1
Contents
Introduction ............................................................................................................................................. 4
Background ......................................................................................................................................... 4
The case for a renewed focus on leadership development .................................................................. 4
APS Leadership Development Strategy .................................................................................................. 5
Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 5
Strategy Element 1: What do leaders need to be able to achieve? ...................................................... 6
Strategy Element 2: What does it mean to be an effective APS Leader? ........................................... 8
Strategy Element 3: How do we build our current leadership capability? .......................................... 9
Strategy Element 4: How do we build our future leaders? ............................................................... 11
Strategy Element 5: What are the priorities across the Leadership Development System?.............. 13
Strategy Element 6: How do we evaluate the effectiveness of the strategy and programs? ............. 14
Appendix 1 ............................................................................................................................................ 15
The Strategic Centre’s role ............................................................................................................... 15
References ............................................................................................................................................. 17
Contact Details ...................................................................................................................................... 19
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Introduction
Background
Ahead of the Game: The Blueprint for the Reform of Australian Government Administration identified
a requirement to enhance leadership development, talent management, and core skills learning and
development across the Australian Public Service (see Blueprint recommendations 4.5 and 7.3).
The Strategic Centre for Leadership, Learning and Development (the Strategic Centre) was
established within the Australian Public Service Commission in July 2010 to give effect to those
recommendations. The Strategic Centre is initially focused on strengthening leadership development,
including an approach to talent management. In future, this focus will expand to include core skills
development.
This Leadership Development Strategy was developed by the Strategic Centre using a Human Capital
strategic approach; drivers in the external environment and APS business needs were analysed, and
the strategy aims to fill the identified capability gaps.
It was developed in consultation with Agencies and is based on contemporary practice and research.
It has been endorsed by the Strategic Centre’s Advisory Board and by the Secretaries Board.
The case for a renewed focus on leadership development
The APS faces substantial current and emerging risks impacting its leadership capability. It is critical
that we address these risks to ensure a sustainable APS that can continue to deliver to Government
and citizens; Firstly, these challenges include complex, long term challenges in the areas of policy and
service delivery that require cross-APS solutions and a leaders with a different capability profile;
Secondly, we face a range of existing workforce risks, including the imminent retirement of senior
leaders, which demands that we improve our leadership capability development; Lastly, we face a
range of emerging challenges such as increasing competition for talent, which means we must build
leadership talent from within in addition to sourcing leaders from outside the APS.
Complex long
term challenges
Figure 1
•
•
Existing APS
workforce risks
•
•
•
•
of the Service 2009-10)
Nearly 50% of the APS leadership group is eligible to retire in next 5 years / 70% in
the next 10 years
Only 10% of Agencies have active talent management strategies in place
Only 30% have active succession management (State of the Service 2009-10)
Fewer than 1 in 3 APS employees rated the effectiveness of their L&D programs as
high in terms of helping improve performance (Ahead of the Game: Blueprint for Reform of Australian
Government Administration)
•
Emerging
challenges
Complex, cross cutting policy challenges, citizen centric, emphasis on execution,
‘joined up’ (Bennington and Hartley, 2009)
Less than 40% of SES see themselves as part of an APS –wide leadership cadre (State
•
The workforce is aging, increasing competition for talent;
• In 2010 people aged over 65 = 13%
• In 2050 people aged over 65 = 23% (ABS)
Leadership development and talent management highest priority for organisations
around the world (Boston Consulting Group)
In future, leaders
will have a
different capability
profile
There is an
opportunity to
improve leadership
capability
development
We must build our
leadership talent
from within
Figure 2: Imperatives for leadership development
4
APS Leadership Development Strategy
Introduction
The Leadership Development Strategy is based on the changing nature of the demands on leaders in
the APS and targeting key development points.
The Strategy is informed by a Leadership Development Framework covering the ‘Knowing-DoingBeing’ dimensions of leadership1. It is also underpinned by Lombardo and Eichinger’s 70-20-10
principle of program design2, which identifies that development is most effective when it is a
combination of structured on-the-job learning (around 70%), network or relationship-based learning
(around 20%) and formal learning (around 10%).
