From Cautious to Courageous: Supporting Political Leaders to Achieve Bold Reform
Key Takeaways
- Our traditional model of the lone political leader (leader) driving policy reform is far too narrow and is not delivering the needed reforms.
- One way of broadening our horizons is to consider the political risk appetite and reform competency matrix for leaders.
- The matrix provides the public service with four ways forward for supporting leaders in reforms more holistically:
- Increase the political risk tolerance, such as by proposing more minor reforms to build confidence.
- Reduce the political risk to fall within the risk tolerance level.
- Improve reform competence by offering high-quality policy reform training.
- Lower the level of competence required for a particular reform by building highly competent policy reform teams.
What next?
Discuss with political leaders how you can support them in undertaking reforms.
Introduction
“We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it.” Jean-Claude Juncker, Prime Minister of Luxembourg and President of the Eurogroup.
In the complex world of policy-making, there's a persistent gap between recognising the need for reform and successfully implementing transformative change. Leaders often find themselves caught between the desire to drive meaningful progress and the paralysing fear of political risk. How can we bridge this divide?
We've relied on frameworks like the Overton Window to understand political feasibility, but these approaches fall short. They fail to account for the nuanced interplay between a leader's risk appetite and policy reform competency, leaving many potential reforms on the table.
This blog introduces a new framework for understanding political reform—a Risk-Competency Matrix that uncovers some overlooked aspects of political decision-making. Understanding where leaders sit on this matrix, we can develop targeted strategies to support bold, meaningful reform.
The Limitations of the Overton Window
Across many jurisdictions, there is a widespread belief that reforms are needed to tackle the ills of many states and nations, yet our frameworks for enabling those reforms are limited.
One commonly cited framework is the Overton Window, which is the range of subjects and arguments politically acceptable to the mainstream population at any given time. Much effort goes into looking at how to shift the Overton Window to make a potential reform politically acceptable. The Overton Window is a helpful lens to look through when considering a reform, but it has limitations:
- The range of what is possible depends on the leader’s ability to shift the window. The lower the capability, the more the window shrinks.
- The leader's risk temperament toward reform. You can have a large Overton Window, but if a leader is risk averse, they will not go through it.
- Alignment of values. Many leaders have specific values that frame their world view. They are much less likely to progress with policy reforms that conflict with their world view, no matter what opportunity the Overton Window is providing.
Often overlooked is the potential role that the public service can play in supporting a leader.
The Traditional Role of the Public Service
The Public Service’s role in policy reform can be characterised in two ways:
- Politicians decide and the public service implements.
- Frank, honest and evidence-based advice.
Unfortunately, this description misses two critical points. Firstly, the perceived capability of the public service to implement will be a factor when a leader is considering undertaking a reform. A poor capability in the eyes of the leader increases the risk of something going wrong and makes them much less likely to undertake the reform.
Secondly, the right advice to give a leader depends on a wide range of factors, but it is vital to consider who the leader is. Public servants are often well practiced at providing advice that aligns with a leader's values. However, because they do not have the appropriate frameworks, public servants can overlook two other significant considerations: the leader’s political risk appetite and policy reform capability.
I have developed a risk appetite/competency framework to try and fill this gap.
The Risk/Competency Reform Framework
To help conceptualise the framework, I have developed a 2 x 2 matrix (perhaps I should have had a career as a management consultant).
The matrix has two axes:
- Political risk appetite. This represents a leader’s attitude towards political risk at a point in time.
- Policy reform competence. This describes how good a leader (and their support team) are at handling policy reforms. A low level of competence increases the chance of a reform failing.
This matrix gives us four boxes for assessing leaders at any point in time when considering a reform:
- Dangerous Gamblers. These are the leaders who take on high-risk reforms but without the level of competence to handle them. They may or may not succeed, but success will be more down to luck, than a well thought-out strategy. Many policy u-turns have come from a leader sitting in this quadrant when they undertook a reform.
- Status Quo Defenders. These leaders have a low political risk appetite and lack the skills to undertake significant reform.
- Steady Managers. These leaders are reform competent and very good at making incremental policy changes. However, they do not have the appetite for higher risk reforms.
- Bold Reformers. These leaders are in the sweet spot for significant reforms. They are both willing to take political risks for a reform and have the capability to pull it off.
Of course, the two axes are not as black and white as I have presented them here. Leaders have a spectrum of risk appetites and reform competence.
Additionally, a leader's position on the matrix is constantly in flux. The level of reform competence is usually on an upward trajectory as leaders gain experience. However, the level of political risk tolerance will vary depending on a range of factors, such as opinion polls, other reforms taking place, events such as scandals, pandemics, and elections, and the leader's default appetite for risk.
The advantage of this matrix is that it gives public servants four tangible levers to pull to increase the chances of reform taking place:
- Increase the political risk appetite of leaders.
