A post-pandemic paradigm for public leaders?
What is the future for public leadership?

The discussion stokes the debate on the extent to which we need to reimagine leadership and reconstruct our approaches to public leadership, putting the public interest at the heart of what we do. We need to continue to look beyond the pandemic and reframe the public leadership approach for our future generations. What lessons have we learned from the pandemic, and how can we make a difference in thinking and acting differently? Through this post, you are encouraged to consider four levels of public leadership from the individual through teams, organizations, and networks, but first, we will reflect briefly on global leadership. Ultimately, it is global leadership that creates the conditions for long term cultural change. The post concludes by suggesting how the lessons learned can be implemented through enhanced values-based shared and distributed leadership approaches.
Public leadership in a post-pandemic paradigm
In responding to the emergence of the global pandemic, my earlier posts showed how we’d seen some awful examples of global leadership in some countries. Examples included the so-called leader of one of the world’s most influential nations who initially and severely ‘played down’ the threat of Covid-19 and another national leader who ‘denied its existence’. Conversely, in a previous post, I drew attention to some exceptional female leadership at the outset of the pandemic, such as in Germany (Angela Merkel), Norway (Erna Solberg) and New Zealand (Jacinda Arden). In all cases, the leaders responded quickly, drawing on evidence-based facts, confronting reality and showing empathy with substantial impact in terms of lessening the effect of infection.
Whether the pandemic is unprecedented, as many people suggest, is debatable. What is clear is the impact that the spread of the infection has had on health services and the economy. Public leadership is at the centre of the debate regarding the ability to predict and prepare and response efficacy. Public leaders at all levels have the responsibility and the accountability to protect society. What will a new public leadership paradigm offer?
As we start to return to some sense of normality, the impact of the last eighteen months has profoundly affected how we live our lives and how we work. The effect applies just as much across the public sector as it does the for-profit sector. A report in the Guardian today reports on a plan to introduce rights for flexible working:
Both examples resulted in substantial consequences in increased infection rates and the global economy’s impact. We have seen some elements of the population denying the existence of Covid-19 and still others either criticising or directly protesting against public safety restrictions imposed and actions of the police in safeguarding the population.
As we start to return to some sense of normality, the impact of the last eighteen months has had a profound effect on the way in which we live our lives and how we work. A “hot-off-the-press” report in the Guardian on 21st September reports on a plan to introduce rights for flexible working:
“Plan to make employers respond more quickly to requests (for flexible working) and explain reasons for refusals”.
The Guardian, 21st September 2021
The consultation document, due to be published on Thursday by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), originates from a broader programme called the Good Work Plan, which came to life in 2019. The consultation examines the full range of flexible working, including working fewer or different hours, or so-called compressed hours – working more hours on fewer days – working from home for some or all the time, and job share.
What impact will the pandemic have on public leadership?
Assessing impact is not a precise science, but given the potential long-term changes to working conditions and routines, what impact will this have at the different levels of leadership and what skills will be required for our future generation of leaders?
As individuals, we will no doubt forever remember how we spent lockdown irrespective of nation or sector. The impact will range from changing our behaviours in work-life balance in simple matters such as fitness and diet to wholesale change. Change across a spectrum from urbanization, suburbanization and deurbanization is occurring. At the time of writing, the UK housing market has seen an exponential rise in prices (20% plus in August), particularly in rural/seaside settings, with gazumping returning with a vengeance as people seek the benefits of better living conditions spaces and working-from-home opportunities. How long will this last, or can it last? What impact does this have on those left behind (or outside of) the housing market? Supermarket shelves are sparse; partly, it is suggested due to supply chain challenges post-Brexit but exacerbated by a renaissance of panic-buying in the early stages of lockdowns. One cannot help but ask if this is a return or simply a reinforcement of selfish behaviour in which individuals seek personal fulfilment in claiming a slice of the pie rather than collaboratively making that pie bigger so that we all benefit.
What lessons can we learn from the pandemic?

Community spirit abounded at the outset of lockdowns, immediate improvements in pollution, and roaming wildlife returned in common grazing areas emerged. Such changes were generally a global phenomenon, and a sense of togetherness provided comfort at a time of isolation. Optimism for a shift to collective community leadership surfaced, but was this short-lived as the lockdowns continued in the longer term?
Let us return to a reflection on leadership from the level of the individual through teams, organisations, and networks.
In 2010 Keith Grint and I defined what we meant by public leadership. In unpicking what a necessarily extended definition was, we can re-consider its key components. It’s about collaboration based upon a shared vision, supported by shared aims and values. The approach seeks to encourage a style of leadership that is both shared and distributed with a critical objective for improving socially desirable outcomes, which all takes place within a very complex and changing environment.
Our environment is changing, and with it, we need to reimagine leadership. Public value sits very much at the heart of public leadership, representing the overall outcome of excellent public leadership. It puts the public’s interests at the heart of public leadership and consigns individual egos to the bin.
Is public-interest focused leadership an impossible ideal, and can we evaluate its impact?
Before I conclude with my response to this compelling question, I want to point to three considerable differences between public leadership and public management (and its predecessor, public administration). The three differences are the motivation for and the means for achieving goals and how work-based relationships are developed or nurtured and applied in practice.
Public leaders’ motivation is focused on the public interest, whereas public management is more about either the corporate or (in some cases) the individual’s ego. Compared to those of new public management, the achievement of public leadership goals is through value-based qualitative delivery. Goals are focused on the greater good and not target-based quantitative measurement to achieve personal acclaim and career advantage; measurement is essential, but you’ve got to measure what matters.
I make no apology for repeating my oft-cited quotation attributed to Albert Einstein (amongst others!):
“Count what counts and not what can be counted.”
Leadership concerns the importance of collaborative relationships, not just being told what to do. Both are important at different points in time. But the real challenge is not telling people what to do but getting them to do it because they want to do it. In tackling societies wicked problems – such as the pandemic – we need to change. We need to reimagine and reframe our responses to the reality of the challenges that we face. Only then will we succeed. We need to secure trust and legitimacy in all that we do as leaders in tackling the socially desirable outcomes our public needs, dealing with increased demand, and refusing to follow the road to political discourses that favour the few over the many. Most important is the leadership of our people. Enactment through empathy, empowerment and enablement will be essential in taking forward a relational approach to leadership promoting the public interest, such as that admirably displayed by Jacinda Arden as just one example.
The pandemic has brought tragic consequences, but it also holds promise. Selfless leadership is not an impossible ideal. Let us learn the lessons from those leading the way in tackling our generations’ most significant challenge. Learning can be achieved by adopting a collective leadership compass model driven by a collective vision in securing socially desirable outcomes. Leadership and delivery are two sides of the same coin enacted through multiple levels and partnershipsacross agencies and communities. Leaders should be adaptive to their environment in the actions taken supported by systems and structures and skills and behaviours that fit a post-pandemic purpose.