Figure 2
Figure 2: APS Leadership Development Strategy
The Strategy responds to six essential questions that focus attention on the APS business need and the
leadership development approach – these questions are numbered and are shown around the outside of
the above image. This strategy document addresses the answers to each of these questions in greater
detail.
1 (Nohria and Khurana 2010)
2 (McCall, Eichinger and Lombardo 2001)
5
Strategy Element 1: What do leaders need to be able to achieve?
The Strategic Centre sought to understand what the APS requires of its current and future leaders.
This included:
 Developing a view on the nexus between management and leadership.
 Understanding how the changing nature of APS work has shaped what leaders need to be able to
achieve.
 Understanding how the changing expectations of citizens and Government have influenced what
the APS needs from its leaders. In particular, the APS faces unprecedented policy and delivery
challenges which mean the expectations of our leaders have changed. 3
Definition of leadership
Research and contemporary practice shows that there are a range of approaches for developing
leadership capability, and the approach adopted is inevitably informed by the definition of leadership.
Being an effective leader in the APS remains a combination of leadership and management; however
changing complexity means the capability demand is different and greater. In the context of this
strategy, we have defined ‘leadership’ as:
Leadership is an influence relationship among leaders and followers who intend real changes that
reflect their mutual purposes4
Leadership is a combination of being able to understand and make sense of the future requirements,
formulate plans to get there and motivate people to come with you.5
This definition of leadership recognises that leadership:
 is about relationships – it is not just about an individual,
 means being able to articulate a vision and plan for the future, and
 is about being able to influence and align your people to translate plans into action.
Importantly, this definition of leadership does not distinguish leadership capability from management
capability, but instead recognises that the two are interlinked.
Key drivers demanding a renewed focus on leadership
As identified by the Blueprint and consultation the business of the APS is changing, and consequently
the capability profile of our leaders is also changing. The key business drivers informing the
capability profile of future APS leaders are:
3 (Commonwealth of Australia 2010)
4 (Rost 1991)
5 (Edwards, Ayres and Howard 2003)
6
 Increasing citizen expectations of government in terms of speed and increased access to
information
 The need to be able to deal with complex, boundary spanning policy in a contestable market for
high quality policy ideas
 The importance of delivering services effectively and efficiently to citizens through driving
effective policy execution in tight timeframes
 The need for deep cultural change for the APS to be able to deliver to rapidly changing
requirements
 Tightening labour market and changing workforce composition
 Rapid pace of technological change.
To respond effectively to this changing policy and service delivery environment, our APS culture will
need to change, and as custodians of our culture, our leaders will require additional capabilities that
build on those that have served us well in the past. Table 1 summarises.
Table 1
Leadership requirements that supported the
APS in the past
In addition, our future leaders need to ... 6
Expertise and systems deeply effective and
deployed in a single stream
Adapt multiple systems and align teams with
new environments
Provide the right answers to questions about
what needs to be done
Ask the right questions as answers might not be
self evident and require collaborative processes
Restructure for efficiencies and alignment
Can work across changing, complex systems
Apply your expertise within your domain
Align and apply expertise of groups to impact
the system
Utilise your expertise to make decisions and
implement
Shape the context to enable and foster good
decision making
6
Various sources including: Kotter 1998, Storey 2004, Senge 2000, Pfeffer & Sutton 1999, Charan et al 2001, Ulrich 1999,
Ibarra et al 2010, Bennis & Thomas 2002, Goffee & Jones 2006, Hartley and Benington, 2008
7
Setting direction and mobilising people
Shape collective and individual experiences to
foster innovation
Strategy Element 2: What does it mean to be an effective APS
Leader?
The Strategic Centre identified the capabilities of effective APS leaders. This included:
 Identifying the leadership capabilities that distinguish APS leaders from other leaders.
 Understanding whether the existing Integrated Leadership System would be compatible with future
APS leadership capabilities requirements.
 Developing an understanding of the latest research on the capabilities of effective leaders.
