See more on the 2013 NHSScotland Event website http://www.nhsscotlandevent.com/resources/resources2013/resources

1. Lead to succeed
Jean Hartley
Professor of Public Leadership
Open University
NHS Scotland conference June 2013

3. Aims of this session
• To consider the current context of public services, as the
starting point to understand leadership
• To examine leadership with political astuteness as a way
to address collaboration across interests which are
sometimes aligned but sometimes competing
• To reflect on when and how political astuteness fosters
effective leadership and engagement with the workforce
and other stakeholders

4. Tough times in Europe and the USA
• Global financial crisis
• Triple-dip recession…. Economic depression
• Families and communities under stress
• Increase in coercive, bullying and blaming cultures in
some workplaces
• High unemployment and under-employment
• Health and social care challenges due to an ageing
population, with chronic illness etc
• Climate change
• Loss of trust in professions, politicians and institutions
• Loss of hope and sense of direction in society

5. 5

6. The leadership challenges
• The crucial distinction between „tame‟ and „wicked‟
problems (Rittell and Webber, 1973; Grint, 2000; Hartley
and Benington, 2010)
• Tame problems – complicated but resolvable; likely to
have occurred before; agreed approaches to address.
Leadership role is provide processes and resources to
solve the problem
• Wicked problems – complex, interconnected with other
problems; lack of agreement over problem or how to
tackle it. Leadership role – ask the right questions and
get the right stakeholders involved.

7. What do we mean
by leadership?
 Person
 Position
 Process
 Performance
 Projection

8.  Leadership – not solely about people in
particular positions or their qualities but
about the mobilising of the
attention, resources and practices of others
towards particular goals, values and
outcomes.

9. What counts as successful
leadership?
• Public leadership is often controversial and contested,
and with (at any point) the full glare of publicity
• Multiple and complex goals – and many “wicked”
problems
• Is successful leadership where goals have been met?
Where public value has been created? Where the next
generation of leadership is created?
• Who decides on what is success? Over what time-
frame?
• Attributions can vary

10. Collaboration to achieve
quality in healthcare
• Collaboration is important in the context of wicked
problems (complex, not clear about cause or solution to
problems, may not have been encountered before)
• But collaboration is not easy, and it is not just about
finding common „win-win‟ approaches, sometimes there
are conflicts which have to be resolved between
collaboration partners
• And sometimes partners and other stakeholders do not
want to collaborate
• So political astuteness is a critical skill for leadership

11. Political astuteness
political
intelligence
„Metis‟
savvyPolitical
antennae

12. 5 KEY QUESTIONS TO
EXPLORE
What are the situations in which leaders use political
awareness skills in their jobs?
What do we mean by politics in the workplace?
What are the key components of the skills of political
awareness?
How do leaders acquire and develop their political skills?
 Can public servants lead with too much political
astuteness?

13. Three research projects:
1) UK on managers across all sectors
Joint research with the Chartered Management Institute (UK
professional body for managers)
Literature review – Managing with political awareness Hartley
and Branicki, 2006
3 focus groups (London, Birmingham, Cardiff) – 41 senior
managers
National survey of senior managers, n= 1,495
12 interviews
Review by Steering Board
Report: Leading with political awareness (2007), launched at the
House of Lords. Journal papers and book chapters.
Co-authors: Jean Hartley, Clive Fletcher, Christoph
Ungemach, Petra Wilton and Patrick Woodman

14. 2) UK, Australia, New Zealand
with public managers

15. 3 country study
• 1012 responses to the survey
• 42 interviews with very senior, senior and middle ranking
public servants across UK, Oz and NZ
• Co-authors: John Alford (Melbourne) Owen Hughes
(RMIT), Sophie Yates (ANZSOG);
• Report to be published in August. Also journal papers
and a book chapter in press.

