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Participatory Leadership Identified as Key to Public Service Reform

Dublin, Thursday, 26 June 2008 -- The success of any effort to reform and modernise the Irish public service will depend ultimately on the ability of senior managers to recognise and encourage the creativity and innovation of their employees, a major conference in Dublin heard today.

Addressing the role of participatory leadership in delivering a world-class public service, the NCPP’s 2008 Annual Partnership Conference at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham was attended by more than 300 delegates. 

Set against the backdrop of the OECD’s recent review of the Irish public service, they heard that greater levels of employee involvement and engagement were a key component in the delivery of integrated, innovative and customer-focused public services.

Lucy Fallon-Byrne, Director, NCPP, told the Conference:

“It is high time we moved from the rhetoric of partnership and participatory leadership to the reality. Everyone talks the talk, but few are actually walking the walk. We need to remove the attitudinal and structural barriers to greater employee engagement that currently exist in the public service.  Now more than ever, in changed economic circumstances, we need to engage public service employees in innovation and problem-solving. We need to send out a clear signal that a participatory approach will be recognised and rewarded, and that the future success of a more effective and integrated public service depends on it. The days of command-and-control management are gone; in its place, a new generation of participatory leaders needs to be brought to the fore.”

These sentiments were echoed by other speakers at the Conference, including Art Daniels, Senior Consultant, BearingPoint Inc. With more than forty years experience in reforming and modernising the Canadian public service, Mr. Daniels said that increased employee involvement and engagement had been shown to strengthen organisational performance, increase customer satisfaction and promote higher levels of public confidence and trust in public bodies.

Participatory or collaborative leadership, according to Zoë van Zwanenberg, Chief Executive of the Scottish Leadership Foundation, was “the only way” to tackle the challenges facing the public service. She added that greater levels of co-operation and employee participation can act as crucial enablers for public servants to redesign systems and processes, and ultimately to deliver “performance that is exciting, engaging and really makes a difference.”

Peter McLoone, General Secretary of IMPACT, said that real participatory leadership requires organisations to value the individual and their development, and must engender trust and confidence in all relationships, including working relationships. He added that public servants want to have a real connection with their direct service employer. They want to have a clear understanding of where their manager is coming from, and they want to participate in a process that genuinely gives them an opportunity to contribute, in practical ways, to service development.  However, he warned that real public service reform could not be delivered against a background of cuts and retrenchment.  Mr. McLoone concluded by underlining the vital importance of social partnership in delivering modernisation of the Irish economy, society and public services. He warned that if we fail to reinvigorate social partnership - with all its proven mechanisms for participation, shared analysis and problem-solving - public service reform faces a very uncertain future for workers, managers and users alike.

The Conference, which was chaired by Peter Cassells, Chairman, NCPP, was also addressed by Billy Kelleher TD, Minister for Labour Affairs; Julie O’Neill, Secretary General, Department of Transport; Philip Kelly, Assistant Secretary, Department of the Taoiseach; Michael McLoone, Manager, Donegal County Council, and by Dr. Damian Thomas, Head of Policy and Partnership, NCPP.

ENDS

Note To Editors:

The National Centre for Partnership and Performance (NCPP) was established by Government in 2001 to promote and facilitate partnership-led change and innovation in Ireland’s workplaces.  Through a combination of research and advocacy-based activities, the NCPP’s mission is to build high-performance, high-quality workplaces regardless of size or sector.  The NCPP is also responsible for overseeing implementation of the National Workplace Strategy, the Government’s blueprint to transform Ireland’s workplaces into Workplaces of the Future.  In January 2007, the NCPP was placed on a statutory footing as part of the new National Economic and Social Development Office (NESDO). 

For further information, please contact:

Conor Leeson
Head of Communications
NCPP   

Tel: (01) 814 6398
Email:  conor@ncpp.ie

PLEASE CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD/VIEW CONFERENCE MATERIALS, INCLUDING SPEAKERS' PRESENTATIONS, ETC.