Essay on Leadership of Public Bureaucracies

A large portion of the general population who head the official branch of Texas government have never had full control over it. Other chose authorities head a portion of the real offices, and an effective administrative branch can, with solid identities in control, control the organizations to some degree by controlling their financial plans.

Throughout the rigmarole of political history of the United States of America, the growth of the “fourth branch of government”, the Bureaucracy, has been a prominent, controversial topic. Peter Woll, in his article “Constitutional Democracy and Bureaucratic Power”, and James Q. Wilson, in his article “The Rise of the Bureaucratic State”, discuss this developing administrative branch. The Constitution has no written mention of an “administrative branch”, and today’s Bureaucracy is often tedious, corrupt, and even undemocratic. But such a branch’s development and expansion is necessary in order to keep par with an evolving and changing society.

Stewardship is a job for government officials to make sure and protect the public good. The information provided regarding the integrity grade and stewardship should go together, but from reading the article, it is obvious that stewardship is not actually being used in Texas. The governor of Texas has been corrupted and indicted for one reason or another. It is shameful to know that due to their personal mistakes of either using their power wrongfully, be drunk while driving, or be indicted for fraud could effect in the state they represent. I can see that at least Texas is good at state budget processing with a grade A. Even though the legislative, executive and judicial systems should work separately in accountability to meet their part

Paul C. Light’s (2006) article, “The Tides of Reform Revisited: Patterns in Making Government Work, 1945-2002”, has revealed to the readers how the current landscape of administrative reorganization is and how the sphere is gradually being dominated by four major competing ideas, viz. scientific management, the war on waste, the watchful eye, and liberation management. Light (2006), has explained how at the very heart of the American reform policies lays the four tides of reform ingrained with four philosophies. Light (2006) has stated that “the Constitution contains harbingers of all four “tides,” or philosophies, of administrative reform that populate the federal statute books today. It spoke to the logical of scientific management by creating a single executive with tight day-to-day control over the officers and departments of government. It laid basis for future wars on waste by requiring an annual accounting of expenditures and revenue while reserving the appropriation power for Congress.” Light (2006) has also stated that, the Constitution also “emphasized the need for a watchful eye on government excess through an elegant system of checks and balances. And it invented future efforts to liberate government from excessive regulation by vesting all executive powers in the president.” It is noteworthy that, Light (2006) has tried to make the readers understand how in the recent decades, all the four tides have accelerated in pace and intensity and how such acceleration

Authority is defined as the ‘power or right to give orders, make decisions, and enforce obedience’. There are many different organisations that enforce discipline within the public services, which have the right to extend different levels of authority and enforce different levels of obedience within a service. These are;

The findings of article one dispute the stereotypical paradigm believed to be found in public sector bureaucracies. Leadership and excellent performance by public sector organizations do not need to be hindered by the typical bureaucratic subsystems when a well designed transformational leadership model is implemented.

The relationship between a governor and its elected or appointed bureaucrats are important for a state bureaucracy. It is very likely that most – if not, all bureaucracies share the common agreement: that the executive and legislative bodies must work together fairly with state agencies to reach their goal, which is to establish, control, and enforce certain policies that help create a perfect society. However, in the bureaucracy of the state of Texas, that goal seems to be unachievable. There are two articles that exploits the struggles between the state’s agencies and the state legislature. One explains the issue of budgetary powers for a Texas governor, and the other describes the frustration of authority between the Texas legislative lawmakers and one powerful state agency. There seems to be a fragmentation within the Texas bureaucracy, which can be rooted to the “Plural Executive” form of government that’s established in the state’s constitution, and the influence of interest groups on the state legislature.

The bureaucratic era has been the traditional form of organization for more than a century, in simple terms described as hybridity, standardized operations and none flexibility inside the organization. The change to the post-bureaucratic is shown through personal influence, high trust relationships and the importance of the individuality of everyone (McKenna, Garcia-Lorenzo & Bridgeman, 2010). According to Kernaghan (2000) the characteristic of the bureaucratic era is “position power” and of the post bureaucratic “participate leadership”.

Authority means the right or power to enforce rules or give orders. To do this they need legislations to enforce their laws, to function properly the uniformed pubic services need to have legislations.

Yet another integral member of the state’s executive branch is the Comptroller of Public Accounts. “The Comptroller is generally responsible for maintaining the accounting records of the State and collecting taxes and other revenues due to the State. Also, the Comptroller is required by statute to prepare an annual statement of the funds of the State and of the State’s revenues and expenditures for the preceding fiscal year” (Combs). The next position is the Commissioner of the General Land Office. “The Commissioner is generally responsible for

Although bureaucracy’s have a significant amount of power over the United States most important decisions and laws they cannot always execute or perform certain actions. Two particular forces who oversee and control bureaucratic agencies are congress and the president who is part of the executive branch. Both congress and the president are constantly competing for agency control (Lecture 7 10/24/16). They both have their own individual and unique sets of strategies they use such as using congressional control, appropriations process, privatization, executive order and management of agency budget in order to seize complete command. The main goal of these two means of control are to ultimately limit the discretion of bureaucrats and to also if possible shrink the size and number of bureaucracies.

The purpose of this essay is to discuss the public interest and the administrative responsibility. Discuss some of the recent ethical obligations confronting public administrators in their day to day decision making. Also we will examine the recent trend in privatizing government functions. Finally, we will discuss if privatizing posses any type of dilemma’s for the attainment of public interest.

One way to see public administration in action is by attending a city council meeting, whether it be in an urban or rural area, public administration still has a part in each event. As Kettl (2018; p. 244) referenced in his book, there is not a civil system that would be sustainable without strong leadership. This paper will discuss the author’s description, observation, and reflection during a city council meeting.

However, despite Max Weber’s theory that bureaucracies are like iron “iron cages” that are a efficient form of administration. Prior to modern government reform patronage, spoils, and bribery were just part of the political environment for Public Administrators. In today’s, modern government Public Administrators are hired based on the merit and technical qualifications that secure the individual can carry out the duties of the office. However, Public Administrators are forced to work in a hierarchical organization

In the following paragraphs, I will explain the dominant theory in public administration practice and elaborate on the major theoretical assumptions of the Old Public Administration. As stated in the question, the world has transformed through globalization, information technology, and devolution of authority since the latter part of the last century. The dominant theory in public administration has been replaced from the traditional rule-based, authority-driven processes of the Old Public Administration with market-based, competition-driven tactics in the New Public Management, beginning in the 1980s (Kettl, 2000, p. 3). This was an effort to privatize government and streamline public administration to maximize efficiency and productivity. Heavily relying on market mechanisms to guide public programs, public administrators in the New Public Management are encouraged to “steer, not row,” meaning they should not bear the burden of delivering services, but instead define programs that others will carry out, through contracting or other means (Denhardt & Denhardt, 2011, p. 13). Core values of the New Public Management include using private sector and business approaches to the public sector, squeezing as many services as possible from smaller revenues, market style incentives, providing customers more choices, and focusing on outputs and outcomes instead of mainly processes.