Process model of development of leadership qualities of public servants in the conditions of digital transformation

Introduction

Management of the civil service in the context of large-scale public administration reform requires the development of leadership as a component of further development and modernization of the civil service. The effective public administration is impossible today without the development of leadership qualities and skills of civil servants. After all, we have to work in today's environment across organizational boundaries, sectors and jurisdictions to address current and emerging policy challenges and improve the impact of public services.

The formation of an effective model of government has based on a radical rethinking of the role, responsibilities and tools of direct leaders, because they must free up space for innovation, while managing risks and being responsible for results. The senior civil servants must support rapid policy agendas, lead and transform large civic organizations, motivate and inspire their workforce, and be trusted partners for citizens, partners, and stakeholders. At the same time, the leadership qualities should be supported by professionalism and the highest level of personal and professional ethics and integrity.

These challenges are becoming more acute in the context of the increasingly rapid and destructive changes caused by the coronavirus crisis (COVID-19), which has shaken many old approaches and methods of civil service. There is a transformation of traditional organizational systems, which are being replaced by more flexible management structures. Rapid change requires heads of government agencies and services to have additional decision-making abilities and skills in conditions of uncertainty based on scarce and unreliable evidence. The effective heads of public services are able to solve such problems by using new technologies and managing their workforce in a new way to protect their well-being, while supporting and encouraging the provision of quality basic services (Babenko, et al., 2020). Thus, the system of public administration requires dedicated and creative heads of public services who are able to achieve great innovations. The leadership of civil service leaders, willingness to take the initiative, put forward and implement the boldest ideas, the confidently lead their team, the pooling resources and the support to solve social problems - is a condition for improving the capacity of the civil service to meet citizens' expectations and restore confidence in government and civil service (Bondarenko, et al., 2021; Hubanova, et al., 2021).

The main tasks of leadership development in the civil service are as follows:

• the formation and development of leaders of the highest corps of state power;
• the creation of institutional preconditions for:

1) the civil service reform;

2) the sustainability and continuity of the functioning of the public administration system;

3) the prompt response to the demands and challenges arising in connection with the processes of social transformation.

To solve these problems, the latest models and forms of leadership development in the civil service are being implemented:

• constant increase of the level of professional competence of high-ranking officials;
• development of personal qualities of a civil servant;
• formation of the nation's administrative elite;
• attracting talented youth to the civil service.

To address these issues, it is necessary to identify the skills, competencies and leadership styles required of senior civil service, in accordance with the goals of innovation in the civil service (Iatsyshyn, et al., 2020; Bondarenko, et al., 2021). The leadership qualities should include a set of skills and competencies, the introduction of mechanisms and incentives that can strengthen the ability of community leaders to manage innovation in their organizations. To meet this challenge, we need heads of public services who have the skills, thinking, and tools to continually innovate in an increasingly digital government, economy, and society (Khomutenko, et al., 2019; Klochan, et al., 2021). Therefore, it becomes relevant development of the process of professionalization of senior civil service personnel on the basis of development of leadership qualities that will contribute to the effective operation of the civil service of Ukraine, change management and successful implementation of reforms in Ukraine, taking into account the best world practices.

The subject of the study are scientific views, regulatory framework for regulation, the practice of organizing the institution of leadership of public servants in the context of public administration reform and modernization of the civil service.

The purpose of the study is to develop scientifically sound proposals and recommendations for the implementation of a process model for the development of leadership qualities of public servants and justification of the conditions for ensuring its effectiveness.

The basic idea is - the criteria for professionalization of civil servants, based on the institution of leadership, were the basis for the modernization of state power and the development of human resources. The activities of the institution of leadership should be clearly regulated by current legislation, determined by humanistic values ​​and moral norms, which will help attract professional patriots to the civil service and help restore confidence in the government.

