By John O’Dea | 24 May 2017
We in Europe believe that our democratic system provides the foundation for a great set of principles and values that lead to good public governance. Public leadership is embedded within this, at least we think it is fair to say we ‘believe’ this. One might even say we have believed this for a long time since democracy traces back to the Greek concept of democracy over 2,500 years ago.

However, it is also fair to say that within this democratic system the evidence of frequent failures of public leadership abound, beginning with the Peloponnesian War and rattling on for a very long time thereafter. There is a sense today, however that public risks occur at a much faster pace and with wider scale impacts – disruptions caused by climate change and cybercrime, large scale pollution and poverty, fundamental lack of social cohesion, water shortage and migration issues being just a few well-discussed examples.
Given that chequered record, we might in fact say that leadership in the public sector is itself a critical source of risk.
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