Dhyta Maya Anggraeny dan Muhammad Hasbi Hanis

Referring to the recent publication from the UN (John-Mary Kauzya & Elizabeth Niland, 2020) states that the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic has affected over hundred countries and infected more than 6 (six) million people so that caused death of almost 400.000 human being (as of 3 June 2020). The virus attacking around the world massively resulting in destabilization of many countries in various aspects. National Economies of many countries is one of the most affected aspects by the virus. During the pandemic, most countries now share not only citizen’s health safety issues but also the prospect of an extended period of economic tensions and public fiscal stability.  This condition surely poses extraordinary challenges for the leaders, particularly in public sectors. Uncertainty of the end of this pandemic and how is the sustainability of our living poses an increases of citizen’s dependence on government to ensure their welfare and safety during the difficult times.

Such condition does not exclude Indonesia as a developing country towards a developed country.  Indonesian leaders and managers also being confronted by exactly the same circumstances both in public and private organization, including its society.  Leaders, especially in public organisations such as Directorate General of State Asset Management (DGSAM) are expected to make decisions quickly and correctly in timely manner. While doing so, DGSAM should still considers delivering the best public services quality to the community and also maintaining the health and safety of its staffs.  Difficult decision should be made in a short period of time with limited information available.  For that strong leader with appropriate skills, knowledge and attitude is desperately needed to guide and deliver the workforce and society to escape from the pandemic time and go through to the new era.

By way of a single case study approach with applied Hoque’s strategy (Hoque, 2008) such as interviews, document and literature analysis. The research implemented in the State Asset and Auction Service Office (KPKNL) as one of DGSAM operational unit within Jakarta Regional Office. This study found that many public service entities took on the virus Covid-19 pandemic with effective leadership and extraordinary sacrifices from frontline government officers.  After months of managing the crisis while doing the daily work government responsibilities, public offices are opening up again and public services are being delivered again. Government leaders must balance protecting citizens’ health and safety with kick-starting operations and economies activities.

New Public Services in the New Era as response to Covid-19

The Covid-19 pandemic, which is considered to be the worst crisis in the world of work since the World War II, has a massive impact on health systems, and a devastating impact on the global economy and people’s way of life. The pandemic has thus far resulted in drastic emergency precautions in most countries around the world. During pandemic, the complexity of public services has increased and changed significantly so that requires reliability of the government to fulfill convenient public services for the new era. Besides health and education workers, all government officials play an important role in halting the spread and recovering from the pandemic

As government official who provide public goods, government officers are indispensable actors for the recovery time. The Covid-19 pandemic demonstrates the crucial importance of disaster preparedness and that private-sector partners cannot manage alone the scope of interventions needed now (International Labour Organisation, 2020). Furthermore, John and Elizabeth (John-Mary Kauzya & Elizabeth Niland, 2020) point out that the abrupt and brutal disruption by the Covid-19 crisis has thrown the public service and public servants into a hysteria, forcing them to not only deal with fighting the virus spreads but also trying to manage its accompanying socioeconomic negative impact. It has bombarded government officials onto the frontlines in the response to the pandemic crisis without any clear guidance. Inescapably, the government officials have been pointed into the spotlight during the Covid-19 era.

As the noble Virus Covid-19 lockdowns end, public service organizations are at the center of an uncertain time of community and economic environment.  By thinking through the resilience, versatility and sustainability of solutions developed during the pandemic time, government entities can springboard to the future.  To set priorities moving forward and outmaneuver unpredictability, public agencies should account for their attitudes and ways of interacting.  Building public service for a new era will take undaunted collaboration, tremendous flexibility and relentless innovation across the services.

According to Wei and Oakes (Ng Wee Wei & Ryan Oakes, 2020), many government organisations took on the Covid-19 pandemic with effective leadership and extraordinary strategic movement from frontline officers. They are navigating a complex tension between balancing protecting society’s physical and mental health with kick-starting government operations and economies.  As the response has moved some countries towards creating an emergency-based economy with the state playing a greater role, the public services have been placed in the forefront.