Literature Review 

Leadership is an important area of ​​research and management practice (Håvold, et al., 2021; Wexler & Oberlander, 2020). However, most leadership and collaboration work is about the individual level, not organizations and network structures (Bennis & Nanus, 1985; Birasnav,et al.,2010). In recent years, more attention has been paid to the study of leadership theory at the level of organizations and public administration (Agarwal, 2018; Mau, 2020; Guy Peters, 2021). However, in recent years, there have been studies on leadership positions at a particular level of organizations and in social networks (Liu, et al., 2008; Kummitha, 2020; Krishnan, 2020; Kettl, 2000).

However, most theories of leadership do not consider the leader as an organization in the interaction with other organizations (Avolio, et al.,1999; Avolio & Bass, 2004).

The concept of the leadership has been actively studied by scientists since the last century. The main stages of development of the leadership paradigm have presented in Figure 1.

During the research, scientists have developed more than 60 qualification systems, each of which has its own approaches to defining leadership. However, the results of the analysis of various systems in which the phenomenon of leadership has considered, show that they can always be divided into three basic components:

• a leader - a person with a certain set of qualities and skills that provide the ability to lead others;
• a followers - a team of like-minded people who are ready to follow the leader to achieve the goal;
• a goals - a certain result in which both the leader and his team have interested, the achievement of which unites all participants in joint activities.

Figure 1. Evolution of leadership paradigms

Based on the above, leadership is a three-component phenomenon: leadership as a person; leadership as a team; leadership as a process (Fig. 2).

Figure 2. Three-component understanding of leadership

The results of the analysis of scientific works on the phenomenon of leadership allow us to conclude that leaders have special qualities and psychological traits that ensure the ability to influence others (Bennis & Nanus, 1985; Bennis, 1989; Edwards,et al., 2012). There are many such qualities and they have manifested in different leaders in different ways depending on the characteristics of their character and the specifics of professional activity (Korepanov,et al.,2020; Kuznetsov et al., 2019, 2020). The analysis of theoretical sources allows to allocate a specific role of the leader in development and realization of strategy of the organization which he heads (Beem, 2009; Fritzen, 2010). In particular:

• the leader must have his own concept of development of the organization, it must be thought out "model", which he will focus on, analyzing the situation and planning the vector of development;
• the leader must have clear goals, clearly imagine what results will lead to the implementation of a strategy;
• the leader must be an unstoppable initiator of action, a person who is constantly thinking about innovation and moving forward;
• the leader must have the strength of a strategist, the strength to implement grand projects and a responsible approach, the strength of a person who directs all staff to solve urgent problems (Rodchenko, et al., 2019);
• the leader must constantly update their knowledge, views, ideas, tools, promising projects, etc. (Romanenko & Chaplay, 2016);
• the leader must look for additional opportunities for action, take responsibility and look for more, if it is not contrary to the interests of the organization;
• the leader must make sure that his team goes forward without fear, is not afraid to experiment wisely, thinks creatively and unconventionally;
• the leader must avoid hesitation, striving to streamline the strategic decision-making process (Ashley, et al., 2021);
• the leader must anticipate the consequences of their actions, be aware that changes in the situation in one area, will change the situation as a whole and be prepared for unforeseen consequences of their actions (Sudomyr, et al., 2020).

The study of the expression of specific characteristics of leadership and value priorities of management of the development of the organization can act as a problem of research "leadership in the context of management" (Bauer, et al., 2021; ).

In the context of the processes (reforms) that are currently taking place in public administration, the most constructive is the effective implementation in practice. the concept of transformational leadership (Avolio & Bass, 2004) and the concept of management styles (Adizes, 2011) as a modern theory of leadership, which has absorbed elements of humanistic theory and situational approach to the problem of leadership. The concept of transformational leadership considers the features of leadership in a situation of organizational change as a variety of attitudes to influence staff. The concept of management styles studies the features of management as an installation on the main management functions (Cherchyk, et al., 2019). The concept transformational leadership has based on anticipation, planning, communication, creativity, uniting a team of public servants around a set of beliefs and values ​​to achieve clear and measurable goals and the simultaneous development of personality in the team as a whole (Dykha, et al., 2020).

