The Role of a Public Leader in Transforming Public Higher Education

The Role of a Public Leader in Transforming Public Higher Education

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The Role of a Public Leader in Transforming Public Higher Education

Leadership is a very important tool that leads to the success of every organization. For any organization to succeed, it depends with the kind of leadership that the leaders are giving to it. This is simply because leaders give direction and show the organization the path to follow. Leadership refers to the behavior that an individual or a person portrays when giving direction to a certain group of people with whom they share goals, ambitions and visions. A public leader can use a leadership theory in order to be able to solve conflicts and implement change while working with external stakeholders.

A leader should have confidence and willingness to always try new methods and approaches. Some leaders usually demand for respect due to their high ranks which they earned themselves through promotions, appointment or even through their high qualification forgetting that leadership is not supposed to be demanded but earned (James, 2009).

Leadership theory is very dynamic and keeps on changing as time goes. There is this theory called transformational theory that calls for transformational leadership. This theory calls for unity and requires that all the leaders should look in the way they communicate their vision to the other stakeholders. The manner in which they communicate should be friendly, exciting, and meaningful and which brings unity to all the members. This should be done in order to ensure that the intended purpose is accomplished. Therefore when an institution has a manager who shows commitment and is in a position to empower the others and above all has vision is described as a transformed leader. Those leaders who are transformed are able to motivate the others whereby with motivation the performance of an institution is taken to higher levels and great heights beyond expectations (Paul, 2014).

This transformational theory holds true when applied to the department of defense. Defense is a very important and crucial sector when it comes to US. They believe that change does not come to an end and can never be accomplished at once. For success to be achieved then the leaders of the US defense forces should be transformed so to achieve their intended goal which is provision of security to all the US citizens. To be transformed means that the leaders do not engage in things such as corruption or misuse of funds that have been set aside by the government to support the defense department. Transformed leaders in defense means that they are selfless and are ready to instill the right punishment to the law breakers.

Public leadership from higher levels of government both positively and negatively impact public leadership on lower levels of government. When it comes to higher levels of government, there is proper enactment and implementation of laws by the national government which will impact leadership on the lower levels of government (John, 2014). This is because the lower levels will be copying what high levels of government are practicing. Also recognition and respect of the role of church by the high levels of government impacts positively on the lower levels of governments by ensuring that there is moral values and ethics and therefore any leader who is got engaging in corruption steps and leaves the office.

On the other hand when the high levels leaders from the government practice corruption and disrespect to the constitution, the leaders from low levels of government may emulate the same and this will negatively impact its performance like say for example at county level. There are some strategies that public leaders in each level of government could work collaboratively in order to ensure that decisions do not adversely affect citizens. These strategies include; leaders at all levels of government practicing accountability and transparency. The other strategy could be, instituting support frameworks for better governance and leadership.

References

John, L (2014). Leading Forward: Successful Public Leadership Amidst Complexity, Chaos and Change: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Paul, H (2014). Understanding Public Leadership (The Public Management and Leadership Series): Palgrave Macmillan Publishers.

James, K (2009). The Jossey-Bass Reader on Non-Profit and Public Leadership: Jossey-Bass Publishers.