Many UN member States have adopted some of the following measures to address the rapid contagion of Covid-19 (International Labour Organisation, 2020).  In short, the focus has been on reducing social contact by placing most non-essential activities into temporarily inactive mode, using technology to deliver others, and focusing on activities that are essential. Besides implementing remote modalities of work, governments have postponed personnel actions, allowed public services to recall retired employees, provided support to public servants in the form of child care and other social services, advanced the payment of salaries, or reduced the wages of highly-paid officials, both to subsidize the response and to communicate solidarity with those who severely impacted from the crisis.

Challenges posed by the recovery measurements

ILO (International Labour Organisation, 2020) explains that confronting the pandemic will transform economies, perhaps irreversibly. The crisis has exposed widespread unpreparedness, the weakness of government agencies operating without adequate budgets, coordination and solidarity, the fragility of terms just-in-time supply chains, and the many groups of vulnerable sectors of the population, who will need to be protected against future contagion. Governments should coordinate the recovery from the crisis among the different levels of public administration, including local governments, and with the private sector in order to make sure the role of public administration workers in the recovery (International Labour Organisation, 2020).

In the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic however, public servants are working under life-threatening circumstances. They are both expected to deliver services despite the pandemic while at the same time suffering its impact, either by being directly infected or having family members who are.  According to Kauzya and Niland (John-Mary Kauzya & Elizabeth Niland, 2020), during the pandemic era, public servants have played, are playing and must continue to play several roles in order to responses the pandemic, such as: 1) Ensuring continuity of public services, 2) Service before self, 3) Quick thinking, creativity and innovation, 4) Reliable information and awareness as a critical service, 5) Strategic thinking and planning amidst chaos, 6) Sustaining resilience and building a more effective and responsive public service, 7) Building and enhancing state legitimacy, government credibility and people’s trust, 8) Resource allocation and distributive accountability, 8) Collaborative and networked leadership. 

Considering all the above roles government officers have played, we can derive that an effective officer has the following profile such as self-sacrificing, transparent, trustworthy, adaptable, risk-taking, accountable versatile, innovative, creative, knowledgeable and skilled, collaborative, persistent, empathetic, and competent in the use of technology. Above all, they have a high dose of humanity in their personality which makes them work for others even at the risk of their own lives.

Leadership in Pandemic Era - Leading Through Uncertainty.

Leadership may be hard to define, but in times of crisis it is easy to identify. As the pandemic has spread fear, disease and death, national leaders across the globe have been severely tested. Some have fallen short, sometimes dismally, but there are also those leaders who have risen to the moment (The Editorial Board, 2020).

According to Hammer and Alley (Leslie Hammer & Lindsey Alley, 2020), in these uncertain and highly stressful times, there is heightened reliance on leaders to maintain the healthy, well-being, and safety of their workforce. Research revealed that, for most employees, social support and understanding are key ingredients to helping alleviate stress and adjust work-life expectations. During the Covid-19 crisis, leaders are performing their typical roles under the additional stress of staffs’ instability and escalated safety and health risks, while also managing their very own mounting work-life challenges and staying informed about rapidly changing information and policies. It is important for supervisors and managers to model self-care while supporting and responding to their employees’ mental health needs during the Covid-19 pandemic which can be done using two evidence-based methods of effective leadership: emotional support and role modeling.

Several techniques of emotional support according to Hammer & Alley, Kerrisey & Edmondson, and Boris (Leslie Hammer & Lindsey Alley, 2020; Michaela J. Kerrissey & Amy C. Edmondson, 2020; Vanessa Boris, 2020), are included of:

1.       Providing comfort and monitoring for signs of struggle such as distress, social withdrawal and poor performance, and knowing when to refer an employee to professionals;

2.       Recognizing that some employees may have families and loved ones who are requiring additional attention, so openly asking employees how they are managing both work and non-work.

