Handbook of Public Administration, 3rd Edition

Chapter 31Developing Intrapersonal Skills

Maria P. Aristigueta and Robert B. Denhardt

Knowledge of ourselves, or intrapersonal skills, are critical to success and satisfaction in our work lives. Many contemporary public organizations are experimenting with new approaches to organizing and managing that take them far beyond the top-down, rule-bound hierarchies of the past. These changes are not easy for organizations or for the individuals who work in them. Adopting new ways of operating often requires significant changes in our basic thinking about work and our psychological response to it. For example, most upper-level public sector managers were promoted professionally during an era in which success was defined as attaining a position of ...