Leadership development in the Romanian

public sector

Glavan Ionela

Intoduction
The purpose of this paper is to briefly examine the development of leadership in the Romanian
public administration in the future. The development of leadership is not a new concept, nor a
unique one for the public sector in Romania or in other countries around the globe. In general, in
Romania and in other countries, it has been observed that there is still a huge difference between
how the public sector is perceived and what the countrys national interest is. A solution to this
problem would be the creation of a certain type of leadership, which would perfectly fit with the
existing administrative structures in Romania. Also, the elements presented here aim to reflect
that leadership development in Romania, although a former communist country, still partially
stuck in the past, with reluctance to changes, is possible by growing and encouraging the human
resources involved to be the actors of change, namely leaders.
Public governance
Taking into consideration the rapid phase of changes, now the governments have to reconsider
their position in order to able to face the challenges such as globalization, decentralization, new
technologies, demands, expectations and influences from the part of the citizens. The principles
of effective public governance are beneficial not only for the relationship between governments,
citizens and parliaments, but also for the functioning of the governments themselves. These
principles are: law enforcement, transparency and responsibility in what concerns the democratic
institutions, justice and the principle of equality applied to all the citizens, clear rules and
regulations, coherence and consistency in the formulation of ethic policies.
The governments will have to analyze and to come up with solutions for the challenges and for
the arising needs and to promote practices that will increase the efficiency of the democratic
institutions. Public governance includes activities related to e-governance, budgeting,
management, reform, sustainable development and active participation from the people in
respect to policy formulation and fight against corruption.
A truly efficient governance results in the strengthening of the democracy and human rights,
promoting economic prosperity, reducing poverty, protecting the environment, rational using of
natural resources and a greater confidence in the public administration and government
(something that is completely missing, for now).
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Challenges
Leadership is not a singular concept. Even after decades of research, people are still not able to
identify for sure the specific factors that would lead to a universal successful leadership and
management and this is because the situations is real life are not the same, but are changing and
evolving, implying the continuous emergence of a large number and a variety of factors and
variables.
Nowadays, it is pursued a leadership and management approach that would lead to performance
and efficiency. Studies have shown that the majority of people want a complete, comprehensive
and customizable approach, suitable for as many organizations and situations as possible.
This type of approach should promote the existence of a mutual agreement and a common
ground through which the heads of the companies could work and act together upon daily
problems. In order to develop ideas and abilities in this context, a code of organization behavior
needs to be built along with a common set of communication tools. An efficient common
language could diagnose the problems related to leadership and could adapt the organizational
behavior to solve these problems and deliver the solutions.
Overall, besides changes in the organizational concept, successful leadership depends on some
essential elements such as: the interaction between the members of a team when working
towards a common goal, the management intervention and the results as a consequence of this
intervention and the actual changes.
There are a lot of theories in what concerns the leadership and how a good leader should be.
Anyway, for public clerks it would be more relevant to explain them why leadership is so
important in practice, how it promotes evolution, how to solve problems through strategic
thinking, rather than presenting them traditional ideas such as: the necessary qualities for a
leader in order to manage a particular situation.
Although the importance of leadership is widely acknowledged, this concept is still difficult to be
defined and has different meanings from country to country. Despite the fact that in Romania it
was raised an issue in what concerns the importance of the leadership in the reform process, little
progress was made to foster leadership in this sense.
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Why is leadership so important for the future?

The concept of leadership is not new or unknown for the public sector and was frequently
discussed in the business literature, but in Romania, the problem of the leadership development
has not received the appropriate attention it deserves. On the other hand, countries such as
Germany, Island, New Zeeland, Great Britain and U.S.A have been prioritizing this subject.
While it has been established the role of leaders as factors of change, it was remarked that
leadership strongly depends on the condition of the society, the structure of public institutions
and the type of reform chosen to be made.

The development of leaders is more important in a heterogeneous society than in a

homogeneous one because leaders are demanded to communicate new values, to mediate

conflicts and to create coalitions to support the reforms.

Leaders are more important in a ramified and decentralized administrative structure

rather than in a hierarchical and centralized one.

Romania, a country which adopted the step by step reform can mobilize few leaders in
the beginning, but if the reform creates positive outcomes and spreads in all the public
structures, leadership will increase in importance.

