Ineffective Leadership of the NSOs in LDCs of the Asia Pacific

By: Jousairi Hasbullah

The work of National Statistical Offices (NSOs) of the developing and Less Developed Countries (LDCs) in Asia has not been effective in producing, disseminating, and communicating statistics. This is due to the weaknesses of leadership of the high rank of management of NSOs.

Leadership of the NSOs could be devided into at least 3 forms: Internal institution leadership, External leadership and, leadership for structural and cultural changes.

For internal leadership there are abundant management literatures tried to be discussed among top management and staff, but very weak in implementation. This is due to the difficulty of changing old traditional work culture with the new corporate cultures. Most of the high rank management of the NSOs do not fully understand of how to make it work.
They are constantly learning management and leadership theories either from literatures or from the experience of more developed countries related to the work of NSOs but, they forget to understand that all of those learned are hard to implement if not followed by the ability of identifyng the existing traditional culture that hinders the changes.

Most of the traditional mental model dominated by work little but want a lot of income, work simply for work without a high passion for statistical profession and the love for data; ineffective work habits and highly inward looking. Without knowing the cutural pattern that impedes the proposed changes, it would be difficult to implement effective leadership.

Based on the arguments mentioned, therefore I always give emphasize on the important of the creation of new work environment which is conducive to change of work culture.

Regarding work environment, there are at least 3 dimension/areas that needs attention. The first, related to the smoothness of the various affairs associated with financial support, human resources affairs, and a shared learning atmosphere that brings the admosphere of data passioned. These all non physical environment, should also be followed by a comportable physical working environment. By building a working environment that fosters the positive aura, it will facilitate the transformation of new work culture to the staff.

The Leadership for the external coordination of statistical activities is also uneffective.Most of the NSOs have not been supported by strong statistics law, weak position, and have limitation to engage with data users. As a consequence, the government officials have not yet placed institutions of high values; and the effort of putting NSOs as impartial and professional has not been achieved. There are also limited fund allocated for sustained production of statistics. The leadership from chief statisticians and high rank management have not been effective.

Conclusion
The NSO should learn the management and leadership of the developed countries. It is important as knowledge, but if it is considered as automatically can be applied in LDCs ( Less Developing Countries) certainly will not be effective before we do understand of the existing traditional habits and creat a new work environment: physical and non physical work environment.
Jousairi Hasbullah
Bandung. July 9, 2018