A qualidade da liderança do setor público é importante agora, mas a natureza do que a liderança tem que evoluir. atrás. As forças externas estão tornando o mundo muito mais complexo, entre elas a pandemia, inovação digital, cadeia de suprimentos e escassez de mão -de -obra, mudanças climáticas e um acerto de contas muito atrasado com racismo estrutural e danos geracionais. As forças internas também são cada vez mais desafiadoras de gerenciar. As políticas têm apostas mais altas, um impacto mais abrangente e são ainda mais difíceis de acertar, dado os prazos de longo prazo associados aos métodos tradicionais de planejamento, design e implementação de políticas. Navegar à reconciliação e a elaboração de estratégias anti-racismo levarão um engajamento pessoal mais profundo e maior habilidade. Os executivos do setor público devem desenvolver uma força de trabalho mais diversificada e inclusiva e se inclinar como nunca antes para apoiar a saúde mental e o bem -estar dos funcionários. Os executivos precisam gerenciar esses compromissos enquanto manipulam as demandas de uma força de trabalho híbrida e oferecendo serviço confiável, de alta qualidade e centrado no homem para e para o benefício dos canadenses.
The world as we’ve known it has changed drastically and Canada’s public sector faces challenges scarcely imaginable a decade ago. External forces are making the world much more complex, among them the pandemic, digital innovation, supply chain and labour shortages, climate change, and a long overdue reckoning with structural racism and generational harm. Internal forces are also increasingly challenging to manage. Policies have higher stakes, more sweeping impact, and are all the more difficult to get right given the long-term timeframes associated with traditional methods of policy planning, design, and implementation. Navigating Reconciliation and devising anti-racism strategies will take deeper personal engagement and greater skill. Public sector executives must develop a more diverse and inclusive workforce and lean in like never before to support employee mental health and wellness. Executives have to manage these commitments while juggling the demands of a hybrid workforce and delivering reliable, high-quality, human-centered service to and for the benefit of Canadians.
O Canadá tem uma chance - e um imperativo - para criar um país mais inclusivo e próspero, mas isso exigirá uma abordagem de liderança distinta. Este é o tempo para as organizações do setor público adotarem a liderança generativa, uma estrutura humanística que cultiva renovação e crescimento e foi testada com sucesso durante períodos de mudança aguda.
Generative Leadership Generates Results
Boston Consulting Group (BCG) has been studying the characteristics that contribute to above-average performance and employee satisfaction for the last several years.
Pesquisamos mais de 9.000 profissionais em todo o mundo e, recentemente, em parceria com o Instituto de Administração Pública do Canadá, concluiu uma pesquisa adicional de 750 profissionais do setor público em todo o Canadá para gerar as informações deste artigo. O que aprendemos é que os líderes mais transformadores criam as condições para o sucesso com base em três princípios fundamentais. (Consulte o Anexo 1)
- Líder com a cabeça: Líderes generativos reimaginam e reinventam continuamente e reinventam maneiras de suas organizações servirem melhor a todas as partes interessadas. Eles analisam expansivamente o que é necessário, definem uma visão ousada e se concentram em algumas grandes prioridades que podem agregar valor máximo. Mas eles não definem esse curso por conta própria. Eles insistem em ter diversas vozes na sala, testar idéias de vários ângulos e moldar iniciativas que fornecem retornos mensuráveis. Eles se preocupam profundamente com o bem -estar físico, social e mental de pessoas em todos os níveis de sua organização. Eles entendem e demonstram a importância da diversidade, inclusão e reconhecimento, garantindo que as pessoas se sintam vistas, ouvidas e valorizadas. Eles permitem o sucesso implantando pessoas em equipes ágeis e baseadas em projetos e aumentam seus recursos por meio de ferramentas digitais e um ecossistema de parceiros. Eles lideram pelo exemplo, avançam para fazer escolhas difíceis, incentivar testes e aprendizagem e alocar recursos dinamicamente para áreas de valor mais alto. Em nossa pesquisa do setor público canadense, descobrimos que 61% dos funcionários cujos líderes comemoraram seus sucessos relataram estar altamente envolvidos em seu trabalho, em comparação com menos de 32% dos funcionários em organizações mais lentamente para reconhecer contribuições individuais. Da mesma forma, 54% dos funcionários em organizações do setor público cuja liderança se aproximou de uma equipe de maneira aberta, curiosa e humilde disse que eles estavam altamente motivados a se envolver contra apenas 19% em organizações cujos líderes não. (Consulte o Anexo 2)
- Lead with heart: Generative Leaders are purpose leaders who create a culture in which people can do their best work while being coached and recognized for it. They care deeply for the physical, social, and mental wellbeing of people at all levels of their organization. They understand and demonstrate the importance of diversity, inclusion, and recognition, ensuring that people feel seen, heard, and valued.