The functions of a transformational leader provide greater influence on the development of individuals and the organization in which they work (serve). Research (Bennis & Nanus, 1985; Birasnav, et al., 2010) showed that these are functions such as:

• creation and vision of prospects, development goals;
• development of strategy of multilateral (critical) thinking and activity planning;
• promoting the development of each employee and the team as a whole;
• promoting the development of the organization;
• protection of employees from destructive forces and tendencies;
• protection of the structure of the organization from destructive forces and tendencies;
• facilitating the search for consensus between different groups within the unit;
• creating a system of organizational values ​​and subculture;
• development of intuition and understanding of processes;
• motivating people to act, etc.

Thus, according to the theory of transformational leadership, an effective leader is a person who is able (competent) to perform the following actions:

1. The creates an inspiring vision of the future.
2. The motivates and inspires people to absorb this vision.
3. Manages the process of achieving this vision.
4. The creates a team and unites (trains) it so as to make it more effective in achieving the goals set by the vision.

The transformational leadership brings all these competencies together.

However, in addition to these competencies, the leader and his specific role in the development and implementation of the organization's strategy in the public administration sector, must have the following qualities:

• a honest approach to business, and most importantly, an honest approach to oneself;
• a professional approach to the case: there should be no trifles in the case;
• a responsibility for the task: not to avoid responsibility, but to take on the full burden of failures and mistakes, without shifting to others.

Thus, the leadership is a requirement and a challenge of time. A modern leader is a responsible, effective leader, able to organize the activities of the organization, lead subordinates and ensure the implementation of tasks through their own knowledge, experience, skills and abilities, constant work to improve leadership skills.

Methodology

The basis of this study was the methodology and fundamental provisions of management theory, public administration. In the process of solving the research problems the following methods were used: a system-structural analysis, an abstract-logical, a functionally logical, a scientific abstraction, a dialectical method, a method of comparison, the historical method, as well as tools of modern information technologies.

A comparative analysis of the impact of subjective, individual and personal characteristics of subordinates and real practices of labor interactions on the assessment of their leaders as transformational leaders.

The paper uses the results of a survey of civil servants of both central executive bodies and local public authorities. Thematic blocks of the questionnaire included socio-demographic and professional qualifications of respondents, questions on daily practice in the civil service, the practice of entering the civil service, the remuneration, the role of political factors in the functioning of the civil service, the civil service functions in society, the leadership assessment in work of public servants of Ukraine.

The following methods have used in the work: the abstract-logical - for theoretical generalizations and formulation of conclusions; the document analysis - used to collect empirical information about the formation of the leadership qualities in the head of government in Ukraine; the analysis and synthesis - used for detailed study of the subject; the the historical method - allowed to study the origin and development of the concept of "leadership"; the logical modeling and design - to classify the types and styles of leadership; the comparative analysis - provided an opportunity to analyze foreign experience in the formation of leadership qualities in the head of government; the generalization - through which a logical and consistent analysis of the formation of leadership qualities in the leader and proposed ways to improve the content of leadership training among government officials, the corresponding conclusions are made.

Results

Tools improving the professional development of public servants through the formation of leadership qualities

Reforming and modernizing the public service in Ukraine requires the formation of new approaches to staffing, the acquisition of new leadership qualities by the public servants, which should restore citizens' trust in government and civil servants.

According to the data all-Ukrainian sociological surveys conducted during December 2020, the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology found that the highest level of non-population trust is in volunteers - both those who help the army and those who help the displaced - 74% and 66% respectively. Among institutions, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have the highest level of public trust - 66%. 52% of respondents trust the church, 39% trust public organizations. The figure 3 shows the regional distribution of the balance of trust and distrust in state institutions (percentage of those who trust, minus the percentage of those who distrust). From West to East, trust in state institutions is declining.

Figure 3. Regional distribution of the balance of trust and distrust in state institutions in Ukraine, 2020 (State and social institutions)

Thus, the negative assessment of citizens indicates the urgent need to improve public administration, improve interaction between government and citizens, which requires improving the professionalism of managers, their compliance with the law, the use of the effective management methods.