The role of leadership in the future of the Romanian public sector

Leadership has different meanings from person to person. The history and the society values
created the image of a leader as being the one of a wise person, a paternalist figure that was in
charge of taking the final decisions and rule by himself the public organization. But the
Romanian society has started to diversify, the public institutions have become more flexible and
new situations that have been created demand for new types of leaders.
Leadership represents an important aspect in the implementation of the reform because it
involves the major tracked aspects: change and people. Leadership appears only in the
relationships between people. True leaders inspire people. The changes in the public institutions
actually represent the change in the mindset and in the behavior of the employees, meaning that
institutions that pass through this stage of the reform need leadership. Leaders within the
framework of the public institutions could help with the propagation, the promotion and the
creation of new values necessary for a successful reform in the public sector.
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While public leadership clearly includes the heads of the central administration as well as the
political leaders, the vision of the future leadership tends to become broader, including leaders as
factors of change spread within the framework of public organizations in order to continue with
the reform. Leaders are proved to be efficient through their ability to persuade and motivate
public employees and to focus their efforts towards a common cause.
Strategies that should be adopted for leadership development
Romania has not got yet a systematic strategy for the leadership development as a part of the
reform process. Some of the developed countries have already had this type of strategy
implemented and some of them have begun to elaborate strategies in this purpose. For example,
Britain has recently established a model for leadership development in the public sector and the
Norwegian government is now involved in a renewal process of the strategic leadership plans in
the field of civil services, in order to reflect the growing interest for change in the public sector.
In some countries such as Sweden and U.S.A, new institutions have been created which have as
main purpose to identify and to contribute to the professional development of these future leaders
in the public sector. The Swedish National Council for Quality and Development was created
recently with the main task of identifying potential leaders.
Meanwhile, some countries are expanding their existing management development programmes
to encompass leadership development. As an OECD study reveals, one leadership development
programme in Finland includes the creation of a new management development programme
following re-evaluation of the previous one.
General trends in developing future leaders in Romania
There is not a universal model for developing future leaders mainly because of the cultural
values, different from country to country, but even though there is a wide array of strategies and
approaches, some common trends in developing future leaders can be extracted. The main steps
in this process are as follows:

Identify and select potential leaders: For this step, public institutions should decide
whether to recruit internally or from the outside. If choosing the latter method, a company

should also think about the recruiting methods that would deliver them the brightest

candidates.
Encourage, mentoring and training: Once the potential leaders have been identified and
selected, the next step is training. Some countries set up institutions with this purpose or
offer training courses. No matter the method, continuous training should not be

underestimated for the importance of preparing future leaders.

Keep leadership development sustainable: Developing future leaders takes time and
research have shown that one of the most efficient methods in the private sector is that
senior managers should spend at least 25% of their time dedicated to the development of

the future leaders of the company.

Create a correlation between performances and rewards: This system has as main purpose
to encourage the public clerks to fulfill their tasks and to reach their maximum potential,
thus contributing to the companys overall performance.

Developed countries possess a variety of approaches for the development of their own leaders in
the public sector. As previously seen, some of them have created specialized institutions in this
respect. Moreover, some countries offered training courses for the development of future leaders.
For example, Austria, Belgium, Finland, Japan, Korea, Holland, Poland and Portugal offered this
type of courses for the managers of the central and local public administration.
Holland has already adopted and Island is planning to adopt methods of preparing and
counseling for current and future leaders, in cooperation with professionals from the private
sector. Through this method, for a certain period of time a leader will discuss his week points
with the assigned teacher and will receive advices on how to improve his leader abilities in the
future.
Island has a very interesting approach for the leadership development in which the government
encourages leaders to organize and create cooperation networks between them, without
interventions from the institutions they are part of. This approach proved to be very helpful in
what concerns values sharing and learning from each other.
In Poland, the Civil Service Act has introduced a new strategic management program for the
public administration managers. Yet, it seems that the political and organizational culture create a
major barrier. Even today, the managers in the public sector are afraid of the modern human
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resources practices and become obstacles themselves in the way of achieving the staffs full
potential and benefit from the new institutional structure.
Romanian women leaders in public administration
Although Romania registered some improvements in the last period of time, there is very little
mentioned about women leaders in the public administration. In other countries such as Norway,
this involvement is supported through the creation of a four years plan to increase the number of
women in public positions, either on middle or top management from 22% in 1997 to 30% in
2001 and to 40% in 2002.
In the Romanian conservative society it is difficult to succeed without compromises as a woman.
In fields such as politics, public administration, Army, Navy, Police or Secret Services, women
start with an initial disadvantage just because in these segments still exist the misconception
according to which women are vulnerable, not strong enough, incapable and too sensitive.
Moreover, misogynists consider that some exceptions only confirm the rule.
The Minister of Labor, Mariana Campeanu, revealed in one conference that Romania made some
progress lately in what concerns the equality between men and women in the Romanian
Parliament; womens representation increased from 9.8% to 11.5% which is not much compared
with the European Parliament, but it an increase that should not be neglected. Further, she
mentioned the results of a recent study conducted by the Minister of Labor regarding the
situation of men and women in decision making positions in the central public administration,
according to which half of the decision making positions are held by women. But in the local
administration the representation of women is still low. There are very few women as mayors
and counselors, fact that which is not favorable for the development of the Romanian society.
Also, she added that a national strategy regarding the equality of chances between men and
women will be included in governance plan for the next period.

