LEADING AND MANAGING SYSTEM

Leading And managing System

Leading and Managing System

"Look ahead twenty or thirty years. Does anyone expect the next twenty years to be less tumultuous than the last twenty years? Given the changes expected in technology, biology, medicine, social values, demography, the environment, and international relations, what kind of world might humanity face: No one can say for sure, but one thing is reasonably certain: Continuing challenges will tax our collective abilities to deal with them. Failure to rethink our enterprises will leave us little relief from our current predicaments: rising turbulence causing rising stress; increasing disconnection and internal competitiveness; people working harder, rather than learning how to work smarter; and increasingly intractable problems beyond the reach of any individual or organization. If you are an organizational leader, someone at any level concerned deeply about these challenges, then you face a daunting task. In effect, you are engaged in a great venture of exploration, risk, discovery, and change, without any comprehensive maps for guidance."

Peter Senge did not write these words specifically about the field of public health. But who among the many dedicated public health employees in the US cannot identify with and immediately understand the feelings that are associated with these words. Public health employees are being asked to be ever more productive with declining resources. In many cases those employees are confronted with not only a decline in community support but often must face increasingly hostile citizens and interest groups who may stand in opposition to public health efforts and taxes that support those efforts. Changes have come in the forms of decreasing budgets, reductions in staff, consolidation of health and social service programs, demographics, and even purpose and mission.

Responses of public health organizations to this multitude of changes have demonstrated remarkable dedication and creativity on the part of many public health employees and their leaders and managers. Many organizational leaders and employees have seen these changes coming, have analyzed the probable impact on their organizations and communities, and have most often made the best possible adjustments on behalf of the communities they serve. But increasingly these same employees are reporting a need for a less reactive response and a more deliberate prospective approach to managing this complex system of changes confronting public health.

A comprehensive school guidance program, in close collaboration with parents, serves all students pre-kindergarten through grade twelve. It helps all students gain competencies in the areas of personal/social, educational, and career development at all educational levels, competencies that underpin students' academic success. It serves equally all students, parents, teachers, and other recipients regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, cultural background, sexual orientation, disability, family structure and functionality, socioeconomic status, learning ability level, language, level of school involvement, or other special characteristics.

A comprehensive school guidance program guarantees that all students have access to school counselors and school counselors have access to all students. It helps develop and protect students' individuality and provides them with skills to function effectively with others in school, home, and ...