‘Don’t hate politicians for you are also politicians’
“You too, are all politicians, once you have achieved a level of performance that allows you to make a choice.”
Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) Chairman Patricia Sto. Tomas, told the more than 600 Career Executive Service Officers (CESO) who gathered for their annual conference in Iloilo City, November 10-12, in her keynote remarks.
Sto. Tomas said, government career officers, because they too, decide which projects and what targets are to be implemented at a particular time and place, are making “political” decisions that affect lives of people by how these decisions respond to the needs.
She said there are some challenges and decisions that bear serious and long term effects on society, like those involving global economy, hence government managers, like government officials must constantly find innovative ways to manage economic system.
Sto. Tomas said the CESOs function in varied environments where they are challenged to be relevant.
She outlined three leadership traits that public managers, especially the CESOs, which should be lived, like, 1) the constant willingness to learn new ways of serving the public; 2) convergence because services cut across structures among government agencies; and, 3) taking pride in being a CESO.
In emphasizing the first trait, Sto. Tomas said public managers should change their ways and processes of doing things that do not give the public a higher satisfaction level in the services that their offices render.
“CESOs should not be afraid to make mistakes that are not intentional and do not harm the clients, but they have to remedy the mistake by changing for the better,” Sto. Tomas said.
She added that as managers, it is the job of the CESOs to learn the basics and the foundational skills that make them deliver services faster, as well as they must see to it that the people under them are also adequately skilled to take care of the requirements of the office.
In the second leadership trait, Sto. Tomas said networking, friendship and camaraderie among the CESOs are necessary to get the work done, including that of sharing the good that each other is doing for these to be communicated well to the public.
She also said that in the level of the CESOs convergence should result to increased timeliness, simplified processes, strength and collective ownership of decisions and programs, and the development of a culture of cooperative creativity that does away with traditional red tape in government.
Finally, Sto. Tomas said each CESO should take pride in being one, and in these complexities of governance, they should continue to make being a CESO the highest form of government service.
The Career Executive Service National Conference has the theme “From BAC to Basic of Strategic Management: Meeting CES Challenges,” jointly sponsored by the Career Executive Service Board, and the Regional Association of National Government Executives (RANGE) 6. (PIA6/ESS)
