Administrative Leadership and
Transparency
Charles Garofalo and Dean Geuras
The importance of leadership in public organizations everywhere is unquestionable.
Equally unquestionable is the public administrator’s responsibility,
as a leader and a moral agent, to elevate the level of public discourse regarding
the public service. Public discourse concerning the American public service
is largely negative, with the term “bureaucrat” often used pejoratively and the
bureaucracy typically described as self-serving and ineffectual. The public
tends to have little or no awareness of the complex environment in which the
public service functions. For example, privatization is generally approved,
but seldom does the public appreciate the myriad problems associated with
privatization, including its costs and consequences, as well as issues related
to accountability and performance.
We maintain that seasoned public administrators are best equipped to
raise the level of discourse and understanding about particular programs and
functions in the public service. But cultural perspectives on the societal level,
as well as an emphasis on compliance versus integrity on the organizational
and individual levels, combine to inhibit the fulfillment of this administrative
responsibility. Our goals, therefore, are, first, to identify the qualities of the
morally conscious and competent public administrator; second, to describe one
possible venue in which moral agency might contribute to public discourse
and understanding; and, third, to propose change strategies for renegotiating
the nexus between public administrators as moral agents and citizens.
Moral Agency, Moral Leadership, and Transparency
in Public Service
We begin by briefly considering three concepts that are vital for improving
public discourse and governance: moral agency, moral competence,