Proposals for leadership development in Romania

1. On the government agenda there should exist as the main issue to solve the problem of
leadership. A governmental programme or project consisting of activities and case studies
involving the Romanian public sector could be a suggestion.
2. When implementing this project, action plans should be created. Possible ideas in the
leadership development could be:

the elaboration of a paper at a governmental level about effective and efficient leadership
which would mainly cover the main purpose of leadership, its characteristics and

development strategies;
government, through partnerships with national and international organizations should
organize a series of workshops for the high and middle level clerks from the public
administration;

3. There are possible areas that could be explored in the future for leadership development, such
as:

the identification of the purpose and the functions of leadership in the future;
the consideration of the key competencies of tomorrows leaders in the context of time

and space;
the attraction of potential leaders towards public administration while emphasizing the

benefits of this development for their careers;

the identification of the barriers that impede women to become top leaders in the
Romanian public sector and the encouragement of women to fill high hierarchy
positions in public administration.

4. Based on this project, the Romanian government could attract different dialog partners to
discuss the current priorities and future reform activities for the leadership development in the
public sector.
While the society continuously evolves, the previous solutions are not enough. Also there is not a
universal solution suitable for all countries. In what concerns our country, Romania should use
the reform in order to create public institutions with the ability of constantly adapting to changes
coming from the national and international environment.
In order to face challenges and take advantages of the opportunities brought by globalization, by
technology development, by demographic changes, by the citizens increasing expectations and
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by the threatening competition coming from the private sector, the Romanian government needs
to learn to constantly explore and exploit new means and resources in order to improve the
situation in the public sector .
Romania could ask national and international organizations, which are ready to use their ideas in
a unique perspective so as to determine public clerks to identify and take advantage of the
opportunities the public sector has to offer.

Conclusion
In an environment that in characterized by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity,
governments cannot afford to put all their resources into a generalized leadership development
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programme and simply expect to achieve the desired outcomes. In contrast, some well defined
leadership development initiatives could close the competency gaps and ensure success not only
for the individual, but also for the organization. Well trained leaders will be able to meet the
countrys needs, manage the work, find innovative solutions not just for new problems, but also
for older problems and assume the risk brought by complex challenges and find a way to
transform them into opportunities.
It is clear, therefore, that leadership development has begun to gain importance also in the
Romanian public sector. In order to succeed in developing its own leadership programme,
Romania should first identify the skills and competencies that would be developed as a result of
the attempt, which would provide a framework for the development effort and then establish
training activities to take place. In what concerns the selection process this will depend on the
targeted audience of the programme, on the participants choice in weather to participate or not
in the leadership development efforts.
Moreover, leadership development in the public sector attracts an increase in responsibility and
without the full support and involvement at all levels from even the international to national and
local ones. Dialogs are an efficient tool to overcome obstacles. Also, any leadership programme
should include a feedback process as it provides each participant with the direction to be
followed during the programme. Feedback should be delivered individually, as it is different
from person to person.
Continuously learning, adjusting and encouraging members to support each other will help the
programme by maintain and improving its credibility and relevance. Above all, the results and
the impact of leadership development should be measured. Anyway, it is recommended that
measurements should be established prior to the start of the program so that they are monitored
closely during the programme.

References:

Bennis, W., Nanus, B, 1999, Leaders: The Strategies for Taking Charge, Harper Business
Essentials;
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Maxwell, C. J., 1998, Develop the Leader Within You and Influence Those Around You,

TN by Tomas Nelson Inc.,

http://www.agerpres.ro/media/index.php/economic/item/235792-Mariana-Campeanu-

Reprezentarea-femeilor-in-Parlamentul-Romaniei-a-ajuns-la-115.html
http://www.info-sud-est.ro/2013/09/femeile-din-administratia-publica-intre.html
www.oecd.org
http://managementeducationgroup.com/2010/08/10-tips-for-creating-a-public-sector-

leadership-development-program/
http://www.ccl.org/leadership/pdf/research/creatingGovernmentLeaders.pdf

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