3.       For those without others in the house during physical distancing ordinances, offering check-ins and encouraging them to virtually connect with relatives.

4.       Reinforcing to employees that their leader is sympathetic and that will maintain “a virtually open-door policy” for employees to talk through issues when needed.

Role modeling requires supervisors to display, through their own behaviors and guidance. Simply put, leaders should be setting an example for their teams. Effective role modeling behaviors include:

1.       Making sure you stay up-to-date on safety and public health Covid-19 responses relevant to your team.

2.       Knowing about the most up-to-date wellness resources available to you and your workers.

3.       Defining your own boundaries and preferences regarding work hours, response times, and disclosure around family obligations. Then, projecting consistency in your ability to adhere to these boundaries.

4.       Using paid time off and sick leave when needed, and encouraging your staff to do the same, or helping your staff to find state and national level resources to assist with leave.

Additional ways supervisors can support employees’ through work-life balance arrangement and reduce undue burden. When communicating with staff during this time, it is critically important to lead with empathy, strive for flexibility, and model ways to prioritize health and well-being.

A willingness to take quick and bold action, even when it carries political risk, is surely among the most important quality of leadership in a crisis.  Other elements of effective leadership include a respect for science, transparent messaging, constant updating of the evidence and prompt assurance of financial support.  Beyond politics, economics and science lie qualities of character that can’t be faked, chiefly compassion, which may be the most important in reassuring a frightened, insecure and stricken population.

The Quality of Strong Crisis Leadership Looks Like during the Pandemic.

According to to Edwin (Edwin Macharia, 2020), in response to Closing remarks from WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on March 11, 2020, there are several actions demanding leaders in the way they exercise the influence and responsibility invested, such as:

First critical step.  The first critical step for any leader is to analyse the impact Covid-19 will have on their organization. A leader who responds with compassion and empathy will think about the people behind the “supply chain” and understand what new challenges they too are facing as everyone’s world has changed.

In staff’s shoes.  A great leader puts herself or himself in the staff’s shoes, identifying all the challenges that they will likely face.  Leaders also need to understand that the community you’re leading will be similarly anxious so clear and consistent communication will be crucial.

Evolving crisis. Leadership is a balancing act. Leaders have to ballast uncertainty with compassion and empathy to tide you and your organisation over this crisis, and have to lead as well, not for fame or glory, but because we answered a call to duty that we cannot afford to fail in. 

Covid-19 is providing a crash course in crisis management. Leaders who display empathy, transparency, and aspiration will stand out. To Feddersen (Timothy Feddersen, 2020), this combination of empathy, transparency, and aspiration to recover are hallmarks of strong crisis leadership. Leaders must ensure they are aggregating and assimilating the best, most accurate information from across their organization. “This requires emergent leadership,” Feddersen (2020) explains, meaning that even those without formal authority must feel comfortable speaking up. And, because the risk of making mistakes is so high in a crisis, “this takes a tremendous amount of courage, so we need to train our teams to be emergent leaders.”

When the government began to issue stay-at-home orders and companies mandated virtual work, everyone had to shift their priorities. However, as leaders look to broader, longer-term concerns, here are the five most common leadership challenges Nihar (2020) heard from leaders: 1) How to balance being an inspirational and comforting leader while continuing to push on performance, 2) How to respond to countless questions from managers and the frontline when no clear answers exist, 3) How to maintain my visibility and influence in the organization with limited interaction opportunities, 4) How to keep building my personal brand within the company without appearing self-centered, and 5) How to keep my team engaged while working remotely. 

Indonesian Context of Leadership and Public Services in Response to Covid-19

Every single circumstance that has been disclosed in the previous section also took place in Indonesia. These problems are all identical to the conditions in the Ministry of Finance (MoF) - DGSAM in particular. However, many extraordinary policies and regulation from leaders were born in the midst of this pandemic.  Some of the policy is that allowing the MoF officials Working From Home (WFH) which then later enhance by new arrangements Flexible Working Space (FWS) followed by Flexible Working Time (Flexi Hours) and conduct meetings virtually.  E-government also being implemented, signaled by the use of digital signature on official correspondent document/letter used in MoF. 

