Test your self-leadership skills. How good are you in leading yourself?

When most people think of leaders, they think of famous people like Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy, or (when talking about toxic leaders), Adolf Hitler. But why not think about ourselves in term of a leader? Academics and professionals interested in ‘self-leadership’ chose this path. Self-leadership literature can provide important lessons for professionals. Self-leadership has been shown to result in greater career success, more job satisfaction and less stress. Read this blog to test your own self-leadership skills and improve them

Connecting public administration and change management literature

Abstract The main goal of this article is to contribute to change management literature in the public sector. A recent literature review argues that there is a gap in the literature on change management specifically using the public administration perspective. We therefore analyze resistance to change in the public sector using an interdisciplinary approach, combining insights from public administration and change management literature. From public administration, we draw on the policy alienation model, which consists of five dimensions: strategic powerlessness, tactical powerlessness, operational powerlessness, societal meaninglessness and client meaninglessness. These factors could influence resistance to change. We test this using two independent large scale samples. Based on Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), we show that societal and client meaninglessness proved very influential. Furthermore, perceived autonomy (operational powerlessness) strongly influenced resistance to change, whereas strategic and tactical powerlessness were far less important. Based on the results, we nuance this impact of employee influence and participation and highlight the value of meaningful changes/policies. Implications for scholars and a future research agenda regarding change management in the public sector is shown

Street-level bureaucrats help clients, even in difficult circumstances

This policy brief presents the main findings of the Marie Curie Project “COPING: Policy implementation in stressful times: Analyzing coping strategies of civil servants”. The project combines insights from public administration and psychology to study how street-level bureaucrats (also termed frontline workers, public professionals or public service workers) cope with stress during public service delivery

Verandermanagement en beleid: Waarom vertonen professionals weerstand tegen nieuw beleid?

__Abstract __ Professionals vertonen vaak weerstand tegen nieuw overheidsbeleid dat ze moeten uitvoeren. Dit kan de legitimiteit en effectiviteit van beleid aantasten. Het doel van dit artikel is om de belangrijkste oorzaken voor weerstand tegen nieuw overheidsbeleid te identificeren. Ik gebruik hiervoor het model van beleidsvervreemding, dat uit vijf dimensies bestaat: strategische, tactische en operationele machteloosheid, en zinloosheid voor de samenleving en voor de eigen cliënten. De resultaten laten zien dat wanneer professionals het beleid als zinloos ervaren, zij veel weerstand vertonen. Weinig ervaren invloed is veel minder belangrijk. Een belangrijke aanbeveling is dus om meer aandacht te geven aan de zinvolheid van beleid. Denken professionals dat het beleid iets toevoegt voor de samenleving of voor hun cliënten? Tot slot laten de resultaten zien dat de impact van beleidsvervreemding ‘contingent’ is: de effecten zijn deels afhankelijk van de professie waartoe iemand behoort. Het artikel eindigt met tips voor beleidsmakers, managers en professionals. English abstract Professionals often have problems with governmental policies they have to implement. This can lead to diminished legitimacy and lower policy performance. The goal of this article is to identify the main reasons why professionals resist implementing new policies. An interdisciplinary approach is taken. From public administration literature, I use the policy alienation model, which consists of five dimensions: strategic, tactical and operational powerlessness, societal meaninglessness and client meaninglessness. These are possible reasons why professionals resist public policies ("resistance to change", a concept drawn from change management literature). We test these assumptions using a survey among 1,317 healthcare professionals. The results show that when professionals experience that a policy is meaningless for society or for their own clients, they show strong resistance. A lack of perceived influence is much less important in explaining resistance, although this is partly dependent on the profession someone belong to. The policy alienation model can help policy makers and managers to develop policies which are accepted by professionals. The article ends with practical recommendations for policy makers, managers and professionals

Ervaringen van verloskundigen en echoscopisten met hun werk en de 20-weken echo (SEO): Eerste resultaten van een onderzoek onder 790 verloskundingen en echoscopisten

