Exercise of adaptive leadership by senior officials in the Australian Public Service as a Westminster institution

Abstract

Framed by tensions between Westminster conventions and traditions, and public servants' values, craft obligations and felt responsibility, the research explores how Senior Executive Service (SES) officers in the Australian federal government make use of a specific leadership model, adaptive leadership (AL), in conceiving and performing their roles. The kernel for the study is that AL, adopted by the Australian Public Service Commission in 2012 to develop its SES cadre, evinces particular entrepreneurial characteristics which may not be a natural fit in the Australian Public Service (APS) as a derived Westminster institution with inherited conventions, traditions and understandings.

While traditional formulations posit that Westminster public services operate along dichotomous responsibility-accountability conventions and principal-agency relationships, these accounts fail to sufficiently acquit the role of the public service in an increasingly complex environment. Conceptually, this study explores the role of the public service as an institution with a form of independence adapting to changing responsibility and dispersed accountability, including an increased relationship between senior officials direct to the parliament.

Empirically, the study examines subsidiary questions about how, and in what circumstances, public officials exercise AL, and whether they do so in modified forms depending upon organisational setting. Emerging from this exploration was a distinct set of leadership conditions -- a 'native' leadership craft -- used by SES officers to make sense of and navigate their environment: a "habit of discernment" to bridge knowing the right thing to do and acting to do it.

To explore for the prevalence of AL against the normative backdrop of the APS's role in the Westminster tradition, the research employs a mixed methods approach involving interviews with dozens of elite (political and administrative) actors, APS SES officers and observer-stakeholders; grounded in three organisation-level case studies to observe the possible situational variation of AL. It also draws on a large bank of primary and secondary documentary material--speeches, press releases, parliamentary debates, reports, guidelines, monographs and journal articles.

This research is relevant conceptually and timely in practice. Along with other nations, Australia faces a set of difficult challenges ahead, not least managing the social and economic aftermath of historic pandemic crisis, extant international strategic and economic pressures, and domestic policy challenges. Effective leadership by senior officials will therefore be critical to navigate these pressures. In light of the research findings, the study proposes changes in SES leadership development policy and practices to support senior officials navigate their evolving environment.