This post is written by Ifeyinwa Maureen Okafor, former Adviser to Imo State Government in Nigeria and an Amujae Leader of the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Presidential Center for Women and Development’s Amujae Initiative.

  • The problem: Leaders sometimes lack the trust of civil servants around them.

  • Why it matters: A leader’s capacity to succeed and make changes for the better is directly proportional to the level of buy-in and support they get from civil servants. Without their buy-in, it's impossible for leaders to implement their vision.

  • The solution: Building trust, communication, and collaboration with civil servants is essential for leaders to achieve the results they envision.

All politicians make promises in order to get elected. But the hard part comes when the campaign is over: keeping them. To do so, politicians must earn the trust and buy-in of civil servants, which is often the first stumbling block to meaningful change. As a government advisor, I have experienced first-hand how a lack of trust between politicians and civil servants can derail even the best ideas.

As a financial advisor to Imo State Government, one of 36 states in Nigeria, my team and I worked hard to create an investor-friendly environment that could boost growth and provide well-paying jobs for citizens and residents of the state. To improve the state’s “ease of doing business”, we set our sights on public financial reform — a contentious topic.

This project — as is true for any project in government — would not have been possible without buy-in from civil servants. No matter the context, as a leader you must have support from those around to have any hope of implementing your vision.

Here are three techniques I have used: building trust, improving communication, and encouraging collaboration.

1. Building trust

Good leaders have the ability to envision the future. But making it a reality and convincing others to work towards it is, unfortunately, an entirely different skill-set. But this is where your personal integrity comes in as a key factor for earning buy-in.

In his book, The Law of Buy-in, leadership expert and author John Maxwell tells us that “as a leader, your success is measured by your ability to actually take the people where they need to go. But you can do that only if the people first buy into you.”

No matter how good a proposal or project may seem, it won’t get anywhere unless people believe you will hold your word_. This is why we must guard our reputation with diligence. _It is a currency that can be used to influence the greater good. Building a reputation for honesty, high performance, and delivering consistently builds a credible resume.

When it came to instituting public finance reform in Imo, we knew that our success would depend on the support of civil servants to help us gain the trust of certain well-respected leaders in the local communities. Before we embarked on the broader reform programme, we made sure to show the civil servants that we were accountable through a number of initiatives, such as reforming their pension payment process and reinstating civil servants who had been unjustly retired. By showing the public servants that we would make good on our promises to them, it was much easier to get their buy-in for the complex stakeholder engagement in local communities, with tribal leaders, and with the public.

2. Improving communication

There is power in having quality conversations, and clear communication is essential for building consensus and creating momentum. A good leader takes a tactical approach, knowing that they are likely to meet opposition.

One major barrier is resistance to change, usually rooted in people being more comfortable with a known quantity than gambling with an unknown. Offering transparency — eg. by providing information on a project well in advance — as well as allowing enough time for consideration and listening to stakeholder concerns, can help turn hesitancy into support.

Communication is also about showing others how they’ll benefit. As Jean de la Bruyere (1645-1696) put it, “The shortest and best way to make your fortune is to let people see clearly that it is in their interest to promote yours.”

I have personally seen great projects be torn apart in debates because the leader in charge could not show how it would benefit their stakeholders. In our case, we focused on explaining to external stakeholders how the new system would channel more funding to the local communities. We showed through statistics how the government-appointed ‘revenue collectors’ were paid a percentage of the sum they collected in taxes, and how installing a more transparent system would end that ‘leakage.’ Using traditional media, we communicated the stark difference in numbers.

3. Encouraging collaboration

Leaders must value their partners in the civil service. Collaboration fosters a team mentality and creates the opportunity to forge a bond as equal partners working towards a common goal.

It’s important to make civil servants and key stakeholders feel valued and involved. For example, even if the project you are working on isn’t focused on internal government processes, civil servants likely have relevant knowledge, and you can invite them to share their views and ideas. But civil servants, too, must be aware that their efforts (or lack thereof) could lead to inter-agency conflict, or even hinder their colleagues’ productivity. If civil servants were taught systems-thinking, rather than silo-thinking, it would enable both individuals and wider departments to see how each of them is the strong link in the chain for others.

Likewise, leaders must also be willing to be held to account by their colleagues and junior team members, regardless of rank or qualification. With better communication, disagreements and push-back can be addressed before it takes down the whole project.

Bureaucracy isn’t all bad

If civil servants are responsible for implementing policy, then it’s paramount for leaders to build good working relationships with them. Bureaucracy is supposed to be a good thing, creating order, standards, specialisation, and allowing for hierarchical structure. Somewhere along the way, it became the set of hurdles, endless paperwork, and files to overcome — and we haven’t even touched on the issues of corruption, parochial interests, or partisan affiliation, each of which could mean the end of a potentially transformative project.

After months of conversations, stakeholder meetings and iterations to the policy, we managed to implement our reforms, channel more funding to the state, reduce corruption, and make the system more fair and transparent for the local communities. While we still don't know what the long-term impact will be, I can say for sure that it would have been impossible without the buy-in and hard work of our partners in the civil service.

The alternative to bureaucracy is adhocracy, which means each person only relies on themselves to complete tasks. This would mean we achieved far less. And we wouldn’t want that.

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