25 March 2014: Fostering a culture of commitment and accountability
Fostering a culture of commitment and accountability
The Australian Public Sector Leadership Summit 2014 Parliament House Canberra - 25 March 2014
Colin Neave, Commonwealth Ombudsman
Introduction
Thank you Kirk. Ladies and gentlemen, it’s a pleasure to be here this morning to talk to you about what I consider to be one of the most important topics affecting the public sector at the moment: leadership.
First of all I’d like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we meet, and pay my respects to their elders, both past and present.
During this presentation I will discuss the definitions of leadership, outline my thoughts on the essential features of good leadership and talk about the leadership role of the Office of the Commonwealth Ombudsman.
What is leadership?
It is a concept that is difficult to define and even more difficult to measure.
In the simplest terms, leadership is generally regarded as influencing others – formally or informally – to accomplish a task.
Leadership provides direction, encouragement and inspiration to motivate a team to achieve organisational success.
In the military environment, it is defined as “the process of influencing others in order to gain their willing consent in the ethical pursuit of missions”.
Military leaders spend several years being taught to lead, and the rest of their careers learning and practising the art.
But then, leadership in their particular style – tough, rigid, dogmatic – is a measurable component of their work; a KPI if you like.
Of course, the military don’t have the monopoly on emphasising leadership. Business executives, police, politicians and countless others all regard leadership as a proficiency.
Most of us in the public sector don’t get to spend much of our working life focusing on leadership.
In fact we will often be promoted or appointed to a leadership role based solely on our subject matter knowledge.
Generally we are specialists – lawyers, HR people, policy experts, communicators – who rise to positions of responsibility and leadership, often without much specific instruction in leadership.
We are not all born leaders and we are not all groomed to lead, but still we lead.
So we need to consider it an important aspect of our roles, which I’m sure you do because of your attendance at this event.
History’s great leaders
When you thumb through the scrapbook of celebrated world leaders you get a curious mix of politicians, social and religious leaders, and murderers.
Turn the page from Abraham Lincoln and you’ll find Adolf Hitler. Flick past Winston Churchill and Gandhi and you’ll see Napoleon. Read about Martin Luther King and then Genghis Khan.
History has deemed them all great leaders, great influencers of their people and great contributors to their nations.
What qualities did they have that made them great leaders? Certainly they all provided inspiration to achieve success and influenced others to achieve tasks, as per the broad definitions I mentioned before.
Is there anything we could take away from their methods to make us better leaders? Well, I’ll leave that to you to decide.
After all, you will develop – or will already have developed – your own leadership style based on your experiences at work and socially.
You will likely adopt good practices from leaders you respected and, I hope, learn from the mistakes of the poor ones.
There are many ways to lead, and success depends on a diverse range of issues – the circumstances, the followers, the nature of the work and so on.
I confess that I don’t really identify with any of the people I mentioned. My leadership style is very much my own, and has been influenced by many people and by many experiences – good and bad – over the 55-odd years of my working life.
If I had to define my style, I’d say I lead from behind. Some of you may have heard the term.
Leading from behind is a concept made famous by Nelson Mandela and used by Barack Obama, among others.
Please don’t think I’m trying to place myself among those titans of social change, but I strongly associate with the concept.
In his autobiography, Mandela wrote that leadership was like shepherding. I quote:
He (the shepherd) stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realising that all along they are being directed from behind.
Linda Hill, who is a Harvard Business School professor, has written a lot about the concept.
She says the image of the shepherd behind his flock is an acknowledgment that leadership is a collective activity in which different people at different times – depending on their strengths – come forward to move the group in the direction it needs to go.
It paints a picture of a group that doesn’t have to wait for a command from the front – our traditional expectation of leadership.
Such an approach is more likely to be developed by a group when a leader conceives of his or her role as creating the opportunity for collective leadership, as opposed to merely setting a direction.
She goes on to say that leading from behind doesn’t abrogate your leadership responsibilities. After all, the shepherd makes sure the flock stays together.
It’s a matter of harnessing people’s collective talents for the overall benefit of the organisation, which is a tough call for a lot of leaders.
