Leadership, management and communication

Strong leadership, effective management practices, and open communication channels are crucial in enabling the APS to achieve its business goals and deliver outcomes for the Government and the Australian community. These areas of performance represent the glue that holds an agency together. They are important elements in engaging employees with their work and their agency, and in building and sustaining a healthy agency culture.

At senior levels, leadership is important in the context of identifying and defining organisational goals and desired outcomes, and developing strategies and plans to achieve them. Leadership is about setting and contributing to the broader agenda. Leaders in the APS also play an increasingly important coordination and connection role, not only within their agency and across organisational and sectoral boundaries, but also across national borders.

Leadership is, however, relevant to all APS employees. Employees at all levels can support leaders in their agency by examining new ways of doing things and identifying opportunities for their work area to contribute more effectively to achieving agency outcomes.

Management is a related concept to leadership, but it tends to focus on a range of more practical tasks, including financial, contract, project, risk management and managing people. Management is about guiding and motivating employees to achieve the agenda that has been set.

Underpinning both good leadership and management is effective communication. In the modern APS, leaders and managers are required to communicate effectively and persuasively with a range of people such as Ministers and their advisers, public servants from other APS agencies, State, and local government, lobby groups, non-government organisations, and the public. Effective internal communication is also essential for a cohesive and productive organisation.

This chapter explores these three interrelated issues—leadership, management and communication—within the APS context.