Specifically for DGSAM which its main responsibility is to facilitate other line ministries by providing them with public assets that needed to perform their job descriptions, with Covid-19, it is precisely felt the increasing demand for public services for the use and provision of infrastructure and office buildings, especially to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic termination effort.  For example, an increasing demand to use and utilise government buildings both for the Covid-19 patient temporarily shelter and the resting base camp for medical personnel involved in handling Covid-19 patient.  Not to mention several incidents in the form of Covid-19 virus infection suffered by several employees at the Jakarta II KPKNL which also giving the real sensation dealing with Covid-19.

Some critical incident that occur during the pandemic time, give a bold example of strong leadership in DGSAM organisation, starting from the head office of operational offices in Jakarta, head of Jakarta Regional Office of DGSAM, and leaders at the Head Quarter Office.  During the incident at the time of Covid-19, those leaders gave a good example of decision and policy making in response to the pandemic. 

While at the same time, the leaders should also make sure that delivery of public services in Jakarta’s area and responsibilities are also delivered satisfactorily with no or minimum complaint from stake holders.  The role of public financial producer in the form of non-tax government income, also should be performed.  Due to Covid-19, the Indonesian government revised its public budget.  Some sector being refocused and reallocated and some another being cut or save.

All these measure can only be performed if the leaders possess all the managerial competency   as regulated on Government Regulation (The Ministry Of Empowering The State Apparatus And Bureaucratic Reform, 2017) such as: Integrity, Cooperation, Communication, Orientation on Results, Public Service, Self and Other People's Development, Manage Changes, Decision-making and Social-Cultural.

To conclude, Covid-19 is just not a medical crisis, it’s fast becoming an economic and humanitarian crisis of unimaginable impact to mankind. It is posing many unprecedented investigations on economic survival in front of governments, international and national organizations and of course their leaders. This global pandemic has constraint nations and organizations to change their strategies, values, policies and the way of dealing with their workforces, especially demanding from leaderships, knowledge, skills and attitude that can help lead them cross this pandemic era.

As the world confront with the Covid-19 virus, economies and nations are facing huge downturn, and there is a continuing fear that things may not go back to the ways of before, not in the near future at least. This has created a sense of dissatisfaction amongst a lot of organization (both public and private) and their workforces, for one or the other reason.  As the changes and disturbance imposed by Governments around the world to check the spread of this virus is immediate and unmeasured.

In order to go through this pandemic, a good quality of leaders is desperately needed. It is said that an organization is a reflection of its leadership, as leaders are the ones who set the cultural foundation of the organization and inspire teams to lead the organization during such crisis time. However, this global pandemic crisis has certainly spotted leaders on test as there are no clear formula considering this is an unparalleled situation. Leaders need to convey that this is a priceless moment that gives opportunity to leaders to learn and prove their talent.

There are no instant answer and set of formula or recipe for leaders to follow in order to cross through this situation. There have been few signs for the government including qualities of its leaders which have continued to define leadership across generations which could help Government in managing the storm:

1.    Comprehensive public service capacity development: Governments must pay attention to developing the capacities of the public service and public servants particularly its leaders. This area including their numbers, their competences, values, the protective gear they need, the incentives for their productivity, the tools and facilities as well as the technology they require to effectively perform their responsibilities. Governments must invest in having very well-functioning public services and effective leaders.

2.    Institutionalize early warning, emergency planning, preparedness and quick response in the public service: Governments must put in place and operate effectively, permanent, public sector, well-coordinated institutional frameworks that can support government officials to be anticipatory and prepared, to look out for signs of crisis, such as pandemics, find solutions quickly and respond appropriately in timely manner to avoid unprecedented severe impact.

