Leading United Nations Peace Operations: Complementing a Leader-Centered Approach

The debate on United Nations peace operations continues to focus on various aspects of individual, organizational and political performance at the strategic and operational levels. In terms of leadership, the characteristics, styles, and practices of individuals are considered centrally relevant to effective leadership of peacekeeping operations.
PATRICK SWEET takes the discussions a step further and explores the collective fundamentals of leadership that amplify the understanding of what leading in fragile contexts entails. “Our hope is to complement a ‘leader-centered’ view of developing the capacity to lead on peace operations with a ‘substantively and collectively contextualized’ view to developing such capacity to lead,” the author states in ‘Leading UN Peace Operations: Complementing a Leader-Centered Approach,’ a paper published by the International Forum for the Challenges of Peace Operations.
Leading happens at all levels and a leader is (can be) anyone who influences people and impacts systems to mobilize toward specific outcomes, SWEET states. With these clarifications, he adds, they sharpen the focus on the specific nature of the three areas led in peace operations: turbulence; collectives of people (not only individuals); and polarities or tensions.
Leading turbulence: Leading in a perpetual state of turbulence is different than leading a process of change. Leading change implies leading “from somewhere (the current state) to somewhere else (a new state).” One can argue that peace operations are about leading change: from violence to non- violence. This is often achieved via combinations of diplomacy and peacekeeping force.
However, the underlying reasons for the violence in the first place (scarce resources, tribalism and migration, artificial scarcity of resources created by corruption, historical vendetta, etc.) if not addressed, result in peace operations calming a state of turbulence that actually simmers under the surface, SWEET writes. “The state of felt turbulence can simmer for a decade only to flare-up when peacekeeping operations are withdrawn.”
These challenges play out in what he recognizes to be where events unfold rapidly, with seemingly unpredictable actions and actors, where tensions and polarities among actors, actions and interests are ever present, and the link between actions, actors and outcomes is tangled in such a complex context that one action may not only not cause an intended outcome, but may actually spur other events and outcomes. Rapid, Unpredictable, Paradoxical and Tangled (RUPT) describes the context or ‘state’ a mission lead must lead in.
In RUPT, the context is too complex to rely on one leader, the author states. RUPT is created collectively and can only be led through in a collective fashion where leading happens at all levels, even by those who are not leaders, by role.
Leading collectives: Leading peace operations in the contexts from which they spring requires both leading institutions to help create conditions for violence to stop (aka peace), and the eventual transfer of authority and accountability from individual leaders to the engaged collectives, because only the collectives can hope to address and sustain peace. This brings to bear both leader-centered and collective views of leading.
“A collective view of leading helps prepare for positive peacebuilding that accommodates local beliefs and practices needed to accomplish shared direction, alignment and commitment,” SWEET writes. A leader-centered view of leading disguises an oft-made trade-off between situational/contingent leading and norm- or policy-based leading, which ultimately keeps ‘leading authorities’ accountable (and thus empowered over others) rather than transferring accountability and empowerment to the collectives themselves. This view complements leader-centered views of the ‘how’ of leaders, by lifting focus to the ‘what’ of leading.
Leading polarities: An example of a polarity dynamic in the peacebuilding space, according to SWEET, is that of the need to recognize both local and national interests. Focus on national interests (to the negation of local interests), and the system becomes centralized and often authoritarian. Fractionalize entirely into local interests (to the negation of common interests), and an ever-present imbalance of critical resources (for example) will often lead to conflict. Both local and national/common interests must be addressed to different degrees and in varying ways. They represent an interdependent polarity and are mirrored at the regional and international levels. “Sustainably leading polar tensions requires collective monitoring for indications of when one pole is being neglected.”

The Art of Creating Public Value in the United Nations

When it comes to the United Nations, there are multiple judges of its performance: member states, civil society and the international civil servants who manage the organization. And then there are the people who created the institution. What does the general public expect from the United Nations?
“The push and pull between a body of sovereign states and ‘we the peoples’ is one of the defining characteristics of what the UN is,” writes BRUCE JENKS in a paper published by the Dag Hammarskjold Foundation.
Looking at what leadership means in the highly complex environment in which the United Nations operates, he explores the underlying principles of international public service as articulated in articles 97-101 of the UN Charter, as well as the interpretation of these articles by Dag Hammarskjold in his May 1961 Oxford Speech. Together these provide insights into the political space which can influence the scope for initiative and leadership, JENKS contends in his paper, ‘On Leadership: The Art of Creating Public Value in the United Nations’, published as part of the Foundation’s series commemorating 100 years of the international civil service.
JENKS also explores how Mark Moore’s strategic triangle serves to identify the scope of the political space that lies at the heart of the art of leadership. He discusses a number of the instruments available to create, as well as to invest in, political space.
The author concludes by highlighting that our reflections on the 100th anniversary of the creation of the international civil service come at a unique moment. “The need for strategic capacity and political space has never been so evident as it is today.” This is because of the convergence of a number of critical elements.
“The arrival of Anthropocene man means that for the first time, human beings have a direct impact on their own destiny,” JENKS states. “The speed of technological and scientific innovation is daunting. Today, never has the gap been so big between the resources we have at our disposal, what we can do with them, and what we are actually doing.”
Development challenges are emerging that require a collective response if there is to be any chance of finding solutions, the author states, adding that effective decision-making requires a level of collective action to succeed. Multilateralism has a major role to play in this regard. And the scientific evidence points to the very limited time we have to undertake the transformative changes which are required.
“The challenge that is common to all of these dimensions relates to the choices we make,” JENKS writes. “How do we exercise the control we have, how do we translate our mission into reality and how do we choose to use and create value out of the resources that are so bountiful.”
Fortunately, he states, Agenda 2030 provides us with a powerful, universal mission statement. “Whether its rhetoric will be matched by its translation into reality remains to be seen.”