Er is veel opiniërend geschreven over de ervaringen van verloskundigen en echoscopisten met hun werk en met de twintig weken echo (Structureel Echoscopisch Onderzoek, SEO), maar er is erg weinig grootschalig wetenschappelijk onderzoek naar deze ervaringen. Dit rapport vult deze lacune. Het is een eerste beschrijving van een nationaal onderzoek onder 790 verloskundigen en echoscopisten. Er komen erg interessante resultaten uit het onderzoek. Hier geven we drie voorbeelden. Ten eerste zien we dat de deelnemende zorgprofessionals zeer tevreden zijn met hun werk (gemiddelde 8,3) en een grote inzet laten zien (gemiddelde 8,1). Ten tweede zien we dat 90% van de verloskundigen en echoscopisten het SEO/twintig weken echo niet willen afschaffen. Tot slot zien we dat veel zorgprofessionals wel verbeterpunten aangeven voor de SEO-regelgeving, zoals het verhogen van de kwaliteit van de uitvoering van de echo, betere communicatie om de beeldvorming te verbeteren/nuanceren en een vereenvoudigd administratief systeem

The effect of coping on job performance

__Abstract__ Frontline workers, such as teachers and social workers, often experience stress, for instance because of high workloads. To deal with this, they use coping strategies. However, it is still unclear how coping strategies influence performance at work. The first goal of this article is therefore to theoretically and empirically study whether one important coping strategy (prioritizing motivated clients) influences job performance. The secondary goal is to go beyond testing a linear relationship between coping and performance by examining how work experience moderates this relationship. We use a multi-source survey of frontline workers and their supervisors in the United States to achieve these goals. We found that coping by prioritizing motivated clients is positively related to job performance. A strong moderation effect was also found: The positive effect is weaker for experienced frontline workers. Experienced frontline workers do not ‘have to’ prioritize motivated clients for high performance, as their knowledge and skills enable them to deliver results also for more difficult target groups. Contrary, for less experienced frontline workers, this coping strategy seems quite beneficial. We conclude with implications and a future research agenda

Policy alienation of public professionals: the effects

Nowadays, many public professionals face identification problems towards public policies they have to implement; that is, they experience policy alienation. We conceptualize policy alienation, starting from the sociological concept of alienation and showing how this can be used in the realm of policy implementation. Policy alienation occurs when a professional a) perceives he cannot influence the policy b) perceives the policy as meaningless and c) experiences conflicts between different groups (for example clients and management) because of the policy. We explore the effects of policy alienation by applying it to Dutch high school teachers implementing a new policy intended to prepare students better for higher education, in a small case study based on content analysis. We observe that when teachers experience policy alienation, their job satisfaction decreases. Next, the perceived workload of teachers implementing the policy increases when they experience policy alienation. Last, teachers experiencing policy alienation seem to be less effective in implementing the policy

Professionals zijn vervreemd van beleid

Professionals in de publieke sector zijn vervreemd van overheidsbeleid, waardoor de uitvoering van dat beleid hapert. Dat is geen angst voor verandering, maar werkers in de zorg en het onderwijs vinden nieuw beleid vaak zinloos. Politici moeten ophouden professionals van tekortkomingen te betichten ..

Three ways to minimise professionals’ resistance to governmental change using the policy alienation model

Why do public service professionals resist some changes, while embracing others? Lars Tummers is an expert on the analysis of ‘policy alienation’. He has studied problems that professionals working in a range of sectors – including healthcare, social security and education – face in implementing new government policies. The conclusions he draws challenge the common assertions as to why professionals show resistance to adopting change

Explaining willingness of public professionals to implement new policies: A policy alienation framework

Nowadays, public professionals are often unwilling to implement new policies. We analyse this problem using an interdisciplinary approach, combining public administration and change management literature. From public administration, we use the policy alienation concept, consisting of five sub-dimensions: 1.strategic powerlessness, 2.tactical powerlessness, 3.operational powerlessness, 4.societal meaninglessness and 5.client meaninglessness. These are considered factors possibly influencing the willingness of professionals to implement policies (change willingness). We test this model in a survey among 478 Dutch mental healthcare professionals implementing a new reimbursement policy. First, perceived autonomy (operational powerlessness) significantly influenced change willingness. Second, the meaninglessness dimensions proved highly significant. Strategic and tactical powerlessness were insignificant. This means that clarifying a case for change is important in policy implementation by professionals, while participation on a strategic or tactical level seems less relevant. These insights help in understanding why public professionals embrace or resist implementing particular policies