Impact: We strengthen our leadership role and improve our performance 

Developing a shared understanding across the Treasury about how to lift our performance requires a clear vision from senior leadership. The focus in 2010/11 was on developing systems and structuresthat support strategic leadership and strong governance.

The two new Deputy Chief Executives (DCEs) arrived late in 2009/10 (one of the two DCEs was subsequently appointed as Chief Executive and Secretary to the Treasury). Over 2010/11 the Chief Executive and two DCEs focused on:

• developing a strong Executive Leadership Team (ELT)
• establishing the Treasury Board
• finding ways to work more closely with the third-tier managers as a joint senior leadership team
• refining the decision-making framework, and
• articulating their organisational ambition for the Treasury.

The ELT focused in the beginning of 2010/11 on forming a strong shared vision for the Treasury. They built on this later in the year by working more closely with third-tier managers, to ensure that work under way was well aligned with the vision. In September 2010, ELT established the Treasury Board. The Board is a governance advisory board that supports the Chief Executive to set the Treasury's strategic direction and strengthen its performance. The seven-member Board is chaired by the Chief Executiveand includes three non-executive members and three Treasury executives.

Beyond systemic changes, senior leaders looked at their own leadership styles to better understand the impact of their behaviour on others and how to lead in a way that lifts productivity. This involved implementing tools such as the Leadership Impact Surveys to assess, develop and encourage leadership qualities. These assessments will be repeated in thenext financial year, to determine what changes there have been to the nature of leadership in theTreasury.

Other key initiatives progressed during 2010/11 were:

• an increased focus on external engagement: this has been evidenced by an increased number of speaking engagements by the Chief Executive, Deputy Chief Executive and Deputy Secretaries
• a significant strategic planning exercise to obtain tighter alignment of the activities undertaken by the Treasury with the Government's desired outcomes, and translating that "line of sight" into staff work plans
• evaluation of theTreasury by external PIF reviewers. Key themes raised were that we need to:
  • be clear about what we want to achieve for New Zealand and how we will get there
  • be a "Team NZ" player by having more explicit and consistent two-way external engagement
  • measure our efficiency and effectiveness better
  • progress organisational culture change, and
  • use external expertise better, and
• establishment of a change programme to pace and prioritise the activities under way across theTreasury, to lift performance. The change programme incorporates themes from the PIF review and led ELT to articulate its future organisational ambition for the Treasury. This vision is for the Treasury to play four roles as an organisation - navigator, expert, problem-solver and exemplar. These are set out in more detail in our 2011-2016 SOI.

We measure our progress by:

We measure staff ratings of leadership through the Gallup employee engagement survey. The rating in September 2010 on the Gallup statement: "I have confidence in the leadership of the Treasury to successfully manage emerging challenges" was 3.5 out of 5. This was re-measured in August 2011.[3]

Members of ELT have delivered over a dozen public addresses and many more presentations to interested groups around the country. Speeches have covered topics such as improving living standards for New Zealanders, addressing macroeconomic imbalances, raising per-capita growth, strengthening New Zealand's international connections and lifting public sector performance. Other senior Treasury leaders have also been involved in giving speeches and presentations around the country. To measure the effectiveness of these and our other engagements, in early 2011/12 we will undertake a survey of our stakeholders. This will give us a better understanding of the role we are currently seen to be playing and what might need to be improved. Results from the survey will be available early in the next financial year and we intend to repeat the survey to assess progress over time.