As Jamaica’s public sector training and leadership development institute, the Management Institute for National Development (MIND) has been entrusted with the awesome but noble role of developing leadership within the public service. Accordingly, we have enjoyed long and rigorous individual and collective deliberations about how that role is to be executed and what our own leadership practice ought to reflect. One of the many things that for us is undisputable, and has become one of, if not our main mantra, is that we must model the behaviors that we wish for the rest of the public service to emulate.

Identifying and celebrating leadership excellence is one such behavior. One writer suggests that if we seek out, highlight and celebrate success we will see more of it. In their book The Leadership Challenge, Kouzes and Posner stressed that not only is there tremendous wisdom in “encouraging the heart”, that is, in celebrating success and giving praise and recognition, but that it has a multiplier effect, producing more and greater acts of leadership excellence. Therefore it is the leader’s responsibility to show appreciation for the contributions of others and to create a culture of celebration. It is against this context that we decided to make the Public Life Award for Leadership an ongoing recognition of service excellence.

The Award each year, will recognize a public servant who has demonstrated excellence in achieving results for Jamaicans, reflected the priorities of the public service and promoted professionalism and visibility of the service while demonstrating other key leadership competencies.

Specifically, the Award seeks to among other things: 
• reward excellence in the public sector
• discover innovations in governance
• motivate public servants to further embrace and practice innovation
• raise the image of the service
• identify and promulgate successful practices for possible replication.

The Awardee would therefore be selected on the basis that he/she has: 
• demonstrated support for the transformation of the public service 
• effectively addressed a public sector leadership challenge of high importance to Ministries, Departments and Agencies
• promoted integrity and respect in the public service
• served the sector for a minimum of ten (10) years

 

Each year, the theme of the MIND Public Sector Leadership Development Conference will also impact the selection criteria for the award.