ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the challenges of today's climate for public sector leaders. It links leadership with the concept of 'employee engagement'. The chapter describes a model of engaging leadership and research of its validity. It presents case studies that show how effective leadership for the twenty-first-century public sector can be developed. The chapter describes how engaging leadership can be enhanced to support leadership development and cultural change in a range of public sector organizations. The National Health Service (NHS) and local and central government are examples of sectors where whole functions such as health services, waste management, learning and development or human resources (HR) have been outsourced to private companies, save for the strategic team. The programme was deliberately designed in consideration of the fact that political leaders in local government can have as significant an impact on the culture of an organization as the executive team and senior managers.