A study (2010) of Ukrainian civil servants identified their views on key groups of professional leadership competencies, training and development needs. A portrait of the leader - the ideal leader through the eyes of the civil servants was modeled (Fig. 4).

Figure 4. The model "Portrait of a leader - the ideal leader through the eyes of civil servants" (Profiles of leadership competencies)

In accordance with the obtained model, the leader - the ideal leader through the eyes of civil servants includes the following competencies: organizer, able to work, initiator, generator of ideas, can lead, people are drawn to him, the heart of the team, clearly sets goals, formulates ideas - enables others to perform, develop, do not resort to excessive control, gives the employee freedom, respects the professional, does not put pressure on employees, subtle psychologist, restrained, manages emotions, behaves correctly, treats all employees equally, can quickly navigate, is able to prevent problems and solve them, does not shift the blame on others, takes responsibility for managing people. The professional competencies should be formed along with the relevant leadership qualities of the public servant, his value system.

An important tool for the development of the civil service as a condition for good governance in Ukraine is the development of a profile of leadership competencies.

The leadership competency profiles are the basis for the professional development of the civil servants: to identify personal learning needs and improve curricula and approaches to professional development.

The leadership competency profile describes the skills, abilities and competencies that a person must have in order to be an effective leader in their organization.

The main criteria for the development of leaders in the civil service is the existence of a general framework for a leadership development strategy, defined on the basis of clearly defined desired leadership competencies.

The leadership competency profiles must take into account national characteristics and needs, local context. During 2013, a study was conducted with the participation of civil servants of I-IV categories of positions on the development of profiles of leadership competencies (Table 1).

Table 1. Key competency groups of leaders in the civil service in Ukraine

The key groups of competencies of leaders in the civil service in Ukraine are as follows:

• the result orientation;
• the analytical thinking;
• the human resource management;
• the effective communication.

The civil service leaders in Ukraine play an important role in implementing civil service reform. Therefore, it is important that the civil service has opportunities for training and development in order to support leaders in their role as leaders. The basic requirements for the leader's personality in the modern public service have systematized recent research OECD (2020), 4 characteristics of leaders of state organizations have allocated, which allow to respond effectively to the challenges of the public sector (Fig. 5).

The following characteristics have distinguished by the latest abilities for a public servant leader:

1. The value leadership - as the ability to make decisions that create value for society. Implemented through the introduction of higher standards of transparency, accountability, integrity and ethical behavior of the leaders themselves. The most civil servants recognized the following as the key values ​​they adhere to: professionalism; responsibility; teamwork / cooperation; efficiency / effectiveness; honesty / integrity. In this case, each distribution had its own, isolated value.

Figure 5. The latest characteristics of leaders of state organizations (OECD)

2. The open inclusion - as a basis for interaction with various target groups - politicians, employees, stakeholders and citizens. Encouraging diversity, developing an open and inclusive organizational environment contribute to the development of quality solutions and services, and the important prerequisites for the development of innovation. Sometimes diversity can lead to conflicts. Leaders not only form inclusive organizations, but must effectively manage conflicts.
3. The organizational management - the formation of mutual understanding within the organization and the development of relationships based on trust, when employees have motivated by the common achievement of goals, and they have enough autonomy to implement them. Leaders influence through the use of various tools - communication, rewards, sanctions, as well as through the allocation of resources and the development of organizational capabilities. The main task facing the leaders of state organizations is to turn political goals into realistic and tangible results.
4. The network cooperation - the formation of the leader of network relations in the areas: "down" on the organizational structure; "Up" with other bodies that are hierarchically higher; "Outside" - vertically outside their organizations. This builds cooperation between various ministries and other executive bodies, as well as involving representatives of business and the public sector.

That is, the task of leaders of state organizations is the ability to identify groups that have influenced by the developed decisions, and interact with them.