- Reduce the political risk of a reform so it falls within the leaders' risk appetite.
- Improve the reform competence of leaders.
- Lower the level of competence a leader requires for a particular reform.
So, what can public servants do to pull these levers?
Increase the political risk appetite of leaders.
The main lever for increasing leaders' risk appetite is to start with lower-risk reforms that help them develop experience and confidence for taking on more significant challenges.
Reduce the political risk of reform so that it falls within the leaders' risk appetite.
Instead of increasing the political risk tolerance of a leader, it is usually much easier to reduce the risk of a reform. There are many ways of doing this, for example:
- Start with a trial or pilot scheme to test a reform and gain implementation experience.
- Improve the government agency's capability to undertake the reform, such as by creating a dedicated, high-calibre team.
- Do not let perfection be the enemy of the good - compromise from the ideal solution to one that still delivers significant benefits to reduce political risk.
Improving the reform competence of leaders.
The competence of leaders in policy reform will vary widely, and it is not all about experience. Some leaders are policy obsessives and have studied policy reforms for decades before gaining their current position. These leaders have a good grasp of how to undertake policy reforms and lower their risks of going wrong, despite a lack of experience.
Unfortunately, the training we provide to leaders and their advisors regarding policy reform is virtually nonexistent, expecting them to learn on the job. It would be a significant step forward if high-quality training on policy reform and the tools of the trade were offered for all leaders as part of taking on their positions.
Lower the level of competence required of a leader for a particular reform.
Leaders have traditionally taken accountability for a reform and we have been overly reliant on them to deliver a successful reform. However, most significant reforms involve teams of people. The higher the quality of the team involved in a reform, the less you need to rely on the leader for success. This perspective provides us with a lever to pull to increase the chances of a successful reform - developing teams of people with high-level strategic policy reform skills.
As part of its governance for undertaking reforms, the public service should review its competency and capabilities, and where they are lacking, bring in additional support. These might be retired public servants, former leaders, academics, thinktankers, etc.
Now that we have four levers to pull to help get a reform moving, what would undertaking a much-discussed reform look like?
Road Pricing, a potential case study
In this section, I will examine how the risk appetite/competency matrix could be applied to a long-standing proposed reform: road pricing.
Road pricing is the policy of charging motorists directly for using the roads. Economists widely advocate it as the best way to ration the limited road space available and reduce congestion. Congestion charges in London, Singapore, and New York are examples of road pricing.
Road pricing is a good case study for a couple of reasons:
- It is a politically challenging reform. Because the public is sceptical about charging for road use, no jurisdiction has adopted comprehensive road pricing, only limited congestion zones.
- It is gaining increased interest. As cars convert from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles, the loss of fuel duties is causing many governments to consider road pricing as an alternative revenue source.
Looking at the matrix, how can we pull the four proposed levers:
Increase the political risk appetite of leaders.
In road pricing, we could look for alternative pricing reforms that are lower political risk but build confidence in leaders for reform. These include increasing existing tolls, charging for parking or implementing a low emission zone for high polluting vehicles.
Reduce the political risk of a reform so it falls within the leaders’ risk appetite.
If we assume that comprehensive road pricing across a jurisdiction is too high a risk for a leader, then several other options could be used to reduce risks, including:
- Limiting road pricing to a limited area, such as in London, New York and Singapore.
- Limiting road pricing to electric vehicles will only cause a small proportion of the population to be affected initially. Some jurisdictions have already legislated for this approach.
- Limiting road pricing initially to heavy vehicles only. This approach has been implemented in New Zealand.
- Tying in revenues to increases in public transport services, helping people to choose alternatives to the motor vehicle.
Improve the reform competence of leaders.
To support leaders, they could be given access to people who have been involved in road pricing schemes in other jurisdictions and can provide them with training and advice.
Lower the level of competence required of a leader for a particular reform.
This could involve building a high-calibre team to support the reform, with the experience and expertise to support the leader.
Overall, the case study provides some useful steps towards enabling a road pricing reform.
Conclusion
The path to significant policy reform is rarely straightforward. It requires more than just good ideas or political will, it demands a sophisticated understanding of risk, competency, and the human elements of political leadership.
A Risk Appetite/Reform Competency Matrix offers a roadmap to help public servants and leaders. By recognising that political leaders exist on a spectrum—and can move between quadrants—we open up new possibilities for innovation in supporting policy reform.
The real opportunity lies in our collective ability to support leaders. Whether by building their risk appetite through more minor reforms, reducing political risk, enhancing their competency, or developing high-caliber support teams, we can create an environment where bold reform becomes more probable.
As we face increasingly complex challenges, we must innovate to support bold reforms. It's time to move from a model of the lone leader driving reform to thinking about how we build a support structure for a political leader.