Being an effective leader in the APS is a combination of Knowing, Doing and
Being
Drawing on research and consultation, the Strategic Centre developed an APS leadership development
framework, which recognises that leadership capability is a combination of ‘Knowing, Doing and
Being’.7 To be able to meet the complex challenges facing us and be truly citizen centric, our leaders
need to:
 Know how to lead – people, processes, technology
 Behave in ways consistent with achieving results – strategic thinking, communicating well
 Be a leader – self awareness, authentic leadership, public service vocation
7
(Nohria and Khurana 2010)
8
Figure 3
Figure 3 APS Leadership Development Framework
The Knowing, Doing, Being concept was adapted from Nitin Nohria and Rakesh Khurana (2010)
Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice, Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation. The
content of the model was developed through consultation across the APS in the period October 2010
to February 2011.
A person does not gather learnings as possessions but rather becomes a new person with those
learnings as part of his/her new self 8
Strategy Element 3: How do we build our current leadership
capability?
This element of the Strategy identifies how the APS can effectively develop its existing leaders. This
includes:
 Identifying the critical career points where the APS should focus effort to develop its existing
leaders
 Defining the principles for effective leadership development.
The Strategy identified two critical intervention points for our existing leaders:
 Transition to role: comprising two groups with differing development needs – lateral hires joining
the APS from other sectors, and APS staff promoted into a new role
8 (Bennis 1989)
9
 Experienced in role: leaders who have been in their current role for a period of time – these are
individuals whose development needs are easily overlooked due to their experience.
Principles of contemporary leadership development
Research indicates that leadership development is most effective when:
 There is a balance between on-the-job learning (70%), reinforced by relationship based learning
(20%) and classroom based learning (10%)
 Most senior leaders participate in leadership development and model the desired leadership
behaviours and culture
 Driven by a well-defined leadership model
 Delivered over a period of time with multiple interventions aligned with development needs
 A variety of learning strategies are employed – covering knowing, doing, being
 For classroom based learning programs there is:
- Pre-commencement preparation
- Reinforcement of learning on return to the workplace
Developing leadership capability - Underpinning principle: 70-20-10
Figure 4
Figure 4 Examples of development activities following the principle of 70-20-10
10
We cannot think of leadership as the product of an event or a particular program but rather as a deep
commitment embodied in ongoing actions, systems and values of the organisation’9
Strategy Element 4: How do we build our future leaders?
This element of the Strategy identifies how the APS can effectively develop its future leaders – high
potential individuals with the capability and aspiration to succeed to higher roles.
It involves:
 Defining talent management
 Articulating the purpose of APS talent management
 Defining the principles underpinning an APS talent management system
 Developing a high-level design for an APS talent management system
What is talent management?
The APS has defined Talent management as:
a systematic approach to ensuring a sustainable pool of talented people for critical roles, including
the identification of roles that are critical to the business and the identification and management of
high potential people from which these roles can be filled. 10
Talent management research suggests:
 Leadership talent strategies must align with organisational strategy and be updated over time.
 Rigorous, transparent analysis of high potential is essential
 Chief executive and senior executive commitment are the strongest determinant of the success of
any leadership strategy and they are best placed to align development needs with business
priorities.
In addition, consultation with APS leaders identified a number of talent management priorities:
 Better clarity of talent identification approaches
 Identification of critical roles within agencies and broadly across the APS – initially focus on
building pipeline to SES Band 3
 Talent reviews/profiling with executive group ownership/participation
 Link to Agency succession planning
9 (Conger 2010)
10
Adapted from Development Dimensions International 2008, Nine Best Practices for Effective Talent Management, and
CLC 2007, Improving Talent Management Outcomes
11
 Feeder groups important in time
Each leader/agency identified the risk of talent/succession selection based on a concept of elitism.
Talent system design principles
The Strategic Centre has developed a series of design principles, based on consultation and research
that will underpin an APS talent management system
 Talent management system designed to be owned and driven by senior leaders
 Strategic Centre supports senior APS leaders in their leadership development responsibilities
 Initial focus on SES, with intent to expand to include high potential EL employees
 The design will be an adaptable model able to be used by Agencies as a basis for establishing
internal talent management systems
 Talent identification based on high potential to succeed in future roles, aspiration, capability and
engagement - high performance is the ‘ticket to the game’
 Talent identification will ensure that unlawful discrimination does not occur
 Talent management is focussed on development needs, with a tailored ‘program’ based on each
participant’s individual needs
 Development will include mobility, placements and other appropriate interventions.
