Through the experience of the mentor role, this study attempted to explore the compassionate rationalism leadership development process of public officials. For this, the following three research questions were set up. First, what is your experience a...
Through the experience of the mentor role, this study attempted to explore the compassionate rationalism leadership development process of public officials. For this, the following three research questions were set up. First, what is your experience as a mentor during public service? Second, how did compassionate rationalism leadership emerge in the mentor role experience?
After recruiting 13 public officials for two months from July 2020 by theoretical sampling method, this study collected data through in-depth interview and observation method. For the collected data, the grounded theory research method of Strauss and Corbin (1998) was applied.
The results of the study are as follows. As a result of open coding, a total of 199 concepts, 38 subcategories, and 15 categories were derived. According to the results of the paradigm categorization analysis, the causal condition was 'facing a crisis due to changes in the organizational environment' and the central phenomenon was 'Creating Mentor Leadership Capabilities.'
The contextual conditions were 'aspiration to pursue a creative organizational culture' and 'Demonstrate flexible public office leadership in policy changes', and the intervening conditions were 'role distribution through delegation of authority' and 'dedication to strengthening the capacity of members of the organization'. The action and interaction strategies were 'mentoring to narrow the gap with newcomers' and 'establishing an optimized strategy for performing public offices'. And the results are 'inspiring organizational competence through sympathetic acceptance', 'building a foundation of trust through inclusion and consideration', 'building a foundation for trust through altruistic cooperation', 'efforts for realizing fairness', 'response to crisis through rational communication', 'Establishing a strategy based on prediction'.
The core category of this study was 'Efforts to realize the public interest optimized with the greater dedication'. Analysis of the process of developing compassionate rationalism leadership through the role experience of public officials was shown in five stages: "Vision to Achieve Public Interest", "Mutual Learning Mentoring," "Realizing Public Interest", "Authorization of Authority," and "Performance of Optimization Public Interest. The type analysis of this study was found to be an empathetic caring type, inclusive cooperation type, trust capacity type, and optimization performance type.
The results of the theory generation through open coding, selective coding, and axis coding in this study indicated that new public officials who entered public service need public service leadership to realize public interests due to changes in the environment and policies. Therefore, a reasonable leadership was being developed to achieve trust capabilities, rational logic, predictive strategies, creative solutions, and optimization performance management by experiencing the role of mentors for public interest pursuit and learning and reflecting on the limitations of public offices. Also, to further complement rational leadership, it was explored that the manifestation of compassionate leadership, which constitutes the elements of empathy acceptance, inclusive humility, cooperative consideration, and trust-based competency support, is triggered. The characteristics revealed through this study are as follows.
First, public officials usually live in a culture that prioritizes the public interest over the individual in their ordinary life. As can be seen from the central phenomenon of 'creating mentor's leadership competency' through leadership recognition for optimal public office performance, the research participants narrow the gap with newcomers during public service to build the public interest and make the best efforts to achieve the greatest public benefit.
Second, public officials endeavored to realize the public interest through role allocation by a delegation of authority and self-sufficiency through learning activities. In the meantime, realizing the need for leadership for optimal public office performance, he began “Mutual learning Mentoring” during his public office life, and devoted himself to fostering the competence of members of the organization.
Third, rationalist leadership was induced to respond to the crisis faced situation caused by changes in the organizational environment through the mentor role experience of public officials.
Also, in this study, the development process of “compassionate rationalism leadership” in the process of performing an optimized public office through the mentor's leadership competency is as follows.
First, the compassionate rationalism leadership development model developed a factor of “empathetic consideration” in that organizational competence was raised through empathic acceptance.
Second, “inclusive humility” and “trust-based empowerment” factors were developed in the process of establishing a trust foundation for public officials through inclusion and consideration.
Third, the factor of “altruistic cooperation” was developed in the context of being a hill to lean on through altruistic cooperation.
Fourth, the factor of 'rational situation judgment' was developed in the context of improving work efficiency through a rational situation analysis.
Fifth, the factors of “rational situation judgment” were developed in the context of crisis response through rational communication.
Sixth, the 'strategic prediction' factor and the 'logical problem solving' factor were developed in the context of acquiring the wisdom of establishing strategies based on prediction.
Seventh, it can be said that the 'Optimization of public office performance through the mentor's leadership capabilities' factor has been developed even in the context of realizing optimized public interest with greater commitment.
Through the mentor role experience, the mentee and the mentor work together in public office, based on the warmth of ‘Many hands make light work,’ The characteristics of compassionate rationalism leadership emerged as they tried to pursue the optimized public interest with the power of greater commitment to grow together.
Through this study, the development of compassionate rationalism is not distinct from mentoring activities. In the course of mentor role experience, it was confirmed that the delicate empathy and consideration in public offices was expressed and developed through the expansion of compassionate leadership.
Keywords: public officials, mentor role, compassionate rationalism leadership, grounded theory