Transformational leadership and its Applications in the public service organizations of Ethiopia

In Ethiopia since 1994, to address the leadership problems that had existed in the country for many years, significant policy changes have been introduced. Under the umbrella of the CSRP, different reform initiatives like BPR, BSC, and currently building development /reform army in the public service organizations have been designed to be implemented .Public service leaders at different level advocate transformational agenda to achieve growth and transformational plan (GTP) goal by implementing these reform tools. However, the reform programs/ initiatives designed to improve the performance of public service organizations were not executed at the speed that both government and customers’ desired. Therefore, the objective of this article was to investigate challenges facing public service leaders to become transformational leaders and assesses the components of transformational leadership style that leaders of public service organizations are missing in Ethiopian case. The study was employed focusing on evaluating the efficiency and effectiveness of the reform programs. The descriptive survey by using mixed method (more of quantitative and some qualitative for triangulation) research approach was applied. The categories of respondents were leaders, employees and organizational customers. Oromia region, Benshangul-Gumuz, and Addis Ababa regions were selected. Analysis of documents, interviews and responses to both open and close-ended questions were made using SPSS software. The key findings revealed that the changes in Ethiopia enabled public service organizations to create demanding society for improved services. However, leaders are not at its required level to transform their organizations and to meet these demands. Lack of setting clear vision and properly communicating are among the major problems. There is high degree of variation among managers of different levels in the areas of organizational performance. Finally, the recommended solutions, is to develop transformational leaders that can initiate system based thinking in order to realize the vision of the country. Key Words: transformational leadership, organizational performance, public service organization, civil service reform program