16. 3) Research on close working by senior civil
servants with elected (and appointed) politicians
• 17 interviews with Permanent Secretaries in central and
devolved government, and chief executives in local
government in all 4 countries of UK
• Leading with political astuteness in daily working with
elected politicians
• Report “Dancing on Ice” being published in July by Stella
Manzie and Jean Hartley

17. THE CHALLENGE
Managers and leaders increasingly have to work with a range of
stakeholders outside as well as inside the organization
Strategic alliances and formal partnerships
Commissioned or contracted out services run by agencies or
contractors
Lobby and advocacy groups
Professional and trade union groups
Regulators
Global governance institutions
The media
Formal political institutions (e.g. local councils, Scottish
Parliament, Westminster government, EU)
And so on

18. Leading with political astuteness for
managers
“Greater priority needs to be given to developing
leaders with the capacity to manage the political
dimension. They need an ability to see and
communicate the big picture, make
connections, be credible with different groups
and broker relevant political and strategic
relationships.”
(Charlesworth et al, 2003)

19. “Political skills cannot be viewed as the domain of the
specialist, but as a mainstream element of leadership
needed across all sectors”
(Sir David Varney)

20. Improving leadership theory
Traditional leadership theory emphasises:
Leading a single organization rather than leading in a
network of organizations and stakeholders
A leader has formal authority over those they lead rather
than sometimes only influence
Assumes leader‟s role is to bring everyone on
board, rather than lead in conditions of diverse, and
sometimes competing, interests
Leader‟s control over the boundaries of the organization
rather than porous boundaries with influence on your
organization
Leading with political astuteness breaks out of these
traditional assumptions

21. What is meant by politics
in the workplace?

22. The literature – traditional and emergent
perspectives in management
From the management literature:
Early view - politics no place in management
Politics as the pursuit of self interest („politicking‟)
Politics as a means to gain market share – „turf wars‟
From the political science literature:
Politics as a public mechanism for distribution of
resources
Politics in the pursuit of common purposes, and
reconciling differences
Politics to align objectives; building sufficient
consensus for action

23. Leadership with political
astuteness
Newer perspectives on politics in the management field
eg Baddeley and James, Butcher and Clarke, Hartley and
Fletcher, Hartley and Alford
“Leadership both inside and outside the organization, based on
working with diverse and sometimes competing interests and
agendas from a range of stakeholders, to achieve
organizational and social outcomes.” (Hartley and
Fletcher, 2008)
The self-interested aspects of political awareness – sometimes
called the „dark side‟ of politics - remain a reality

24. UK survey data – “what do you understand
by politics in your work as a manager”
(up to 3 responses per person)
Alliance-building to achieve organizational objectives 59%
Formal processes and institutions of government 40%
Ways in which different interests are reconciled 39%
Scanning factors in external environment that
organization needs to consider
38%
People „protecting their turf‟ 31%
Pursuit of personal advantage 21%

25. Comparative analysis: Public servants
Australia, New Zealand, UK (n = 1012)

26. Interviews (ANZUK study)
• P08 (senior manager, AU): “[Politics is] primarily about
mobilising support for a course of action. Now that might
be support within the organisation, that is not people that
you either work for or work for you directly necessarily, but
that broader base of support. It could be mobilising support
in political office.”
• P06 (senior manager, AU) “it’s about how in fact you
engage with those stakeholders in order to achieve what
you’re trying to achieve for the organisation as a whole in
support of what community objectives are.”

27. UK Survey data – Situations where
political skills most applied (15 choices)
(% saying valuable or very valuable)
Working with influential people in your organization 76%
Working with partners and strategic alliances 73%
Thinking about how public opinion has an impact on
your organization
68%
Working with regional or local government 62%
Influencing regulation in your sector 62%

29. George Eliot‟s view of politics
in Felix Holt
“Fancy what a game of chess would be if all the
chessmen had passion and intellects, more or
less small and cunning; if you were not only
uncertain about your adversary‟s means, but a
little uncertain about your own; if your knight
could shuffle himself on to a new square by the
sly; if your bishop, in disgust at your
castling, could wheedle your pawns out of their
places; and if your pawns, hating you because
they are pawns, could make away with their
appointed posts that you might get checkmate on
a sudden…….

30. Felix Holt (cont’d)
…..You might be the longest-headed of deductive
reasoners, and you might be beaten by your own pawns.
You would be especially likely to be beaten, if you
depended arrogantly on your mathematical
imagination, and regarded your passionate pieces with
contempt.”

