Public Administration: Management- Leadership, Policy Formulation, Decision Making (लोक प्रशासन: प्रबंध-नेतृत्व, नीति निर्धारण, निर्णय निर्माण)

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Management: Human Relations Approach

  Leadership is the activity of influencing people to cooperate towards some goal.

Factors of Leadership:

  1. Situation in which people rise to leadership (depending upon the situation and personality)
  2. Process of influencing people (democratic process being the most advantageous)
  3. Nature of goal (loyal to organization)
  4. Qualities of the leader

Leadership Theories:

  • Trait Theory: it concentrates on the qualities of the leader. However, behavioral studies reveal that leadership qualities are not totally inborn and can be acquired through learning and training.   
  • Group Theory: it emphasizes that the leader provides benefits to his followers.
  • Situational Theory: it believes that leadership emerges from the situation.

Leadership Qualities: Desirable

  • Generosity with careful about health and vitality
  • Dominant purpose and direction
  • Enthusiasm, hope and will to win
  • Affection and friendliness
  • High degree of integrity to get trust of followers  

 Leadership Styles:

  • Autocratic:
    • Decisional authority is concentrated in the hands of the leader
    • Quick decision making
    • Leader tends to be personal and remains aloof from the group
  • Participative:
    • Democratic style
    • Leader obtains the cooperation of employees
    • Improved employee-employer relationship, greater job satisfaction
    • Dilution in quality of decision (often time consuming)
  • Laissez-faire style:
    • Employees motivate themselves
    • Leader only assumes the role of one of the member
    • Freedom and independence to employer
    • Employees may not have proper direction and control

Policy Formulation

“The essence of Public Administration is policy formulation” (Dr Appleby)

Policy formation is one of the essential functions of the Govt and is a per-requisite to all management.

Public Officials in Policy Formulation:

  • They supply facts, data and criticisms as to workability of the policy.
  • Generally they take initiatives for the policy (like constant touch with the public)
  • They form details of the Acts as legislature passes skeleton Acts only.

Type of Policy Formation:

  • Political Policy: made by the Govt in accordance with the electoral promises
  • Administrative Policy: it carries the will of the Govt into effect. The administrators frame rules, regulations and by- laws.

Information for Administrators:

  • Internal Sources: Periodic reports, statements, etc. Some employ agencies for data collection and analysis (e.g. NSO, NITI Aayog, etc)
  • External Sources: from private bodies, unions, associations, etc. They supplement the internal data (which might be biased and inaccurate). It includes suggestions from the general public too.
  • Special Investigations: through appointing committees and commissions with specific terms of references. They recommend certain actions to the Govt.
  • Research and study: to discover certain facts and to generalize some data.

Factors affecting Policy Formulation:

  • Constitutional provisions
  • Prevailing customs, traditions and conventions of the society
  • International laws
  • Consultations with other Departments concerned
  • Consultation with stake holders who are likely to be affected

Steps of Policy Formulation:

  • Analyzing the present environment
  • Policy alternatives
  • Examination of alternatives
  • Elaboration of the consequences of various alternatives
  • Selection of an alternatives for the policy

Decision Making Theory: Human Behaviour Aspect

Human behaviour determines the attitude and working style of the organization.

Herbert Simon criticized the structural approach, described them as more proverbs. He pointed out that the principles are contradictory, not scientifically proven and don not have universal relevance.

He lays emphasis on the processes and methods that ensure actions.

Definition:

Decision making is defined as a process of reducing the alternatives to one.

It emphasizes that the insight into the structure and function of an organization can be best gained by analyzing the manner in which decisions are made.

Phases of Decision Making Process:

  1. Intelligence activity (occasions to take decisions)
  2. Design activity (finding alternatives)
  3. Choice activity (choosing one alternative)

Values and Facts in Decision Making:

  • Decision making involves both facts and values.
  • Selection of final goals are ‘Value Judgments’
  • Implementation of such goals are ‘Factual Judgment’
  • E.g. decision to allocate more for resources for education is a value judgment while the type of education to be imparted is a factual judgment.

Rationality in Decision Making:

  • Simon emphasizes that decision making should be based on rational choices.
  • Rational choices are one which can be evaluated.
  • He rejects the concept of ‘Total Rationality’ as it is based on the assumption that the decision maker is omniscient, and has unlimited computational ability.
  • Organization should d work on the basis of ‘Bounded Rationality’.

Author: admin