If public servants are expected to treat citizens with respect, they must be treated with respect by those who manage public agencies. In the New Public Service, the enormous challenges and complexities of the work of public administrators are recognized. They are viewed not just as employees who crave the security and structure of a bureaucratic job (old public administration), nor as participants in a market (New Public Management); rather, public servants are people whose motivations and rewards are more than simply a matter of pay or security. They want to make a difference in the lives of others (Denhardt 1993; Perry and Wise 1990; Vinzant i998).
The notion of shared leadership is critical in providing opportunities for employees and citizens to affirm and act on their public service motives and values. In the New Public Service, shared leadership, collaboration, and empowerment become the HOITH both inside and outside the organization. Shared leadership focuses on the goals, values, and ideals that the organization and community want to advance; it must be characterized by mutual respect, accommodation, and support. As Bums (I978) would say, leadership exercised by working through and with people transforms the participants and shifts their focus to higher level values. In the process, the public service motives of citizens and employees alike can be recognized, supported, and rewarded.
7. Value citizenship and public service above entrepreneurship. The public interest is better advanced by public servants and citizens committed to making meaningful contributions to society rather than by entrepreneurial managers acting as if public money were their own.
The New Public Management encourages public administrators to act and think as entrepreneurs of a business enterprise. This creates a rather narrow view of the objectives to be sought-—to maximize productivity and satisfy customers, and to accept risks and to take advantage of opportunities as they arise. In the New Public Service, there is an explicit recognition that public administrators are not the business owners of their agencies and programs. Again, as King and Stivers (1998) remind us, government is owned by the citizens.
Accordingly, in the New Public Service, the mindset of public administrators is that public programs and resources do not belong to them. Rather, public administrators have accepted the responsibility to serve citizens by acting as stewards of public resources (Kass 1990), conservators of public organizations (Terry 1995), facilitators of citizen- ship and democratic dialogue (Chapin and Denhardt 1995; King and Stivers 1998; Box 1998), catalysts for community engagement (Denhardt and Gray 1998; Lappé and Du Bois I994), and street-level leaders (Vinzant and Crothers 1998). This is a very different perspective than that of a business owner focused on profit and efficiency. Accordingly, the New Public Service suggests that public administrators must not only share power, work through people, and broker solutions, they must reconceptualize their role in the governance process as responsible participant, not entrepreneur.
This change in the public administrator’s role has profound implications for the types of challenges and responsibilities faced by public servants. First, public administrators must know and manage more than the requirements and resources of their programs. This sort of narrow view is not very helpful to a citizen whose world is not conveniently divided up by programmatic departments and offices. The problems that citizens face are often, if not usually, multifaceted, fluid, and dynamic—they do not easily fall within the confines of a particular office or a narrow job description of an individual. To serve citizens, public administrators not only must know and manage their own agency’s resources, they must also be aware of and connected to other sources of support and assistance, engaging citizens and the community in the process.