Transformational leadership in the South African public sector

Abstract

In today’s fast changing world, countries and organisations need to have a sense of urgency to change in order to be competitive. There have been numerous dramatic changes in social, political, economic, environmental and technological areas. Notwithstanding these changes being mostly at international level, they also affected the national systems. These changes often blindsided the countries which especially failed in strategic planning and transformational leadership. The South African public sector is not spared. The public service is under considerable pressure to improve service delivery to meet this challenge and the ever increasing expectations of stakeholders and customers who are increasingly aware of new technologies, governance possibilities and practices. There is an urgent need for public sector transformation to deliver public goods meeting expectations and spearhead the country to achieve vision 2025 and possibly, to start charting the way forward beyond 2025 to meet even greater political, economic, technical and social challenges of the future. It is undoubtedly that the anticipation of these changes and taking the necessary precautions are closely intertwined with a public administration system. The variety, frequency and intensity of these changes and developments suggest that the detection of the problems and providing solutions for them are not as easy as it used to be. Principles such as public participation, transparency and accountability are now a part of our daily lives. The purpose of this article is to explore the complexity of the public sector and the variety of leadership challenges within the South African public service. Taking cognisance of the signifi cance of transformational leadership in the realisation of public sector transformation, a thorough investigation of the strategic issues is urgently needed in order to provide a co-ordinated and comprehensive strategic approach to address the issues of poor service delivery. The article concludes by arguing that bold, decisive and transformational initiatives by the public sector and its leaders are necessary to meet the complex current and future challenges of the country.