What Is the Role of Public Administrator - Essay Example

This new dimension has added additional responsibilities of treating the citizens as customers. Customers/Citizens' understanding of the roles of a PA is with reference to their own standing. Citizen as a customer of service offerings would expect polite and on-time delivery of the service. Analyzing from a taxpayer's point of view, customers expect good infrastructure, security, educational initiatives, etc, which in turn will affect their standard of living. The specific functional role of a PA may be police personnel, magistrate, administrative officer, etc.

The general awareness all these roles require is that customers assess them from their viewpoint, which means, meeting their expectations is the bare minimum to pass the test of the common good.Due to the changes in the world economy PA's are faced with competitive situations. The monopoly is on the verge of extinction and developing skills to face the private sector competition is at its highest. At this juncture, PA's role is not restricted to a law enforcer, tax collector, or any other such job specifications.

They have to rise high to take leadership roles, which requires a customer-centric and highly strategic approach to any business competitive situation. Apart from the firm perspective, PA's have to outperform in their roles for their own good. Recent stiff competitions and free trade agendas have forced public institutions to move away from the seniority centric to merit centric promotions.The information hungry citizens and the awareness targeted government policies have removed the job-specific restrictions for PAs. For e.g.

: Tax office a few decades ago only meant for paying taxes. In modern times, it has become the duty and responsibility of this office to make its customers aware of the - new tax rules, new methods of payments, tax calculation assistance, etc. These kinds of auxiliary roles promoting public good byways of service, transparency, and knowledge are becoming a part of mainstream roles and responsibilities of PAs.The management idea of customer involvement to solve problems has made its rounds in public administration too.

PA's are faced with new challenges of restricted resources with increased output targets to meet. The scenario of exercising power and polity on citizens has changed to co-working with them to find solutions. The new skill required by PA's is to maintain a balance between management decision-making and public involvement. Public administration run in lines with any other result-oriented firm that takes care of its wards in a 3600 manner. The same criterion applies to PA's, as they have to manage all the stakeholders involved in the business.

In this pretext, their role involves communicator, arbitrator, negotiator, and observer. They have to ensure they follow all the regular modus operandi as well as be flexible enough to think out of the box to ensure success for themselves and their firm.The role of public administrators has changed radically over time. This is a discipline where every change has been evolutionary and aims to achieve common good to a greater extent. The functionalities, disciplines, and even the skill sets required by PAs have changed over time.

The constant in all these changes has been the urge to be able to serve the public better. The journey from bureaucratic policy implementers to developmental agents has been both challenging and rewarding for Public administrators.