Ethos Issue 5, Nov 2008

Leadership Development in the
Singapore Public Service
Ong Perng Yih

A ground-breaking research study on public sector leadership in Singapore highlights the importance of leadership impact and challenging work assignments on staff development and performance.

The Singapore public sector has long since recognised the importance of top leadership capability as a key driver for organisational excellence and performance. In a continuing effort to understand how leaders best learn, grow and develop, a joint research study, “Lessons of Experience: Singapore Public Service”, was conducted in 2007.¹

In this study, a total of 36 public sector leaders were interviewed by researchers from the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL). These interviewees ranged in seniority from Director, Chief Executive to Permanent Secretary, and came from a broad range of functions, across 12 ministries and 18 statutory boards. The interviews were analysed by a team of researchers from CCL and the Civil Service College, Singapore (CSC).

Two key themes were identified from the study. One highlighted the value of challenging work assignments to leadership learning. The other underlined the importance and impact that bosses, both “effective” ones as well as “bad” role models, have on the development of their staff, and how their impact may matter far more than they themselves realise.

LEARNING FROM CHALLENGING WORK ASSIGNMENTS
Work assignments, such as a task, posting, or promotion where the leader has to strive hard in order to achieve the desired outcomes, were found to motivate learning and change in the leader, with 92% of the interviewees citing work assignments as significant or memorable learning events. In contrast, coursework and training was cited by only 11% of interviewees as a source of leadership learning.

The developmental lessons derived from work experience varied according to the type of work assignments. Specifically, experiencing an increase in scope (for example, first supervisory responsibility) enabled a leader to learn more about managing and motivating staff. For leaders who undergo job rotations, they also gained a greater awareness of their abilities, preferences, limitations and preferred leadership styles. It was found that public sector leaders learnt to operate and network effectively across different agencies—a core competency in public sector work by being immersed in boundary-spanning work regardless of whether the boundaries were within the organisation, between organisations, or with external stakeholders.

The significance of work assignments on leadership learning suggests a degree of initiative and reflection amongst Singapore public sector leaders. The new situations they found themselves in encompassed uncertainty and challenges in which they had to experiment and take risks in trying to adapt and cope with an unfamiliar situation. The more successful leaders were able to rise to the occasion and go on to learn from these experiences.

LEARNING FROM BOSSES AND SUPERIORS
Apart from learning through challenging work assignments, bosses and superiors were found to have an enduring influence on leadership learning, with 53% of interviewees noting the lasting impact their bosses and superiors had on them.

Interviewees commonly described their superiors as performing one of four broad roles: they were catalysts, positive role models, teachers or negative role models. The finding suggests that learning does not only occur with the demonstration of positive behaviours by bosses and superiors. Encounters with negative behaviours seem to trigger leadership learning as well.

From their experiences of bosses and superiors, interviewees learnt valuable lessons in accountability, as well as how to manage, develop and motivate staff. This suggests that behaviour modelling may be a key driver of leadership learning.