- Lead with the hand: Generative Leaders are all-in, action-oriented, and accountability-minded. They enable success by deploying people into agile, project-based teams, and augment their capabilities through digital tools and an ecosystem of partners. They lead by example, step up to make the tough choices, encourage testing and learning, and allocate resources dynamically to areas of highest value.
Far from soft talk, our analysis finds a direct correlation between employee motivation and the practice of Generative Leadership. In our Canadian public sector survey, we found that 61% percent of employees whose leaders celebrated their successes reported being highly engaged in their work, compared to less than 32% of employees in organizations slower to recognize individual contributions. Likewise, 54% of employees in public sector organizations whose leadership approached teaming in an open, curious and humble manner said they were highly motivated to engage versus just 19% in organizations whose leaders did not. (See Exhibit 2)
What’s more, Canada’s public sector has already shown that it works. The pandemic was a litmus test.
More than three-quarters (77%) of public sector employees in Canada said that in periods of tremendous strain—the height of the COVID-19 crisis, the urgency to address racial discrimination and bias following the murder of George Floyd, and renewed pressure for Reconciliation following the discovery of additional unmarked Indigenous graves—that their leaders showed up, supported their teams and lived up to their expectations. In these uncertain and often frightening times, Canadian public sector executives communicated sincerely and provided guidance on an ongoing basis. They demonstrated creativity in implementing new ways of working, flexibility in adapting to change, and went out of their way to care for their people. In short, when the times called for transformative leadership, leaders instinctively reached for Generative Leadership.
Generative Leadership Must Be Woven into the Fabric
While there’s growing awareness in public sector organizations that a growth mindset, committed coaching, and diverse and empowered teams deliver better outcomes, few have pulled these threads together into a unified leadership model that all are encouraged, supported, and enabled to use. In self assessments, close to 30% of leaders acknowledged that they do not practice the principles of Generative Leadership. And those that give themselves high marks often rate themselves more favourably than do their direct reports.
Agora é a hora de as organizações do setor público incorporar práticas generativas de liderança em sua cultura e tecido operacional de uma maneira que se conecte mais efetivamente aos membros da equipe. Em nossa pesquisa, os funcionários citaram várias lacunas que gostariam de abordar seus líderes. Um é que os executivos sejam mais ousados na definição de uma ambição estratégica. Um executivo sênior nos disse: “Devemos promover líderes com a disposição e a capacidade de definir a visão.”
Employees are also looking for their leaders to be more deliberate and entertain opposing viewpoints before committing to a course of action. In addition, employees want to see more opportunities for learning and greater openness to risk-taking and experimentation. Rather than perpetuating tried—and sometimes tired—approaches, employees we spoke with said they are craving the space to shake things up and use their creativity to design better solutions. They also want to see their leaders be courageous, as well as make and own the tough decisions. Action orientation, delivery of results, and accountability are critical. As is the ability for leaders to ‘roll up their sleeves’ with their teams to get things done and have real impact.
Another gap that employees cited is the need for connection. They want leaders who engage authentically, guide with empathy, and speak with candour. And they want to see role models who live out their values, take time for health and wellness and who, by their example, give others permission to do the same.
To bring about this culture, public sector organizations will need to evolve significantly, value leadership as a discipline and practice, and invest in leadership development – for the current generation of leaders and the one that follows. Leadership at every level is a mindset and behaviour that should be cultivated long before employees secure their first executive position and when they do secure it, a formal program of development should be in place to support and enable leaders to be at their best.
Right now, however, our survey found that only 13% of respondents “often or always” receive leadership training and 56% “rarely or never” receive it. As one public sector official told us, “If we are not talking about leadership, how do we expect to get better at it?” This training needs to permeate every level of the organization. We need to be training tomorrow’s leaders today so they arrive into their roles practiced, ready to drive the organization forward and inspire the generation of leaders that follow. And that training needs to be systematic.
The development and delivery of Generative Leadership development programs ought to be grounded in programming that helps current and future leaders develop and refine the discipline of leading their teams with highly visible Head, Heart, Hand behaviours such as those highlighted in Exhibit 3.
To start, we recommend leaders and their teams spend time reflecting on the attributes of Generative Leadership and ask themselves, “What am I good at? What am I not good at? And where do I need support?” Find those in the organization who are passionate about leadership and supporting people. Then leverage that community of practice. Beyond this, we recommend the practice and discipline of leadership be recognized and valued as equal to that of policy development or program delivery and that an enterprise-wide programmatic approach be taken to invest in and develop leaders to innovate, equipping the Canadian public sector to be the best in the world. Public servants deserve it and Canada does, too.
Canada needs a thriving, inspired, healthy and engaged public sector to conceive and implement the policies and programs essential for inclusive growth and the country’s prosperity. Generative Leadership is central to that mission. By untapping the potential of people, public sector leaders will enable results to happen faster, and make the world a safer, healthier, and better place.
