1. This case discussed Dr. Helene D. Gayle’s career that is fighting with AIDS epidemic, and stated that how Dr. Gayle successfully utilized the effective managerial leadership in her position. In my opinion, this case not only propagandizes that these infectious diseases, such as AIDS, STD, and TB, for humans and the whole world are still a huge challenge, but introduces that Dr. Gayle’s personal magnetism charisma and leadership on managing her teams and preventing AIDS all over the world.
Thus, this case is very important because it teaches us that a public leader or supervisor who only has managerial skills is not enough; meanwhile, they should be qualified national and personal honors, social ethics, and organizational accountability. 2. First of all, Norma Riccucci introduced Dr. Helene Gayle’s education background and her workplace experiences. For example, Gayle had earned both a Medical Degree and a Master of Public Health by 1981 when she was only 25 years old.
Then, from 1984-2001, she had engaged in epidemic internship service, prevention medicine residency, medical epidemiologist, program assistant director, chief, and director, etc. Now she is a senior advisor for HIV/AIDS. Second, Riccucci stated a very serious fact that there were more than 5. 3 million people included 774,467 Americans were reported to have AIDS in 2000. Third, as Riccucci said, “Dr.
Gayle’s accomplishments can be characterized as a combination of skills, talents, and strategies,” so he stated how Dr. Gayle reframed the issues, created partnerships, built relationships, adopted to the political environment, set goals and targeted strategies, faced the challenges of bureaucracy, and built trust and confidence in her teams. (Riccucci, 2005, 91) Finally, Riccucci listed 11 lessons that learned from Dr. Gayle’s effective managerial leadership. 3.
In my opinion, there are three main reasons that Dr. Gayle becomes a successful administrator. The first reason is the most basic one that Dr. Gayle loves her job so much and almost dedicates her whole time and enthusiasm for AIDS prevention; meanwhile, because of her hard working, she gains supreme honor and respect from her colleagues and the people who have AIDS disease. For example, she knows the impact of discrimination against African American in this country, so she decides to
study psychology, medical degree, and Master of Public Health because she wants to use the power of knowledge to help and care about much people, especially the vulnerable groups; furthermore, she is a very likable, dedicated, and selfless person, so these personalities make her colleagues like to work with her and respect her. The second reason is she understands how to flexibly manage her work groups and AIDS projects and effectively negotiate with different public or private sectors.
For instance, she knows the importance of collaborating with communities, government agencies, and private sectors, and her effective collaborating skills help her build a good relationship with these social groups and people; moreover, she recognizes the development of each AIDS program should adopt to the political environment and her work will face a number of formidable obstacles, so she makes flexible managerial methods to overcome the problems and set short-term goals or long-term strategies to adapt the political realities.
The third reason is her risk spirit and successful leadership. As Dr. Gayle said, “you have to be willing to take risks in leadership positions, and it means you have to take chances on the things that you believe are the right thing to do, even if it’s not politically expedient,” so she knows this job is very difficult to engage, but she always try to make some new changes and never give up her goals. (Riccucci, 2005, 97) In addition, her leadership is a process that gets all of her staff together to achieve their goals.
For example, because of her excellent personality and moral character, her colleagues trust her, even the chief of organizations or countries also believe her; thus she can effectively lead her groups and successfully achieve groups’ goals. 4. In this case, I learned that a successful public leader not only should understand how to manage or organize the staff, but also need to be provided with excellent moral characters and responsible for the people who really need help and for the her public career.
On the practical level, in my opinion, public administrators should have these characters, such as, integrity, honesty and a strong moral compass, because these outstanding behaviors can help public administrators establish personal honor and gain respect from people and society. Furthermore, public administrators should practice a strong mental resilience and flexibility so that they can adapt to the changeful social environment and overcome political obstacles. In addition, public
administrators should sincerely respect people’s dignity and genuinely concern and help for others, and they also ought to take accountability for themselves and their behaviors because their decisions might influence the whole nations. Finally, they need to constantly learning new knowledge not just managerial methods and own risk spirit but not rash so that they can always bring “fresh” ideals and practice flexible managerial skills to promote the development of governments and enhance administrative efficiency.
References Shafritz, J. M. , Russell, E. W. , & Borick, C. P. (2012). Introducing public administration (8th ed. ). New York: Pearson Education, Inc. Riccucci, N. (2005). Dr. Helene Gayle and the AIDS epidemic. In R. J. Stillman II (Ed. ), Public administration: Concepts and cases (8th ed. , pp. 85-100). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.