Perpetual Crisis in Public Management
According to Cohen, Eimicke & Heikkila, (2013) U.S government has been incompetent in addressing issues which Americans have faced. Even though the government had a great confidence during the period of Great Depression and World War One, it lost the confidence or developed a ‘crisis of confidence’ in 20th century. The opinions polls represented this evidence through conducting a research and found that U.S citizens started to lose government trust in 1960s. Other evidence of lack of trust developed in 9/11 crisis and in 2012, only 38% U.S citizens revealed trust on state-level government and 24% revealed trust on federal government (Cohen, Eimicke & Heikkila, 2013). Opinions from collective American consensus show that government programs and policies are not effective since they do not solve problems or create quality life but they bring more problems. The conservative views show that the community has lost trusts since the government has failed to create and implement public polices since 1930s after the Great Depression. Government is incompetent and has engaged in wasteful and corruption actions which have made the public to suffer from crime, homelessness, lack of public services and more (Cohen, Eimicke & Heikkila, 2013). Americans believe that private and religious institutions have played a big role in making a difference. However, the public challenges the government for failing to improve people’s life. Even though the government tried to address crisis on World Trade Center and others, still there is a challenge since it did not bring changes as it was expected. The author argues that the government has development a crisis of confidence or in other words the government is able to improve public management (Cohen, Eimicke & Heikkila, 2013).
Government has a big role to play in order to meet the needs of the people. The authors assert that the government needs to improve its performance but in order to achieve this, it must implement institutional changes and policies so that managers can take new step and work effectively (Dunn & Miller, 2007).The most important thing is to prevent the reemergence of political patronages and create a competitive position for public procurement. In addition, the government contractors should be accountable by fulfilling the agreement and act as agents in monitoring public views and ensuring effective functions of the government. Effective and honest management should be achieved through ensuring that managers are accountable, agencies are responsible and adheres to hiring rules, allow the inspector general and whistleblowers to monitor and report the corrupt officials (Dunn & Miller, 2007). On the same note, all governmental levels should adhere to the rules and ensure accountability.
A second response from the government is that it should create training programs to public managers. The purpose of training is to create value, give the public managers an opportunity to explore personal and organizational approach of addressing crisis in public management. This method will create flexible public management. Note that in order to ensure effective and excellent public services, public managers must have skills and knowledge such as analytical techniques, creative thinking and have the skills to apply modern technology in addressing current and future issues. In addition, public managers need to have an adequate knowledge on social science and this will assist in thinking about the best polices and social interaction. Generally, both private and public managers must learn these skills through training in order to run their organizations effectively.
As a nonprofit/government organization leader, I might improve accountability and responsiveness by using these approaches. As a leader, I acknowledge that public participation in a community is important and the leader must show accountability, responsibility and present an authentic role in addressing the concern of the community (Bertelli, 2017). In addition, it is my role as a leader to develop the community. First, I might develop some approaches like creating a common agenda, a strong rapport between community members, administrative team and develop teamwork. In other words, this approach is a managerial model and a strategic planning which will help in creating a conductive operational environment. For example, I may focus on workforce planning, infrastructure management and training (Bertelli, 2017). Other approach which would assist in becoming accountable and responsible is legislative model. I would take actions such as distributing resource, create community acceptance and develop operational guidelines. Third, I would use the approach of community participation model where I would focus on strengthening the citizen interaction and creating harmony between them and the administration. The crisis of confidence creates a gap between the government and the community and during this situation; it is my role as a leader to create a common agenda and strategic planning activities which will bring success (Christensen & Lægreid, 2015). Other point is that as a leader, I would take action by focusing on community empowerment model. This means that as a leader, I would create an empowerment process by developing extensive community participation. This is important as it will help create a community agenda, evaluate community issues and implement solutions toward the issues. Finally, community engagement is important and this is done by creating multi-faceted project where community members are involved in developing community such as improving economic conditions (Christensen & Lægreid, 2015).
Reference
Cohen, S., Eimicke, W. B., & Heikkila, T. (2013). The effective public manager: Achieving success in
government organizations.
Dunn, W. N., & Miller, D. Y. (2007). A Critique of the New Public Management and the Neo-Weberian
State: Advancing a Critical Theory of Administrative Reform. Public Organization Review, 7(4),
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Bertelli, A. M. (2017). Who Are the Policy Workers, and What Are They Doing? Citizen’s Heuristics and
Democratic Accountability in Complex Governance. Public Performance & Management
Review, 40(2), 208-234. doi:10.1080/15309576.2016.1180306
Christensen, T., & Lægreid, P. (2015). Performance and Accountability-A Theoretical Discussion and an
Empirical Assessment. Public Organization Review, 15(2), 207-225. doi:10.1007/s11115-013-
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