1. Administrative Reform
as Adaptive Challenge:
Selected Public
Leadership Implications
Erwin Schwella
School of Public Management and
Planning
Univer sity of Stellenbosch
South Africa
erwin.schwella@sopmp.sun.ac.za

2. Introduction
 The complex and dynamic
context of public service across
the globe creates many
challenges for public leaders.
 Administrative reform represents
one such recurring and important
challenge for public service
systems and public leadership.

3. Introduction
 To deal with administrative
reform, public leaders have to
understand and analyse the
context in which they lead.
 Based on this they have to select
and develop relevant leadership
strategies and behaviours.

4. Introduction
 Purpose: Focus on leadership
implications of administrative
reform.

5. Introduction
 To serve this purpose:
 Investigate the nature and impact of the context of public
leadership
 Identify challenges from the context, specific reference
to administrative reform.
 Introduce current public leadership concepts and
theories to enhance an understanding of public
leadership.
 Use and apply this understanding towards an analysis
of the nature of the challenges faced by public leaders
today
 Provide pointers towards useful and functional public
leadership responses to these challenges.

6. The nature and impact of the context
of public leadership
 Context considered in terms of:
 The importance of context,
 Conceptualising context,
 Public sector leadership contexts,
 Techniques that can be used to understand
and analyse context
 Strategic analysis
 Scenario analysis

7. Leadership challenges from the
context with specific reference to
administrative reform
 Increasing the understanding of the variety of
developments that are frequently characterised
as globalisation; the globalisation challenge.
 The realisation that the public problems which
governments now most frequently deal with
have grown in number, are becoming even
more complex and that frequently there
appears to be no clear-cut solutions or right or
wrong answers for many of them; the
complexity challenge.

8. Leadership challenges from the
context with specific reference to
administrative reform
 The growing gap between the rich and the poor in both
the developed industrialised countries and the less
economically well-developed transitional countries; the
inequality challenge.
 The critical need to further address issues of gender
equality, especially in the area of educational
opportunities in all societies; the gender equality
challenge.
 The growing incorporation of norms of cultural diversity
into all sectors of society, with the consequent escalating
demands for the direct representation of cultural and
ethnic interests and heritages in the processes of public
administration and governance; the diversity challenge.

9. Leadership challenges from the
context with specific reference to
administrative reform
 The considerable movement toward
political democratisation with its greatly
increased emphasis on ethical behaviour
in government, civil service transparency
and accountability; the good governance
challenge.
 The gradual weakening of state capacity,
and in some cases, the actual
disintegration of the state; the capacity
challenge.

10. Leadership challenges from the
context with specific reference to
administrative reform
 The combination of a decrease of trust in
government institutions, and the growth of
multinational integration, leading to the
increased disintegration of the capacity of the
nation state; the erosion of confidence
challenge.
 The rapidly growing interest in the
decentralisation of previously centralised
governance institutions and the broadening of
local governance capacity; the local
empowerment and capacity challenge.

11. Leadership challenges from the
context with specific reference to
administrative reform
 The continued search for optimal solutions to
optimalise the structures and functioning of
policy implementation and service delivery
systems recently resulting in the new public
management approach with its emphasis on
market based options to address public policy
needs linked to significant increases in utilising
private or non-profit sector institutions and/or
“solutions” for delivering public programmers;
the administrative reform challenge.

12. Towards understanding public
leadership: public leadership
concepts and theories
 Leadership approaches
 Traits approaches
 Behavioural approaches
 Situational approaches
 Transformational approaches
 Social learning approaches
 Administrative reform as adaptive issue

13. Adaptive versus Technical
Work
Direction Define problems and Identify adaptive
provide solutions challenge, frame
questions/issues
Protection Shield organisation from Expose to external
threats pressures within a
tolerable range
Orientation Clarify roles and Challenge roles; let new
responsibilties ones develope
Managing Conflict Restore order Expose conflict and let it
emerge
Shaping Norms Maintain norms Challenge unproductive
roles

14. Social Learning Approaches
 Ronald Heifetz’s “Leadership Without Easy
Answers”
 Adaptive versus technical work
 Get on the balcony
 Identify the adaptive challenge
 Regulate distress
 Maintain disciplined attention
 Give the work back to the people
 Protect voices of leadership from below

15. Leadership and Learning in
Context
 Aardema identifies leadership strategies in
terms of issue dimensions, namely hard/soft;
internal/external
 Examples:
 Internal soft issues require people directed
exploring and learning leadership
 External soft issues require scanning context
directed innovative leadership
 External hard issues require directive performance
based leadership
 Internal hard issues require organisation directed
rule setting and accountability seeking leadership

16. Conclusion
 Finally back to contingency approach
where leadership strategies and actions
are decided and taken on the basis of
problem analysis in context
 Administrative reform as adaptive
problem with internal/external and
soft/hard dimensions require leadership
that is analytical and context sensitive