Institutional Reinforcement for Human Resources Development: How to Implement the Goals of the Millennium Summit / Demetrios Argyriades. pp. 17-34

New Challenges for High-Level Leadership Training in Public Management and Governance in a Globalizing World / Gordon S. Smith. pp. 35-44

Reconstructing Public Administration in Post-conflict Countries: Leadership and Institutional Capacity Implications / John-Mary Kauzya. pp. 45-54

Leadership and Agency Governance: the Search for the Common Cause of Excellence in the African Public Service / M. J. Balogun. pp. 55-76

Civil Service Restructuring in Developing Countries / José Oscar Monteiro. pp. 77-100

New Challenges for Senior Leadership Enhancement for Improved Public Management / Allan Rosenbaum. pp. 103-113

Seeking Excellence in Public Management: Persuading Reluctant Public Managers / Morton R. Davies. pp. 114-119

Strengthening Public Service Leadership Capacity: Perspectives from the Developing World / Gordon M. Draper. pp. 120-139

Sensitivity to Cultural Environment: Impact on Public Service Leadership Training / Yolande Jemia. pp. 140-154

Leadership is clearly one issue that public sector organizations have to realistically address if they are to survive and succeed in today’s turbulent environment. The public service, in particular, needs a corps of individuals who, while operating within the framework of the rule of law, are able to apply visionary leadership skills in tackling extraordinarily difficult cha llenges. These challenges have been critically analysed by scholars, exhaustively discussed at conferences, and deemed important enough to warrant lengthy coverage in the United Nations Millennium Declaration. They include the challenges associated with globalization, state and public administration reform, the growing quest for popular participation, widening income disparities, religious conflict, ethnic diversity, and the rapid pace of technological change. Anticipating and responding to these challenges call for rare competencies, especially those of strategic visioning, partnership building, resource mobilization and management, as well as ethical evaluation.
However, the attention so far accorded to public service leadership is in inverse relationship to its importance. While the New Public Management school acknowledges the role of leadership in promoting innovation and steering the public service away from bureaucratic conformity to entrepreneurial, customer-satisfying, modes of operation, it does not fully account for the special, non-business circumstances prevailing in the public sector. This is the void that I hope this latest publication will fill. Besides attempting to define the nature and essence of leadership, it focuses on the institutiona l and legal framework within which the critical public service leadership roles will be performed. I am especially delighted to note that the theme of the publication is in line with the Department of Economic and Social Affairs’ normative work in the area of governance and public administration as well as with the requirements for the attainment of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.