… of the 230 officers who participated in RCSC’s leadership assessment 

Dechen Dolkar  

The leadership assessment of officers in the P1 Management (P1M) level showed only 15 percent of the 230 participating chiefs as the most outstanding and eligible for executive positions in the civil service.

Commissioned by the Royal Civil Service Commission (RCSC), the Royal Institute for Governance and Strategic Studies (RIGSS) submitted its report after the Executive Eligibility Assessment (EEA) for P1M officers to RCSC as data points for future executive selection.

According to the RCSC, about 230 officers participated in this year’s EEA. Of which 190 are male and 40 are female candidates.

Candidates are from a wide range of professional backgrounds, like six Chief Human Resource Officers, eight Chief Information and Technology Officers, 30 Chief Engineers, 11 Chief Forestry Officers and 12 Chief Planning Officers, and 27 Chief Programme Officers.

Of the total participants, 74 officers, or about one-third of the applicant pool, were shortlisted for the final round of assessments.

Out of these only 34 officers made it through the assessment, representing about 15 percent of the total applicant pool and they are now eligible to compete for executive positions.   

“These outstanding officers will be subsequently put on stretch assignments and expanded roles to further test their suitability for Executive-level positions,” an RCSC official said.

In stretch assessments, employees are presented with an unfamiliar challenge, they would be challenged to create change, and give them a high level of responsibility.

As per the RCSC record, there are around 423 P1 managerial post-holders so far.

P1M forms the critical talent pool for leadership positions and this assessment is expected to provide the executive selection process with more accurate data points for merit-based selections.

Comprising group and individual assessments, the EEA aims to identify outstanding candidates for Executive-level positions and is part of RCSC’s efforts to strengthen leadership selection.

This year’s assessment panel comprised six senior local and international assessors from the public and private sectors.

The RCSC will be making the EEA an integral part of its rigorous process to select executives for the civil service. The objective of the EEA is to identify outstanding candidates in the civil service with the potential to assume executive-level positions.

Candidates were filtered through a rigorous, three-round assessment process consisting of written works, situational judgment tests, group discussions and Individual interviews.

The assessment was held from November 12 to December 1, 2022.