Societal leadership and good governance: strengthening learning, values and consent Prepared by Ruth Hubbard 2001 This

article that written by Ruth Hubbard mainly concerned and discussed about the meaning of good societal leadership and value of good governance. This article sets out a model of good governance. This model, called reformcraft involves the strengthening of learning, values and consent. In this model, governance needs to be inclusive and the definition of leadership is broader than the one we have traditionally used, namely leadership in the hierarchical sense. The data of this article is based on from discussions about governance and the reformcarft model with 160 Canadians in all walks of life in 15 separate sessions across the country. This article begins with an examination of the concept of governance.

Ruth Hubbard define governance as how societies steer themselves. The reformcraft model help in the move towards good governance and at the same time, it provides a useful framework for talking about societal leadership. Strengthening learning involves both improving our understanding of what learning means and actually learning. Strengthening values is crucial because societies need something deeper to hold onto when everything around them is changing. Morality, especially integrity, should be at the centre of politics and government because moral values can effectively link societys will to be actions and decisions of those we elect (Dror, 1998).

It also can further by strengthening consent for government activities from service delivery through to policy development. Real inclusiveness means providing places for people to speak for themselves, using processes that are meaningful to them, and listening to them even if the right answer is already clear.

To work effectively, people do not only need basic skills and knowledge, they themselves must also value the work. They must bring to their work both wisdom and behaviour that is driven by their values, character, and temperament. If their work is to perform public service, notions of public service motivation play an important role.

The relatively rigid governance institutions, structures and processes that brought predictability must become more flexibility. These values and commitments must become the driving force for good societal leadership. It is much easier to call for this than to do it because the focus here is at least on behaviour and perhaps even on people value. It is worth noting the difficulty of bringing about significant change in tightly knit social systems, whether political or bureaucratic. Donald Schon found this kind of dynamic conservatism throughout government bureaucracies (Schmidt,2000).

According Ruth Hubbard research, he suggest that the exponential increase in complexity and inter-connectedness in the world means that some dimensions of post-modern governance are beyond human understanding for most of us through our lives and for a few at least until middle age (Kegan, 1994). For the professional public servant, this situation is not much better. Legitimates questions are being raised about the nature of role of governments. Innovative experiments with new forms of services delivery mean that public servants are not necessarily delivering the services anymore. Yet, they are expected to manage these new and evolving relationships and arrangements with prudence, probity, flexibility and

responsiveness. Policy development is no longer about professional experts sorting through and finding the right answer (while consulting others in the process). The huge increase in complexity and interconnectedness that faces elected officials faces public servants as well and the same kinds of questions arise regarding capacity to handle the complexity.

The reformcraft model contains three action levers that can begin to be used right away. The levels are: politicians helping understanding, Network-based institutional innovation (to strengthen collaborative relationship in our complex and multi-level federal system); and horizon-scanning entities (to identify emerging societal issues an to help people including decision maker and the rust of us to see them). What is required is understanding. Elected officials must either possess these qualities or obtain them from sources they trust.

Professional advisors must be able to provide the requisite knowledge and analysis in a timely and constructive fashion, thereby putting a premium on current and future human capability.

The second action is network-based institutional innovation that requires institutions whose mission is to design, build and develop capacity in networks rather than running networks themselves. The third action lever, horizon scanning entities gather intelligence and evidence and identify issues and their implication for society. Just importantly they then communicate an inform society and its leaders.

The new forms of leadership that are required in this new world must be encouraged and rewarded by governance institutions, systems and processes. Values-based governance, emphasize the values, character and conduct of politicians and public servant, has become more critical. However, putting morality at the centre of government and political demands a willingness to walk the talk. Morality constrains and shape behaviour, its needs to be supported and rewarded while inappropriate behaviour is rooted out. It is clear that there is still a long way to go in the pursuit of good societal leadership. Among the challenges to be met are developing different leadership skills such as consensus-building, learning to learn and learning in a broader, more inclusive fashion, nuturing and rewarding behaviour driven by broadly shared societal values.