being instituted in Italy, through both the historic Legislative Decree 150/2009 and related legislative enactments, and how do they relate to the practical competencies needed by Italian administrators? There are literally hundreds of theories that explain leadership.2 Some theories are meant to have universal applicability while others are intended to explain leadership in a vast array of special circumstances. Theories generally try to use as few concepts as possible to explain as much of a phenomenon as possible. This elegance is useful for teaching and scientific purposes but has made transference to the organizational world problematic.3 Even though the organizational world has found these theoretical perspectives useful, it has nonetheless largely insisted on focusing on competency-based approaches to leadership.4 Competencies are the concrete traits, skills, and behaviors that are the building blocks of effective management and leadership.5 Examples include energy, communication, delegation, motivation, and environmental scanning. Competency-based approaches make sure that leadership approaches can be translated into concrete strategic purposes through systems design (position descriptions, performance evaluations, and so forth), training , and system evaluation.6 One useful and well-supported leadership theory regarding change is called the Full Range Leadership Theory, developed by Bernard Bass.7 Like many theories, it strives for elegance by proposing as few elements as possi136 7 Leadership Competencies and Their Relevance to Italian Government Reform montgomery van wart ble. Sadly, many of the global concepts in the Full Range Leadership Theory, such as management by exception and contingent reward, have little meaning to frontline leaders. Like many macro-level theories, it needs to be translated into specific terms that, first, are meaningful and, second, can be applied by operational leaders. In this chapter I will first briefly describe a competency framework consistent with the worldwide literature on leadership. The framework provides a relatively comprehensive and cohesively organized set of micro-level concepts to be used in the wide variety of situations with which managers and leaders must cope and grapple. The framework can be used to translate different theories into universally understood concepts. However, as an overall framework it does not propose how leaders should act in specific situations or prescribe which competencies to emphasize on a daily, weekly, or yearly cycle of activities. Next, the chapter will introduce Bernard Bass’s theory of transformational change. This well-regarded theory is strong in providing an abstract notion of the global elements necessary for transformational change but is weak in providing the related competency requirements for success. The chapter then identifies the relevant competencies necessary in order to effectively provide the leadership styles recommended by Bass. Finally, the chapter ends with a brief discussion of the types of reform legislatively enacted by the Italian government recently, specifically through Legislative Decree 150/2009 but also some of the implications of related administrative initiatives that are both complementary to 150/2009 because they are largely aimed at internal efficiency and overall effectiveness, as well as some that are possibly countervailing because they are aimed at cost cutting regardless of performance issues. It divides the reform initiatives into four fundamental types, using the analysis of Paul Light. The chapter concludes with a discussion of these types of leadership and their related competencies that should be emphasized in order to achieve the different types of reform proposed. For simplicity, leadership will generally be treated as if it were the primary province of the formal leader with executive or managerial responsibilities. However, leadership is as much a process and community activity as an executive or heroic activity, and with more space, such additional levels of analysis could complement the discussion.8 Also, although the elements of leadership in various domains such as political, social movement, and organizational leadership have common elements, they differ markedly in the types of situations where they can effectively be applied. The focus here is on organizational settings, in particular on those administrative settings in government agencies.9 Leadership Competencies and Relevance to Italian Government Reform 137 A Comprehensive Leadership Framework: The Leadership Action Cycle Leadership involves, among other things, an array of assessment skills, a series of characteristics (traits and skills) that the leader brings to a leadership setting , and a wide variety of...