PAD 515 Discussion 4 Challenges in Public Leadership

Challenges in Public Leadership

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Challenges in Public Leadership

Leadership, especially in the public sector is dynamic. The environment changes constantly presenting new challenges that the leader has to learn to cope with. These changes can be internal or external. Internal challenges are those that deal with the leader’s abilities, self-drive and factors like emotional intelligence. External challenges include those that come from customers, stakeholders, stakeholders and employees. These include opposition and criticism, the pressure to perform better in less favorable environments, the pressure to demonstrate return on investment and the pressure to keep up with the increasing pace of change in terms of business trends and technological developments (Schofield, 2008).

Among these pressures, opposition, criticism, and the increased expectations from shareholders, customers, stakeholders and employees appear to be the most challenging. Opposition and criticism arises mostly from employees and shareholders who think that decisions and policies made are not favorable to them. This may be a major setback to the leader and may retard the achievement of goals and objectives. The pressure to perform to great expectations in unfavorable environments especially by stakeholders and customers may strain the leader both health wise, mentally and emotionally and may affect their performance (Schofield, 2008).This may also affect the achievement of set goals and objectives.

Despite these challenges, public leaders can maintain a leadership style through facilitating open communication with the stakeholders, shareholders, employees and customers. This will reduce the opposition and negative criticism from these sources. The leader should encourage action and innovation among employees in order to improve performance of the organization regardless of the favorability of the working environment (Schofield, 2008).The leader should put strategies to facilitate better performance in the organization.

The combination of the centralized and decentralized health care system in the United States of America utilizes a system whereby the National government deals with some aspects of health while others at the level of the state government. All aspects of healthcare are at the national government in the European healthcare system. A combination of the centralized and decentralized health care system is much better since management of health care delivery is at the National government but is also well organized and penetrates to the grassroots level. However, the costs may be enormous and operation may not be efficient enough. The purely centralized approach may lead to neglect of the bottommost tier of the health care system but is less costly and more operationally efficient.

A public leader working in a healthcare system that utilizes a combination of both the decentralized and centralized system can ensure that utilization of resources and funds occurs only when needed, and that resource allocation suits the needs of the health care delivery system. This will cut costs needed to run the healthcare system. A public leader working in the centralized system should ensure that attention is equal even to the bottommost tiers in the healthcare system, and that operations are efficient even to the grassroots level

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References.

Schofield C.P (2008) Key challenges facing public sector leaders The Ashridge Journal