Effective Leadership in Public Service Perspective

Abstract

Quality of public services is one of the strategic issues for civil services to be actualized in terms of gaining public trust. To that end, an effective leader is a significant factor. On discoursing effective leadership, the ideal leadership standard should also be discussed so that the debate on effective leadership will always arise. This research was intended to present the ideal standard of effective leadership more deeply as well as to link the urgency of effective leadership in the public service more specifically. The results of analyses from this research proposed six main points that can be used as an ideal standard of effective leadership, namely: (1) intensive communication, (2) ease of applying influence, (3) promoting role models, (4) involving all members of the organization, (5) providing the motivation, and (6) satisfaction of the subordinates. In applying a variety of strategies to create high quality public service, an effective leader must broaden his/her perspective on the meaning of good public service and be able to build a shared vision of public service. Thus, the principal characteristics can be argued as: always have desire to make improvements to the performance of services, capable of creating the best service standards according to vision, able to organize effective services, able to strengthen relations with the communities served, as well as able to create transparency and accountability in service.

Keywords: leadership, effectiveness, public service