Question one
Bureaucracy involves coordinating people to work together in order to achieve certain objectives. Whereby, formal rules and procedures must be adhered to. Most of the crucial decisions in bureaucratic states are not made by parliamentarians but rather by the federal government (Denhardt & Denhardt, 2009). Weber’s model of bureaucracy involves the following formal elements: division of labor, adherence to the established standard and procedures, formal rules, hierarchical structure, division of labor and specialization. Whereby, division of labor entails allotment of task, where each person has specific task to execute in order to achieve the predetermined goals and objectives (Stillman, 2010). In addition, Weber’s model of bureaucracy put forth the element of adherence to the established standard and procedures, where, leaders should inform their workers on how they should handle different task in different situation. Additionally, Weber’s model of bureaucracy put forth the element of specialization that requires each to execute task based on his/her expertise. This means that every person should be allotted task depending on whether one has the necessary expertise to execute that task (Stillman, 2010).
In above connection, the above element of Weber’s model of bureaucracy has been facing numerous criticisms due to the failure to comprehensively address all the issue that may have caused poor administration in public sectors as well as low productivity in different organization. For example, bureaucracy discourages innovation and creativity because employees must follow the established standard rules and procedure when executing there task. This makes bureaucracy to be very slow because workers must follow standard rules and procedures to execute a particular task. In addition, following standard rules and procedures makes Weber’s model of bureaucracy to be too ridged because it denies individuals the freedom to execute task at their own convenient time (Denhardt & Denhardt, 2009).
Bureaucratic model creates work inertial among the workers because employees must be always busy even the time when there is no work to do. Additionally, bureaucracy tends to discriminate some people based on race, class and gender especially when it comes to promotion. For example, women may not be promoted to senior managerial position just because of their gender. Therefore, to address the above challenges, Weber’s bureaucratic model should embrace a horizontal aspects to eliminates hierarchical structures and promote flexibility when executing task. In addition, management should create participatory form of leadership that allows all members can participate in decision making. This may help to make member accountable of their actions because every member will be more willing to implement the decisions that they have make rather than those made by their leaders. In addition, leaders should be able to lead by example. For example, instead of issue commands to the workers, they should participate directly in task execution (Du, 2000).
Based on Kristin, Weber failed to mention some attributes of bureaucracy in his description. Among those attributes that he failed to mention include; leadership, human relation and communication. Leadership involves the ability to influence others to follow ones direction/ obey the authority and achieve the intended goals. Connectively, Weber’s put forth the three major aspects why people obey those in authority. Among those aspects include; Charismatic leadership, whereby some people emerges as naturally due to their charismatic character such people may influence large masses to follow their desired direction without straining. In addition, traditional authority especially leadership that is based on inheritance may cause people to obey those in authority. On the other hand, legal aspect may also influence people to obey those people who are in positions of leadership (Stillman, 2010).
The other element that was comprehensive addressed by Marx Weber is human relation. This involves treating people with due respect and dignity but not like machines as in the case of Marx Weber. Research indicates that those leaders who balance human relation and task tend to attain higher productivity as compared to their counterparts. Therefore, Weber failed to realize the importance of treating employees with dignity and instead he concentrated at increasing productivity. Weber further failed to mention the aspect of communication which is one of the most vital aspects in every organization. Communication helps to ensure that there are seamless operations within an organization and ensure that there is proper coordination among all the departments. Through communication, the morale of workers can be increased substantially. For example, a leader may write a letter to some employees and tell them that the company is happy for their exceptional performance, this may further motivate workers to work extra hard because they will fill that their efforts have been recognized (Stillman, 2010).
However, despite the criticisms, Weber’s model tends to be more accurate because it comprehensively addresses various problems that leaders experience. For instance it recognizes the importance of division of labor and specialization in administration of public and private sectors. This in turn helps an organization to achieve high productivity. In addition, the Weber’s model comprehensively formed a fundamental basis of management via which all principles of leadership have been developed. Connectively, the model enhances accountability via utilization of hierarchical structures and consistency in task execution (Stillman, 2010).
Question Two
Criteria used to evaluate Robertson's success or failure? Why is the work of public officials, like William Robertson, more difficult to assess than the work of officials in the private sector? How does this relate to Gaus' argument of the vital importance of ecology?
