Nurturing Leadership Excellence at LBSNAA

On October 30, 2023, the Gupta-Klinsky India Institute at Johns Hopkins University together with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, collaborated with the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA) to host a Friday Night at the Emergency Room (FNER) session as part of a public health training program for mid-career civil servants representing 14 different All-India services.

LBSNAA, situated in Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, is a civil service training institute specializing in public policy and administration. “Friday Night at the Emergency Room” is an engaging simulation board game set in a community hospital. It goes beyond being just a game; it serves as a valuable tool for systems thinking in public administration. The session was part of the Common Mid-Career Training Program (CMCTP) that brought together officers from various administrative services with 20 years of seniority.

The October 30th session at LBSNAA was facilitated by JHU alumni and IAS officers Dr. Rakesh Gupta (IAS, 1997) and Dr. Rajendra Shukla (IAS,1986), who led a detailed debrief that contextualized the game’s learnings to highlight crucial components of systems thinking, such as collaboration and innovation, essential for delivering high-quality performance.s The workshop was attended by over 150 mid-career civil servants from 14 different services, including Indian Administrative Service, Indian Police Service, Indian Revenue Service, Indian Postal Service, Indian Forest Service, Indian Railway Service, Indian Defence Accounts Services, Indian Post & Telecommunication Accounts and Finance Services, and Indian Audit and Accounts Services., all from the 2003 batch.

The CMCTP training represents a strategic investment in cultivating leaders who embody national pride and share a collective vision for the future. In this context, the FNER workshop aimed to hone leadership capacities, foster a shared understanding of national aspirations, instil collaborative work ethics, and ensure the delivery of citizen-centric services at the highest standard.