The term leadership is so nebulous that no one has ever been
able to measure it and yet everyone has tried to define it.
Although the notion of leadership is beset by complexities in
both the public and the private sector, it is particularly
within the public sector that competing needs and expectations
of diverse stakeholders exacerbate this problem. In
both sectors it could be argued that leadership is not cross
sectoral and leadership development is siloed. Within the
private sector, strategic alliances may be formed albeit only
when this can be perceived as a benefit to shareholders. This
emphasises that the private sector is driven by customeroriented
profit in comparison to the public sector which is
very much driven by government-imposed targets.
This paper suggests that improvements to leadership are required
across both sectors. It will argue that to improve public
sector leadership there must be shared aims and values in
order to improve a sense of community well being. The paper
further suggests that the development of public leadership
standards is crucial to this improvement. Such standards
should ideally apply across the public sector in order to help
the development of a culture of “one-public-service” rather
than many public services. The paper outlines a model of
public leadership standards which has not previously been
discussed by either practitioners or the research community
and which has potential to offer a benchmark by which public
leadership can be measured.