ABSTRACT
Leadership is the “ability” of the leaders to make others do what they presumably would not have done otherwise and to mobilize human resources in pursuit of specific goals. During the process of the decolonialisation and reunification with China in 1997, the colonial public service in Hong Kong has been facing rapid political changes. Adaptation of the public service to changes is absolutely essential to maintain a responsive administration and to provide leadership for the community. Administrative accountability, rather than political accountability, is the dominant value within the civil service. The senior civil servants’ orientations to political adjustments are particularly important to a stable and smooth political transition. The attitudes of the Chinese government and the conservative political groups towards democratization as proposed in the Constitutional Package have been explicitly negative. With reference to the policy-making process, the emergence of political parties and elected politicians adds a new page to the politics in Hong Kong.
