System diplomacy – an alternative to system leadership

Public services are part of complex adaptive systems. It is often assumed public servants need training and development in system leadership. However, there are limits to the system leader model, in part because complex systems do not lend themselves to being led. An article in Public Management & Money explores ‘system diplomacy’ as an alternative. This is a new way of thinking about and tackling the intractable differences and controversies within complex systems. System diplomacy pays attention to micro-politics and soft power. Being a system diplomat requires skills that deal with diverse and competing agendas inherent in complex social systems. 

Complex public service systems require system leaders, right?

Public services are part of complex adaptive systems. These are open systems that extend beyond state power and formal services. They are constituted by the sets of relationships and conditions that interlink families, communities, places and markets, as well as the state. Insights from complexity theory highlight the difficulty of pulling a policy lever or turning on an intervention and assuming that this will lead to the desired outcomes. In complex systems, the abundance of feedback means that small changes can have a large and unpredictable impact. 

The shift to ‘thinking systems’ and engagement with complexity should be welcome if it offers a more sustained and sophisticated way for government to engage with the big or ‘wicked’ issues.  

However, this does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that we need to train public managers to be system leaders. There are four reasons why this is problematic: 

1. Complex systems can’t be led.  

2. It can be too individualistic a model. 

3. System leadership may teach people lessons which may be actively harmful in their current roles.  

4. It can be used as a depoliticisation strategy which should be regarded with some suspicion. 

Alternative models

Given these limitations in the way that system leadership is framed, there is a risk of performativity, in which policymakers talk about the complexity of systems but are not able to really behave any differently. 

An alternative path is to explore approaches that look at different skill sets. These include  stewardship and diplomacy. 

Stewardship

The article adopts a practical definition of stewardship as about oversight and steering for the long term –  beyond the short timescales of much current politics, perhaps even taking an intergenerational perspective.  

But there is a risk that stewardship positions the steward as the benign overseer of the system. A steward is one who is outside the system’s messiness: omniscient and also omnibenevolent. What it means to be a steward of the public good will look quite different if you are the chief executive of an acute hospital, versus a local commissioner of social care, versus a voluntary sector leader supporting people with no recourse to public funds. They all have an interest in the system flourishing but also are firmly located within their own organisations with all the micropolitics that this entails. There are sometimes opposing goals at work and some competing priorities are simply not resolvable. 

System diplomacy

The article proposes the concept of system diplomacy as a new way of thinking about and tackling the intractable differences and controversies within complex systems. System diplomacy requires skills that are expressly concerned with recognising and dealing with the pluralistic, diverse and competing agendas inherent to complex social systems. All public managers will need to confront and cope with these interests, calling for greater attention to managers’ political astuteness. 

These diplomatic qualities are multifaceted, relating to personal resilience and fortitude, strategic thinking and foresight, and effective communication. This especially includes the ability to understand the position and interests of others, and inter-personal capabilities in influencing, mediating and finding agreeable trade-offs. These capabilities are rarely taught in a formal way but are acquired through first-hand experience in skirmishes and controversies.  

The practices required to work through potentially unreconcilable differences, zero-sum goals, or incompatible systems will be relational and emergent. Timelines for finding ways of working together may not be predictable or possible to performance manage. Conceptions of progress or success may not be shared.  

The bottom line 

Complex systems can’t be led, so alternative models are needed to explain what public officials should be doing when involved in public service systems. A diplomatic lens pays attention to micropolitics and soft power. It does not assume shared values or goals. It also recognises that calls for more collaborative modes of shared decision-making can downplay the value pluralism, power plays and underlying ideological tensions that define complex systems. 

The diplomacy metaphor gives proper attention to history, positionality and to the need for collective change strategies of alliance building, bargaining and compromise. It requires attention to ‘what’s in it for me/us’ and ‘what’s in it for them’? 

• New development: System diplomacy—an alternative to system leadership – Catherine Needham, Nicola Gale and Justin Waring, Public Management & Money, February 2025

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