31. What are the key components
of skill
Warwick developed and validated a model of the key skills
of leadership with political astuteness
(now available as a diagnostic tool)
50 items in a measure of political astuteness as practised
by middle and senior managers
Asked people to rate themselves
– and the most senior managers in their organization they
worked with

32. A skills framework
Strategic Direction and Scanning
Reading People and Situations
Building Alignment and Alliances
Interpersonal Skills
Personal Skills

34. 4.18 4.17 3.98
3.92 3.98 4.043.54 3.59 3.95 3.56 3.68 3.66
0
1
2
3
4
5
Personal skills Interpersonal
skills
Reading people
and situations
Building
alignment and
alliances
Strategic
direction and
scanning
OVERALL
Self – mean
score
Others –
mean score
self and other ratings on the five dimensions
and the total score

35. 3.99
3.6
3.7 3.7 3.7
4.2 4.2
4 4 4
4.3 4.3
4.1 4.1
4.2
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
4.5
5
Personal
Interpersonal
People&
Situations
Alignment&
alliances
Strategic
direction
Middle Mgrs
Senior Mgrs
Directors
Differences in political skills ratings by managerial level

36. 4.18 4.12
3.96 3.92 3.994.16 4.22
3.99 3.93 3.91
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
4.5
5
Personal
Interpersonal
People&Situations
Alignment&
alliances
Strategicdirection
Male
Female
Political skill scores by gender

37. How did you develop
your own political skills?
What have been the events, experiences, courses, etc
(inside or outside your organization) which have been
most important to you in developing your own political
skills?

38. Survey data – Top sources of developing political skills
(% very or extremely valuable; 24 possible sources)
Learning from own mistakes 88%
Gaining experience in the job 86%
Handling crises 85%
Good example of senior manager 77%
Bad example of a senior manager 70%
Working with other organizations 67%

39. Experiential learning is
particularly important
“I think it’s very much a living thing. I don’t feel I’ve learnt a
huge amount from reading textbooks, I’ve learnt it from
people, watching them, observing them, and I suppose just
life experience.”
(business development manager, facilities management
company)
 “I talk a lot with my boss, who is very developmental. We
talk about what happened in meetings and I ask why did
you do this, why not that, and it really helps.”
(Local government manager).

40. Key recommendations for development,
given scarcity of current routes
Individual managers
– Increase exposure to politically complex situations
– Reflection/observation skills
– Coaching and mentoring from a politically astute angle
Organisations
– Audit political context/skills
– Create climate for experiential learning
Professional bodies / training providers
– Use a political astuteness skills framework
– Use the CMI self-assessment and 360 assessment instrument

41. Can public servants lead with too much
political astuteness?
What are the limits of political astuteness – in ethical
terms, in effectiveness terms?
• Interviewees reported that some colleagues got too
close to ministers, or were „game-playing‟, or were not
seen as trustworthy
• But also that too little political astuteness was
problematic – not seeing the interests of others

42. Public servants reported:
• Reviewing the political context with their close team
• Using a coach to reflect on ethics and politics
• Being reflexive as a habit of mind
• Checking that their actions would be explainable to
family, or the media
• Reflecting on codes of conduct
They used their political astuteness to check that they
were not being too politically astute.
“It’s the very air we breathe” (AU)

43. Limits to leadership with political
astuteness
Acceptable
Political
Astuteness
Too Compliant to the
politician being served:
not independent enough
Too rigidly promulgating
formal boundaries without reflecting
appropriate political astuteness
Not political enough:
Professional expertise
without political
astuteness
Not professional enough:
political astuteness
without technical
expertise

44. Conclusions
There is an increasing recognition that political
astuteness is a key skill for leaders/managers as they
lead in situations with diverse interests in a dynamic
context
This research represents the first major mapping of the
contexts and skills
Development routes are haphazard and often painful –
we can do more to make explicit the skills and help
people acquire these skills

45. Further information and papers:
Jean Hartley
Professor of Public Leadership
Department of Public Leadership & Social Enterprise
Open University Business School
Open University
Walton Hall
Milton Keynes
MK7 6AA
jean.hartley@open.ac.uk
www.open.ac.uk