After all, we’re more familiar with directing people and our people are familiar with being directed.
So today, rather than try to analyse what made history’s great leaders’ great, I thought the best way to approach this presentation was to talk about my views on leadership and share some of my stories.
[Personal anecdotes]
Why leadership?
I’ve been prompted to contemplate this topic because, over the past two or so years in my organisation, there has been some dissatisfaction and much of that related to leadership.
This is not surprising given the structural changes we’ve undergone over time and the long periods during which senior positions were filled temporarily.
So I have given a lot of thought to the issue and have come up with what I consider to be the essential features of good leadership in a public administration organisation such as mine.
It seems to me there is no single, magic leadership quality, but rather a collection of attributes. If you’ll bear with me, I’ll step you through my top 10.
First and foremost is a commitment to openness, perhaps not surprising in an integrity role such as ours, but not always easy in practice.
To be as fully informed as possible about the challenges being faced as an ombudsman, and to be frank and open about what an office might be engaged in as a result, is critical.
Leaders always scope the work and provide a framework so people know the boundaries and when they need to seek advice.
Implicit in the word openness is the concept of honesty. The term being ‘frank and open’ comes to mind.
It is a principle with which I do my best to comply and, indeed, we all should be frank and open with each other: leaders with staff and staff with each other, and leaders with other leaders, whether in government or industry organisations.
All the easier, then, to be decisive – to make decisions in full knowledge of all the relevant facts and with the benefit of full and frank discussion. That doesn’t always mean quick decisions, but it does mean being prepared to make a call.
Leaders are also courageous. This of course does not mean making foolhardy decisions but, rather, decisions are made in circumstances where the phrase ‘damned if you do and damned if you don’t’ is relevant.
Courage to accept a risk is an attribute of a good leader. Decision-making courage is demonstrated where a decision is made which is likely to be unpopular, but on balance and factoring in all the possibilities and permutations, that decision is for the best.
Leaders accept responsibility. When public criticism is the result of a decision, we take responsibility for it even though it might have been made on the advice of someone reporting to us.
And of course, when a decision is made which leads to praise being handed out, it is most important that we share the glory for that excellent result with those who have contributed. Very few good results occur as a result of the actions of one person.
Good leaders also communicate clearly, mindful that what they say minimises the risk of misunderstandings.
And, most importantly, good leaders clearly state what they think the general direction is, providing an essential framework for all those who work with them to operate effectively.
Flexibility is important, and consistency.
Isn’t that having it both ways? Not really.
Sometimes it is necessary to make a very quick decision which turns out to be wrong in the circumstances. Good leaders correct the decision as soon as they can and do not feel bound by a decision which clearly has an adverse result as far as the organisation is concerned.
That seems, at first glance, to be not acting consistently. The overriding concern is for a leader to be consistent in his or her approach. The issue of flexibility only arises when something goes awry due to circumstances that are beyond our control.
Good leaders are also genuinely interested in the affairs of the people with whom they work.
All of us in life face challenges at home as well as at work, and a leader who inspires loyalty and commitment in staff will demonstrate empathy for an employee who might for any number of reasons be experiencing difficulties.
This is part of the fabric of value within any organisation, but perhaps even more so in an organisation like mine that stakes its reputation and authority on its own actions.
When people feel good about themselves, they willingly work to their full capacity and all of us are reliant on those who work with us.
As well as being properly trained and having the skills necessary to do their jobs competently, staff who are valued have confidence, and confident employees are more productive. They are also more committed to the organisation.
Leaders also demonstrate a degree of selflessness. What does that mean?
Where an organisation has a clear set of objectives within a published and agreed strategic framework of which those objectives are part, then any deviation from that strategic framework would be seen as a ‘sometimes’ commitment to an organisation.
That deviation from the overall direction of the organisation is not the characteristic of a good leader.
So the personal interests of a leader must not adversely affect the way in which an organisation performs its role. Any personal interest must always be subsidiary to the direction of the organisation.
As I said, these are just my thoughts on the leadership attributes needed in the public sector, and are offered in a spirit of shared experience and shared challenges.
