Discussion: Of some 2,468 civil servants, 147 are in the executive level, and are classified as leaders in the bureaucracy.

However, 78 of them will superannuate in the next decade, excluding those who would opt to retire prematurely.

Talking about leadership in bureaucracy, the chairman of the Royal Civil Service Commission (RCSC) Dasho Karma Tshiteem said the commission has already planned for succession, at a talk organised by QED group in Thimphu yesterday.

An executive management division, he said, has been formed in the commission to develop leadership capabilities and to manage executive performance. The Royal Institute of Governance and Strategic Studies (RIGGS) has also initiated programmes for those in the executive levels.

However, statistics show that only 11 of the 147 civil servants in the executive level are females.

He said that the country did not invest much on leadership. The RCSC however, he said has come up with various appraisals and feedback systems to review the performance of civil servants.

Through these reforms, he said citizens would be able to reap the benefit of a compact and efficient civil service.

For instance, the feed back system, he said has been fragmented to personal traits a leader should possess and based on the feedback from civil servants, senior bureaucrats could build on their weaknesses.

To manage the performance of the executives or the leaders in civil service, he said the achievement of the annual performance of a government agency would serve as the basis for evaluating the head’s performance.

“For an executive to be considered excellent, the executive must cross the threshold for both performance appraisal and feedback,” he said

The executive management division, he said would ensure timely movement of the civil servants. This is because if some civil servant are straight away promoted to a post he or she is not familiar with, it would create a hole in service delivery.

He said the once an executive is appointed, strict monitoring would be in place especially in the first year of appointment to ensure that there are no non-performance due to unsuitability.

Tshering Dorji