Overview of Talent Management System
This graphic shows the high-level process for an APS talent management system, which commences
by identifying the critical focus areas that require an increased bench of potential future leaders.
Figure 5
Start
Roles required for organisational
sustainability as agreed by Secretaries Board
Identify focus
areas
Identify and assess
high potential for
focus area
Evaluate
Leaders with the
performance &
potential to
succeed in critical
roles
Review each element
to ensure best
outcomes
Intensive
development
program
Accelerated development
interventions that build skills and
target identified needs
Figure 5 High level overview of Talent Management System
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Strategy Element 5: What are the priorities across the Leadership
Development System?
With a view to implementing the Strategy, this element identifies the cross-APS leadership
development priorities. Factors considered in determining priorities included:
 Opportunities for maximising the cultural impact of leadership development (by targeting senior
leaders)
 As much as possible, avoiding duplication of existing programs in Agencies
 Maximising the value for APS Agencies by identifying areas where there is a lack capacity /
sufficient staff numbers to justify investing in leadership development
The Strategic Centre’s initial priorities will be the Senior Executive Service, with a focus on a talent
development program for SES Band 2 employees.
Figure 6
Figure 7 Priorities for Leadership Development
Rationale for current priorities
Table 2
Focus level
Rationale
 Cultural impact on organisation greater, can systemically model the
required leadership behaviours
1. Initial focus - SES roles
 Opportunity to foster collegiality and build a cross-APS leadership
cadre
 Talent management component starting at Band 2 in preparation for
critical Band 3 roles
13
2. Subsequent focus - EL
roles
 Feeder group for SES, however there is currently a significant focus
within Agencies on EL development
Table 3
Focus area
Rationale
 Build bench strength of leaders capable of filling critical roles (talent
programs)
1. High potential
 Provide assurance that there is a pool of competitive candidates likely
to compete for critical roles when they become available
2. Transition to role
 Embed APS culture, leadership and systems approaches (transition
programs)
3. Experienced in role
 Foster high performance, breadth and organisational sustainability
(experienced leader development programs)
Strategy Element 6: How do we evaluate the effectiveness of the
strategy and programs?
Any learning and development investment by the APS must be subject to rigorous evaluation that
demonstrates whether the intended outcomes have been achieved, establish whether any benefits have
resulted, and to drive continuous improvement.
The Strategic Centre will undertake evaluation at two levels:
 Evaluating the Leadership Development Strategy
 Evaluating individual programs/interventions.
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Appendix 1
The Strategic Centre’s role
The Strategic Centre will contribute to efficiently and effectively overcoming current and emerging
risks to APS leadership capability through:
 responsive development of priority APS leadership capabilities, which will be aligned to emerging
business need
 cross APS leadership development interventions which will enable enhanced consistency,
collaboration & collegiality
 targeted development spend which will reduce design duplication for like development offerings
 an emphasis on thought leadership which will ensure a fit for purpose, fresh and contemporary
approach to developing APS leaders.
The Strategic Centre was established to bring leading thinking and a strategic approach to realise real
change in how the APS identifies and refreshes its approach to developing current and future leaders,
including the following benefits:
 enhanced leader capability to meet current and future APS requirements
 enhanced core skills of the APS workforce
 efficient and effective leader and core skills development systems
 enhanced agency leadership, learning and development performance.
To support the delivery of these benefits, the Strategic Centre has seven key deliverables:
 Annual APS Leadership and core skills strategy
 Aligned contemporary leadership and core skills program design
 Quality assured providers
 Central procurement and brokerage of programs (where agreed value for money)
 Rigorous strategy and program evaluation
 Intensive development of high potential leaders
 Thought leadership, support and advice for agencies.
