Public sector leadership development in Bangladesh: present state and future prospect

Abstract

Purpose

The story of the Bangladesh public sector is not a happy one as it has often failed to uphold efficiency and equality in delivering services to the people. Hence leadership has a critical role to play to ensure equality, effectiveness and efficiency. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the present condition and future prospect of leadership development in the Bangladesh public sector by focusing on the efforts initiated both by the government of Bangladesh and international organizations during the last ten years.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper has reviewed available literatures on theories of public sector leadership development and its application in Bangladesh to identify the state and future prospect of public sector leadership development utilizing available theories.

Findings

The analysis shows that partisan politics, dominance of generalists, absence of long-range feedback and monitoring systems and lack of efficient and knowledgeable trainers are the major impediments to public sector leadership development. International organizations provide proposals, frameworks, technical assistance along with funds to develop the public sector leaders but in implementing the schemes they have a very limited role in the implementation process.

Research limitations/implications

This paper does not offer much empirical evidence on public sector leadership development in Bangladesh, but creates the platform for further research on public sector training and leadership development with empirical data. Significant variables can be drawn out of this piece of work to design future research on this very important issue.

Originality/value

This paper will help the interested individuals involved in the public sector leadership development in Bangladesh to understand the divergence between the efforts put in by the government and international agencies in developing public sector leadership.

Citation

Mohabbat Khan, M. and Shahriar Islam, M. (2014), "Public sector leadership development in Bangladesh: present state and future prospect", International Journal of Leadership in Public Services, Vol. 10 No. 1, pp. 17-30. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJLPS-06-2013-0016