THE ROLE OF THE LEADER IN HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR: SOME THEORETICAL NOTES

Abstract

Public administration is characterized by complexity in various fields. This is because, unlike the private sector, where discretion is the rule, public administration faces legal/regulatory limitations, whose main objective is precisely to ensure that dealing with public affairs imposes on the public administrator the rule of not being able to act according to their own will or arbitrariness, but strictly and exclusively in accordance with what the law authorizes, safeguarding the rights of citizens and the public interest. In this context, the idea of leadership in people management, which focuses on adding value, quality, efficiency, and effectiveness to public services and promoting the full satisfaction of citizen-users, guides one of the most relevant and strategic areas of this sector, which is people management. Therefore, with the aim of outlining some theoretical points, this work addresses the importance of people management in the public sphere and, by extension, how the improvement of actions and strategies in this area impacts the provision of services to citizen-users. If it is true that, as Bergue (2020, pp. 13-14) already noted, "an organization is a system of meanings constructed and shared by people" and that these same people are responsible for processing everything that occurs within an organization, then the importance of people management lies precisely in the fact that public servants are central to the proper functioning of public services.