Numerous criteria have been utilized to evaluate success or failure of chief executive officers. Among the criteria that have been utilized by Robertson’s to help the chief executive officer in administration include; ensuring that there is proper relationship between all the participants and stakeholders. Whereby, the chief executive officer should encourage partnership and coordination among all the parties involved. Roberson recognized the importance of transparency, corporation and accountability among members in all levels of management. In addition, he encourages leaders to consider ecological concept in order to understand the inter-relationship that exist between people and their environment. This may help to understand environmental complexities as well as identify the most effective ways that can be utilized to address those complexities. Robertson further asserted that the ability to meet set goals may act as important criteria for assessing organization success (Stillman, 2010).
In above connection, leaders were encouraged to follow the criteria below to assess whether they have achieved success. Whereby, leaders should try to ask themselves whether the predefined goals have been achieved within the scheduled time as well within the budget. In addition, leaders should ask themselves how the success will be achieved for instance, steps that are going to be followed to achieve success. This may involve identifying the appropriate tools and techniques to be utilized towards implementing a successful program. Whereby, the tools that might be require to implement the program may entail a budget, work break down structure, financial resources, technological resource, human resources and capital (International Conference on Information Management and Evaluation, & Brown, 2010).Understanding the ecological factors and interrelationship between various environmental components may act as an important criteria for assessing organization success. Ecological factor may entail understanding the soil/location in which a person is standing. Additionally, ecological factor involves understanding the people personalities, their wishes as well as relationship between them. Leaders should understand technological requirements in order to effectively assess the success of their organizations (Stillman, 2010).
The work of public officials like William Robertson is quite difficult to asses as compared to that of official’s private sectors because the performance of ‘public officials tend to be influenced by both environmental and ecological factors. Whereby, public officials utilize participatory cycles to ensure that every member of the public participate in decision making. This makes the process of assessing their work to be quite difficult because it involves a lot of participants. Whereby, a lot of consultations to numerous participants must be carried out in order to come up with relevant findings. On the contrary, the work of private official might be quite easier to assess because there is no complex relationship that exist between the participants. Additionally, the work of public official tends to be influenced by numerous factors that make assessment to be quite difficult relative to that of private officials (Manning, Mukherjee & Gokcekus, 2000).
Inability to scrutinize the correlation between the future potential outcomes and the efforts that public official should put in their work makes it quite difficult to asses the work of public officials. Lack of proper techniques and methods for gathering information also makes it challenging to assess the work of public officials. For example, it may become quite difficult to determine who will collect data for the assessment of public officials, how the data will be collected as well as where that data will be collected. Another challenge arise after the data has been collected, whereby it become quite challenging to decide how the data will be analyzed in order to include both ecological and human factors in order to come up with relevant findings pertaining the work of public officials. In addition, the dynamism experienced during utilization of public resources in different location makes it challenging to assess the work of public officials. For instance, the migration of people from one place to another may have a significant impact on the work of public officials; this in turn makes it challenging to effectively assess the work of public officials. Connectively, turbulent changes in population demographics, technology, hierarchies and government taxation make it quite difficult to assess the work of public officials more effectively (Stillman, 2010).
The above assertions relate to Gaus' argument on the importance of ecology in the sense that they put forth the reasons why it vital to understand complex relationship that exist between human being, their environment. In above connection, Gaus’ assertions identified the seven ecological factors that leaders should understand in order to be effective in their administration (Stillman, 2010). Gaus’ asserted that to be effective in public administration, public officials should not only understand all the seven ecological factors but they should also understand how to apply those factors more effectively. Gaus’ further argued that, public officials should utilize the circle of participation to be more effective in their administration. This is because participatory approach provides citizen and stakeholders with an opportunity to participate directly in decision making. This in turn helps to ensure that all issues emerging issues have been addressed adequately (Stillman, 2010).
References
Denhardt, R. B., & Denhardt, J. V. (2009). Public administration: An action orientation. Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth.
Du, G. P. (2000). In praise of bureaucracy: Weber, organization, ethics. Thousand Oaks, Ca: Sage.
International Conference on Information Management and Evaluation, & Brown, I. (2010). The proceedings of the International Conference on Information Management and Evaluation: University of Cape Town, South Africa, 25-26 Mar 2010. Reading: Academic Publishing.
Manning.N. Mukherjee.R & Gokcekus.O. (2000).Public Officials and Their Institutional Environment: An Analytical Model for Assessing the Impact of Institutional Chang. Retrieved :<http://elibrary.worldbank.org /content/ working paper/10.1596/1813-9450-2427>On 31st June 2013.
Stillman, R. J. (2010). Public administration: Concepts and cases. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
