An assessment of the required competencies for the senior management service in the South African public service

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: A major challenge facing the South African government is the acceleration ofservice delivery improvement to ensure a better life for all South Africans. TheWhite Paper on the Transformation of the Public Service (South Africa, 1995)has as its objective 'empowering, challenging and motivating managers at alllevels to be leaders, visionaries, initiators and effective communicators anddecision-makers, capable of responding pro-actively to the challenges of thechange process, rather than acting as the administrators of fixed rules andprocedures. The White Paper also proposes that new and more participativeorganisational structures, new organisational cultures, learning organisations,and techniques for managing change and diversity be developed.A new Performance Management and Development System (PMDS) for theSenior Management Service (SMS) has been created, which has as its basisperformance management and development as an approach. It consists of astandardised set of competencies, to be used as basis for performanceappraisal. As it is expected of SMS members to manage and lead theirrespective institutions to meet the stated objectives, the Core ManagementCriteria (CMCs) will have to assist the development of competencies in SMSmembers to capacitate them to meet the stated objectives and to lead theirorganisations to change that will assist service delivery.The question, therefore, arises whether the CMCs will develop SMS members tolead their organisations to change. The aim of this research will be todetermine whether the competencies used in the PMDS are also focusedon leadership and organisational development issues needed in adevelopmental situation to enable SMS members to lead theirorganisations, rather than merely acting as the administrators of fixed rulesand procedures. The research is divided into distinct phases. The first entails exploring themeaning of competence and the conceptual structure of competencies to be ableto analyse the CMCs. This is followed by an analysis of managerial versusleadership competencies in general to provide a theoretical context for ananalysis of the CMCs in terms of management or leadership focus.In the next phase the CMCs as competencies used in the PMDS are alsoanalysed and discussed, after which a comparative analysis is undertaken, withcompetencies used in notable international examples to provide context. In thefinal phase the CMCs as competencies are analysed in terms of management orleadership focus and focus on organisation development.The research showed that the appraisal system used for the SMS members interms of the PMDS could lead to a manipulation of the appraisal system wherebySMS members could 'influence the system to their own benefit. The researchalso showed that there are definite personally oriented competencies absentfrom the PMDS, whereas they are present in the international examples.The research also showed that certain competencies supporting leadership rolesare strengthened by the international systems, whereas these are absent fromthe PMDS and therefore not strengthened. The research further showed thatthese leadership roles that are not strengthened by the PMDS, but are includedin the international systems, also coincide with the leadership roles that are notstrengthened from a theoretical perspective.The research concludes that the CMCs used in the PMDS would probably notsupport SMS members to develop competencies that are oriented towardsleadership and organisation development to enable them to really change theirorganisation to adapt.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University