The OCO’s leadership role
You may ask, then, how do those attributes flow through my organisation and what effect do they have?
I can answer that in two parts. The first is how we exhibit leadership within the APS; the second, how I have worked to impart my leadership values throughout the Office of the Commonwealth Ombudsman (OCO).
Externally
For the APS, my office is shifting its focus to working more with departments and agencies – to influence them to treat people fairly through our investigations of their administration.
This approach makes much more sense in the current environment than a traditional positional approach; that is, looking at issues systemically rather than as individual problems.
It’s an approach that allows us to demonstrate more of a leadership role in public administration.
We have made greater use of own motion investigations as a means of encouraging agencies to tackle the underlying causes of administrative problems.
We also now spend much more time analysing complaint trends to identify emerging issues, helping agencies to develop prevention strategies at an early stage.
And, importantly, we try wherever possible to highlight lessons learned from individual cases through the use of better practice guides, cases studies and recommendations that can be applied in different settings – including for ourselves.
Although a large part of our work will always be assessing and investigating individual complaints, I believe our future relevance depends on our ability to intelligently use the information gained through that work to build the capacity of agencies to effectively manage complaints themselves.
Internally
As for internally, since starting in the role almost 18 months ago I have basically followed five steps to engender or stimulate an environment of commitment and accountability.
I hinted earlier that we had poor results from successive staff surveys, and leadership, decision-making, trust and accountability at the senior levels were the common key issues concerning our people.
Not a good point from which to start, but at least we had a clear picture on what needed to be done.
My first action was to define my leadership team. A good leader recognises their strengths and weaknesses and builds a leadership team to complement him or her and each other.
That team is now well established and, I’m pleased to say, performing well. Each of us brings skills and knowledge that complements the other. Again, it’s harnessing people’s talents for the overall benefit of the organisation.
Second, the team and I developed a strategic framework with a clear direction and vision, supported by a robust governance program. Without good governance you can’t have accountability.
Earlier I mentioned openness as being a key attribute for a leader. To gain commitment you need buy-in from all levels, so engaging people and being open and transparent with them is critical to achieving that.
So my next step was to create an environment of openness and transparency, with clear direction and allocation of responsibilities. Everyone understands the contribution that they make and how it impacts on our outcomes and agenda.
Fourth, communicate, communicate, communicate. I don’t think I can say this to my team – or myself – enough or emphasise this enough to you today. You can do great things as a leader but unless you communicate, people don’t know what is going on, how they are impacted and how they can contribute or what they need to do.
To minimise any confusion and misinterpretation, I have regular contact with my staff about what we are aiming to achieve and our progress on matters that may affect them specifically or our work generally.
That contact can be by way of all-staff meetings or messages, or by informal, personal lunches in my office, to which I invite seven or eight staff of all levels from across the organisation.
I have to say, those informal meetings have proved to be quite popular with staff and particularly useful for me, as they provide me with intelligence or information that I may not normally get to hear – and from a very different perspective.
And in turn, my senior team regularly meet with their branches, direct reports or through other forums to engage with staff about activities we have on our plate.
While we still have much to do we are at a stage where we are reflecting, reviewing and re-setting.
In the APS today, and more broadly, change is a constant and leading through change is a process of continuous improvement. So my leadership team and I are conscious of not resting on our laurels and assuming we have done all we need to.
What we’ve done is established a solid base on which to build further success and implemented ways to measure improvement.
But the signs are promising. Staff say they are feeling more engaged and more valued, and they appear more motivated and committed.
Conclusion
To conclude, there is no doubt that one of the biggest challenges facing the APS at the moment is leading people through a difficult and extended period of change.
It is times like these that true leaders step up and shine.
It’s pretty clear that one size does not fit all when it comes to leadership and you will approach these challenges in your own way.
Let’s face it, none of us expects to be remembered for our great leadership – at least not in a historical context. We are not Nelson Mandela or Barack Obama.
But we can make a difference within our own sphere of influence, however wide or narrow that may be.
And take my word for it, people are inspired by good leadership.
Thank you for your time and attention this morning.