The model of development of leadership qualities of public servants

The acquisition and improvement of professional knowledge and competencies of the civil servants is a purposeful measurement of professional training, which provides the appropriate level of professional qualification of a civil servant for his professional activity.

The professional knowledge and experience, according to the vast majority of respondents, are the most important factors in holding civil service positions (the Civil Service in Ukraine: your point of view, 2020) (Table 2).

Table 2. The respondents' answers to the question: "How important or unimportant do you think each of the following factors is for your current position?",% (Among the interviewed civil servants of central executive bodies)

The professional knowledge and experience, according to the vast majority of respondents, are the most important factors in holding civil service positions. However, the personal connections and loyalty to management remain, according to civil servants, important factors for appointment. The political ties, compared to the above, according to respondents, is a less important factor. In terms of gender, men are more likely to appreciate the importance of political and personal ties that are important for their current position. Development of an evaluation system competencies of civil servants provides for the selection of specific evaluation criteria, which largely depend on which category of workers will be evaluated and how the results will be used. The competency assessment model should include both corporate competencies that are directly dependent on the values ​​and are universal to all its employees, and the competencies of managers and professionals that are necessary to perform the duties and achieve the planned result. It should be a tool for making sound management decisions about the promotion of employees, the appropriateness of their training and development, the encouragement or punishment. The assessment of the competence of public servants involves determining the importance of the proposed competencies within the group, which characterizes the degree of importance of each for the effective implementation of the objectives and the achievement of common goals. The importance of each competence should be determined by experts. It should be noted that the weighting factor has determined once - its adjustment is possible only if you change the strategic goals of the organization. The management competencies can be assessed by the degree of implementation of strategic (key) competencies:

Р_ij =  × 100%                                                                                                                     (1)

where Рij - is an indicator of the level of managerial competencies of public servants;                              і-1,2,…n – the number of competencies that can be ranked; – the significance of the i-th competence; – expert assessment of the level of i-th competencies (quality of implementation of management functions); – the maximum expert assessment of the level of i-th competence. In the table 3 presents the results of ranking 30 factors (managerial competencies) according to the degree of the importance of these competencies for civil servants, an expert group of 8 experts based on the survey data.

Table 3. The results of expert assessment of the level of management competencies public servants

In the process of approbation it was determined that as a result of a priori ranking of 30 managerial competencies according to the degree of their importance for public servants, the expert group identified the most important managerial competencies. It was found that the following 11 management competencies are less important, presented in descending order of importance:

1. The level of training in the field of the strategic management (functional).
2. Ability to track changes in the legislative and regulatory framework (information and methodological).
3. The level of functional training (functional).
4. The correspondence of the education to the position (functional).
5. Ability to learn (intellectual).
6. The speed ​​of processing of the received information (information-methodical).
7. Ability to communicate with specialists from other fields (social).
8. The knowledge of business ethics (social).
9. Ability to act in conditions of uncertainty or risk (decision making).
10. Ability to use an integrated approach to the performance of their duties (intellectual).
11. Advanced training system (professional).

Thus, the most important competencies according to the degree of their importance are decision-making competencies (4 out of 19 most important), and the same importance was distributed between professional, functional, intellectual, information-methodical and social (3 competencies out of 19 most important). Thus, in a pairwise comparison of competencies, it is very difficult to determine the personal impact of each competency group on the overall level of managerial competencies of the public servants. The proposed method of determining the level of competence of employees is not only one of the options for assessing the business performance and social effectiveness of the public servants. The leadership competency profile includes competency levels for three levels: for a senior managers, a middle managers and a base managers.

Figure 6 presents a diagram of the interaction of leadership competencies with managerial competencies.

Figure 6. The scheme of interaction of leadership competencies with managerial competencies of the public servants

The leaders in the organization assume the appropriate share of responsibility in a particular area, according to the hierarchy of the management system. That is, at different hierarchical levels of the public administration system, strategic and situational resources have used to successfully achieve the goals. The mid-level civil servants work at the level of the situational resources.

