Networked Leadership in the Public Service

When she retired as Clerk, Janice Charette said that "the public service still operates in analog and the world has moved on." 

The analogy of operating in “analog” vs. “digital” speaks to the profound transformation in society operates since the advent of the internet a generation ago. Every sector of the economy has been transformed, as with politics, entertainment and the media.

At times, it seems as though government is the last institution still organized around the methods of collaboration from an earlier time, when information was scarce and large bureaucracies grew to supply it to a limited number of ministers and other leaders with the capacity to act. Today, the deluge of information and the proliferation of voices has expanded the number of actors that can shape our nation’s direction. Large, hierarchical institutions seem increasingly anachronistic.

But the public service of Canada is not a monolith. Parts may be slow and inefficient, but throughout the government there are innovators who “operate in digital.” Beyond the narrow technological sense of the term, this refers to the kind of collaboration that the internet makes possible - with information transmitted rapidly through a huge number of connections in a highly transparent manner.

Public Innovation Canada refers to this type of collaboration “Networked Leadership.” Networked leaders (a) are highly connected, (b) optimize for learning over control and (c) share their work and their thinking in an open manner.  

The Canada School of Public Service has commissioned Public Innovation Canada to study Networked Leadership in the Public Leadership. The study will focus on a single cadre of public servants, recruited mid-career for a consistent set of characteristics in a manner conducive to Networked Leadership. Public Innovation will survey both RPLers who current work in government and many who have left, to compare the working environments across both.

The study will consist of a 10-minute questionnaire, and a 45-minute interview for a smaller number of participants. If you were hired into the public service through the RPL program, please contact ben@publicinnovation.ca to take part.