The Strategic Centre’s Advisory Board, comprising a number of Secretaries, Agency Heads and
external experts, will provide strong independent governance and APS-specific guidance on
leadership development requirements and priorities to ensure a strong alignment with APS business
needs.
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References
Australian Public Service Commission (APSC). “State of the Service Report 2009-2010.” Australian
Public Service Commission. 2010. http://www.apsc.gov.au/stateoftheservice/0910/index.html.
Benington, J, and J Hartley. “Whole Systems Go! Improving leadership across the whole public
service system.” Sunningdale Institute, UK National School of Government. 2009.
http://www.nationalschool.gov.uk/downloads/WholeSystemsGoPaper.pdf.
Bennis, Warren G, and Robert J Thomas. Crucibles of Leadership. Cambridge: Harvard Business
School Press, 2002.
Bennis, Warren. On Becoming a Leader. Reading, Massachusetts: Perseus Books, 1989.
Boston Consulting Group. “New Leadership Rules.” 2010.
Charan, Ram, Steve Drodder, and James Noel. “The Leadership Pipeline: How to Build the
Leadership Powered Company.” 2001. http://static.managementboek.nl/pdf/9780787951726.pdf .
Commonwealth of Australia. “Ahead of the Game: Blueprint for the Reform of Australian
Government Administration.” 2010.
http://www.dpmc.gov.au/publications/aga_reform/aga_reform_blueprint/docs/APS_reform_blueprint.
pdf.
Conger, Jay A. “Leadership Development Interventions.” In Handbook of Leadership Theory and
Practice, by N Nohria and R (eds) Khurana. Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation, 2010.
Corporate Leadership Council. “Improving Talent Management Outcomes.” 2007.
Development Dimensions International. “Nine Best Practices for Effective Talent Management, DDI
White Paper.” 2008. http://www.ddiworld.com/pdf/ddi_ninebestpracticetalentmanagement_wp.pdf.
Edwards, Meredith, Russell Ayres, and Cosmo Howard. “Public Service Leadership: Emerging
Issues, A report for the Australian Public Service Commission.” Australian Public Service
Commission. 2003. http://www.apsc.gov.au/leadership/emergingissues.pdf.
Goffee, R, and G Jones. Why Should Anyone Be Led by You?: What it Takes to be an Authentic
Leader. Cambridge: Harvard Business School Press, 2006.
Ibarra, Herminia, Scott Snook, and Laua Guillen Ramo. “Identity-based Leader Development.” In
Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice, by Nitin Nohria and Rakesh Khurana. Harvard
Business School Publishing Corporation.
Kotter, John P. “What Leaders Really Do.” Harvard Business School Press. 2001.
http://il.webjunction.org/c/document_library/get_file?folderId=4068858&name=DLFE-2080003.pdf.
McCall, M, R Eichinger, and M Lombardo. The Career Architect Development Planner. Center for
Creative Leadership, 2001.
Nohria, Nitin, and Rakesh Khurana. Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice. Harvard Business
School, 2010.
Pfeffer, Jeffrey, and Sutton Robert I. The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn
Knowledge into Action. Cambridge: Harvard Business School Press, 1999.
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Rost, Jospeh C. Leadership for the 21st Century. New York: Praeger, 1991.
Senge, P. “The Fifth Discipline: The art and practice of the learning organisation.” 1990.
http://www.leadershipnow.com/leadershop/6095-4.htm.
Storey, John. Leadership in Organizations: Current Issues and Key Trends. London: Routledge,
2004.
Ulrich, David O, Norm Smallwood, and Jack Zenger. Results Based Leadership: How Leaders Build
the Business and Improve the Bottom Line. Cambridge: Harvard Business School Press, 1999.
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Contact Details
To contact the Strategic Centre, please email: strategiccentre@apsc.gov.au
Dr Jane Gunn, Group Manager Strategic Centre for Leadership Learning & Development,
02 6202 3909, jane.gunn@apsc.gov.au
Ms Katherine Power, Director Strategic Relations & Communications, Strategic Centre for
Leadership Learning & Development 02 6202 3867, katherine.power@apsc.gov.au
19