The administrator has a clear vision of the goals, tools and mechanisms for their implementation. The main quality of the head - manager - is to effectively, with the least loss to implement the goal set by the administrator, to motivate subordinates to the expected changes. A senior managers - administrators - are the smallest group of managers. There are no more than two or three of them in the organization. Their main task is to develop strategic decisions that determine the content of the organization for several years, it is important to have a holistic approach, a systematic allocation of a strategic goals. Based on the study, a diagnostic model for assessing the leadership of a public servants has proposed (Fig. 7).

Figure 7. Diagnostic model for assessing the leadership of public servants

To implement the model, a system of indicators has been developed - single, complex and integrated indicators of leadership of public servants, presented in Figure 8 "Tree of indicators of leadership of public servants".

Figure 8. Tree of leadership indicators of public servants

 The complex indicator of the leadership of a public servants according to the  -th criterion ( ) can be determined by the formula:

where  - the index of the  -th criterion of leadership of public servants ( ),  = 1 ... ;  – the index of the  -th parameter of the criterion of leadership of public servants,  = 1 ... ,  ϵ ;             – the number of parameters in - th criteria;  - estimated indicator of the leadership of a public servants according to the -th criterion and the  -th parameter.

The calculated indicator of the leadership of a public servants  has determined on the basis of detailing the  -th parameter on a set of statements. The matrix for the calculated indicator of the leadership of a public servants has presented in table 4.

Table 4. Calculation of the criterion  according to the detail table

To determine the estimated indicator of the leadership of a public servants , you can use the formula:

where  - the index of the approval -th  of the details on the criterion of leadership of public servants, ,  = 1 ... Вij;  - index Вij -th analysis result,  = 1 ... N;  bn is a unit indicator of the leadership of a public servants according to the -th criterion and the -th parameter for the -th approval for the -th verified result of the analysis in units of a measurement according to the chosen scale of a measurement.

The measurement scales for unit indicators may include any numerical estimates. To measure the leadership of the public servants, it is convenient to use a scale with two values: "0", "1" for "non-compliance", "compliance". In this case, to assess the leadership of a public servants according to the  criterion, a gradation corresponding to the basic, satisfactory, good, excellent level of leadership of public servants can be used. The integrated indicator of leadership of public servants can be determined on the basis of summation of evaluations of the  criteria of the leadership of a public servants, taking into account their weights.

In the public sector, despite the high degree of regulation and subordination, the role of the leader is extremely important and requires evaluation of its effectiveness. Such parameters as the degree of job satisfaction, the importance of results, intentions to change jobs, mutual assistance and cooperation, self-identification in the team, the focus of activities in the organization are important in assessing the effectiveness of the leader.

Conclusion

This study examines the main aspects introduction of a process model for the development of the leadership qualities of a public servants and substantiated the conditions for ensuring its effectiveness. The basis for the modernization of state power and the development of human resources in the civil service should be based on the criteria of the professionalization of civil servants, based on the institution of leadership. The leadership has proposed to be considered as a three-component phenomenon: leadership as a person; leadership as a team; leadership as a process. The professional knowledge and experience have highlighted by the most important factors in holding civil service positions. A method for assessing the level of managerial competencies of the public servants according to the degree of implementation of strategic (key) competencies has been developed. An assessment of managerial competencies according to the degree of their importance for public servants, the expert group identified the most important management competencies. An approach to understanding has proposed interaction of the leadership competencies with managerial competencies, a diagnostic model for assessing the leadership of a public servants has been developed. To implement the model, a system of indicators has been developed - single, complex and integrated indicators of civil servants leadership, using tools: a tree of indicators of leadership of civil servants, a matrix for the calculated indicator of leadership of civil servants, measurement scales for the appropriate level of indicators.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no potential conflict of interest regarding the publication of this work. In addition, the ethical issues including plagiarism, informed consent, misconduct, data fabrication and, or falsification, double publication and, or submission, and redundancy have been completely witnessed by the authors.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article