3.    Network, collaborate, share and learn from successful practices and mistakes to build better and more effective public services for future pandemics and crisis: Public servants must be facilitated to network connections, access to group collaboration, and share to enhance co-learning and project knowledge sharing. Something that facilitate the government for better chances to be improved in finding quick solutions not only to global crisis and pandemics but in the work of public service delivery in general.

4.    Sustain development of responsible, responsive, accountable and people-focused leadership in public sector institutions: The Covid-19 pandemic has shown that during uncertain and unprecedented times, calm, credible, resolved people-focused, trusted leadership is strongly required. The development of such leadership in the government organization must be sustained.

5.    Provide for financial resources for pandemic and crisis before they happen: Governments must always provide all resources including financial resources to take care of emergencies and crisis such as this Covid-19 pandemic. The traditional excuse that Governments have no public fiscal capability for problems that have not happened has been proven wrong by the Covid-19 pandemic. Many governments have had to spend lots of money in a short period of time and in unpredictable way; probably more than the amount they would have spent if they had already provided enough information for this in their public service delivery budgets.

As we can see, the truly effective leaders will come on the other side of this crisis as better, humble and more learned leaders.  Similarly, civilization can recover and inoculate their selves against any future crisis by building new public health infrastructure, health training and research center, new public clean, renewable energy, new public spaces, new universities, guaranteed universal social protection and new public broadcasters and data systems.

REFERENCES:

Edwin Macharia. (2020). Leadership in the time of a pandemic. Retrieved from https://dalberg.com/our-ideas/leadership-time-pandemic/

Hoque, Z. (2008). Measuring and reporting public sector outputs/outcomes. The International Journal of Public Sector Management, 21(5), 468. Retrieved from http://gateway.library.qut.edu.au/login?url=http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1518167741&Fmt=7&clientId=14394&RQT=309&VName=PQD

International Labour Organisation. (2020). COVID-19 and the Public Service. Retrieved from Sectoral Policies Department, International Labour Organization, Geneva, Switzerland:

John-Mary Kauzya, & Elizabeth Niland. (2020). The role of public service and public servants during the COVID-19 pandemic. Retrieved from UN/DESA Policy Brief, New York City, USA: https://www.un.org/development/desa/dpad/publication/un-desa-policy-brief-79-the-role-of-public-service-and-public-servants-during-the-covid-19-pandemic/

Leslie Hammer, & Lindsey Alley. (2020). This is the most essential skill leaders need to work through the COVID-19 crisis. The Rebuilders. Retrieved from https://www.fastcompany.com/90494094/this-is-the-most-essential-skill-leaders-need-to-work-through-the-covid-19-crisis

Michaela J. Kerrissey, & Amy C. Edmondson. (2020). What Good Leadership Looks Like During This Pandemic. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2020/04/what-good-leadership-looks-like-during-this-pandemic

Ng Wee Wei, & Ryan Oakes. (2020). Public service for a new era - Outmanoeuvre Uncertainty. Retrieved from New York: https://www.accenture.com/sg-en/insights/public-service/coronavirus-public-service-for-a-new-era

Nihar Chhaya. (2020). Here Are The Top Five Leadership Challenges During The Coronavirus Pandemic. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/niharchhaya/2020/03/23/here-are-the-top-five-leadership-challenges-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic/#4a6466215984

The Editorial Board. (2020). In a Crisis, True Leaders Stand Out - Swift action, compassion and trust in science mark the most effective responses to the coronavirus. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/30/opinion/coronavirus-leadership.html

The Ministry Of Empowering The State Apparatus And Bureaucratic Reform. (2017). Standard Competency Service State Civil Services. Jakarta Indonesian Government

Timothy Feddersen. (2020). What Strong Crisis Leadership Looks Like during the Pandemic. Retrieved from https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/crisis-management-covid19

Vanessa Boris. (2020). How Leaders at All Levels Are Taking on Change Management. Leading the way -  Ideas and insights from Harvard Business Publishing Corporate Learning. Retrieved from https://www.harvardbusiness.org/how-leaders-at-all-levels-are-taking-on-change-management/