Leadership appointments to senior government positions in Jordan are no longer simply administrative decisions that end with the announcement of the person appointed to the post. Instead, they have become part of a broader effort to rebuild public administration, with the stated goal of selecting leaders based on competence, merit and competition, while linking leadership positions to a framework of standards, performance and accountability.
اضافة اعلان
This year, this framework has become more visible in practice, with continued announcements of leadership vacancies, screening and interviews, as well as appointment decisions that the government said followed candidates receiving the highest scores in competitions held under the Government Leadership System.
The Cabinet appointed the director general of the Maritime Authority after he received the highest score in a competition conducted under the Government Leadership System. This year also saw the appointment of the director general of the Vocational Training Corporation after receiving the highest score in a similar competition. Initial screening results were also announced for leadership positions including director general of the Department of Lands and Survey, secretary general of the Ministry of Local Administration, secretary general of the National Center for Epidemics and Communicable Disease Control, and secretary general of the Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development for Planning and Institutional Support.
These cases make leadership appointments a practical reflection of the government’s approach, raising the question: Is the competition process shifting from merely being a procedure for selecting a person to fill a position into a new institutional mechanism for selecting government leaders?
From appointments to an integrated system
The Cabinet approved the Government Leadership System No. 70 of 2024 as part of the requirements of the Public Sector Modernization Roadmap. The system aims to establish a framework for managing and empowering government leaders, developing future leaders with strong performance and leadership potential, investing in their training and qualifications, and diversifying their experience. The system also covers second-tier positions in the higher category, with performance evaluation standards and indicators set annually.
Amendments introduced to the system in 2025 expanded access to leadership positions by broadening the publication of recruitment announcements, using electronic channels and the official social media accounts of Jordanian diplomatic missions abroad, employing technology to screen applications, strengthening the oversight role of the Public Service and Administration Authority, and separating the screening and appeals committees.
The system also allows interviews to be conducted remotely and the use of presentations and case studies as tools for assessing candidates. The process is therefore no longer supposed to begin at the interview stage, but rather with defining the position itself, followed by advertising, recruitment, screening, assessment and interviews, and ultimately appointment and performance evaluation.
In general, this approach is fundamental to administrative reform, because selecting the right person does not begin merely by choosing among a list of candidates. It begins with identifying what the institution actually needs from its leaders.
The step that comes before selecting the person
One of the most prominent amendments to the system is the strengthening of governance in preparing and approving job descriptions for senior leadership positions. The relevant authority prepares the descriptions, which are then approved by the Public Service and Administration Authority, ensuring that they are aligned with approved legislation, policies and guidelines.
The importance of this step lies in shifting the question in the appointment process from “Who do we want to appoint?” to the more important question: “What does the position need?” If the position is director general of an institution with a financial or economic nature, the required competencies will differ from those needed by the head of a research, health or service institution. The more specific the job description becomes, the easier it is to compare candidates based on the actual requirements of the position, rather than reputation or general experience alone.
However, the success of this system depends on the accuracy of job descriptions, their measurability, and their actual connection to the criteria used by screening and interview committees.
100 points: How does the competition work?
The system stipulates that candidates for senior leadership positions are assessed according to a model prepared by the authority, with a maximum score of 100 points. Candidates must obtain at least 60 percent to pass. The system also includes a statistical mechanism for processing interview scores by removing the two highest and two lowest scores and recalculating the average according to specific rules.
This mechanism is important because it seeks to limit the influence of an individual score and turn the interview from a subjective impression into a more controlled process. But the number itself does not settle the issue. What matters is what that score represents in terms of the relative weight given to experience, academic qualifications, technical competencies, leadership, previous achievements, problem-solving ability, future vision and interview performance.
The clearer and more auditable the weights and criteria are, the greater the system’s ability to convince candidates and the public that the competition was conducted on an objective basis.
Separating screening from appeals
Another notable amendment is the separation of the screening and appeals committees, meaning that the committee that screened applications does not itself consider appeals against its decisions. The government considers this separation to strengthen governance and transparency. This is not a minor procedural matter, as the appeals process is one of the most important elements of trust in any competitive system.
Having a clear appeals process, with a different body reviewing appeals, gives applicants who were eliminated during the initial screening an opportunity to determine whether their exclusion was actually linked to failure to meet the requirements. This process appeared in practice in this year’s initial screening announcements, which allowed applicants who did not meet the conditions or had not completed the application requirements to submit electronic appeals within a specified period.
Has the pool of applicants expanded?
Perhaps one of the most important objectives announced by the government when amending the system was to expand the pool of applicants. Electronic advertising, the use of official social media channels and access to Jordanians abroad are all tools intended to broaden recruitment rather than limit competition to a narrow circle of candidates already known within the government apparatus.
This raises an important issue in assessing the experience: What matters is not only the number of positions advertised, but also the number of genuinely qualified applicants for each position, the proportion coming from outside the institution, the proportion of women, the specializations and experience represented in the competition, and the number of candidates who reached the final interview.
These data are among the most important indicators for assessing how broad the competition is, without the need to make general judgments about the experience.
Beyond the government apparatus
One of the key tests of reform is the state’s ability to attract talent from outside the traditional government career path. If competitions in most cases simply result in the same leaders being recycled within the public sector, then the reform may have changed the way positions are advertised and candidates evaluated, but it has not necessarily expanded the leadership pool.
If, on the other hand, the competition begins to attract diverse expertise from the private sector, universities, international organizations, Jordanians abroad and government employees, the impact of reform will be broader.
Ultimately, government procedures should become an annual indicator published in the reports of the Public Service and Administration Authority, answering questions such as: How many applicants came from the public sector? How many came from outside it? And what proportion of appointments came from each track?
Appointment is not the end of the process
Perhaps the most important feature of the system is that it does not treat appointment as the end of the process. The system approved in 2024 linked second-tier positions in the higher category to performance evaluation standards that include annually defined indicators. This, in turn, changes the very concept of appointment to a leadership position.
A person who obtains a position through competition is expected to subsequently be assessed on what they have achieved at the institution they manage, one or two years after their appointment. This is more important than the appointment itself. The evaluation should show: What has the person achieved?
Have they reduced costs? Improved services? Implemented the strategic plan? Increased revenues or reduced waste where this falls within the institution’s mandate? Improved customer satisfaction indicators? Retained talent? And have they succeeded in turning government objectives into measurable results?
Salary enters the evaluation framework
In August 2025, the Cabinet approved instructions for the quantitative and objective analysis and evaluation of senior leadership positions, establishing a unified mechanism to determine the relative importance of positions and the appropriate salary for each. The evaluation process takes into account factors including the competencies and requirements of the position, the size of the institution in terms of its financial and human resources, and the impact of decisions, directives and problem-solving.
This opens a new avenue in administrative reform: the compensation of government leaders, which should be linked to the value and responsibilities of the position rather than simply the title of the post.
Building leaders before positions become vacant
Overall, reform is not limited to selecting leaders when positions become vacant. Earlier this year, the government approved a draft system for the Jordanian Academy for Public Administration, which is expected to replace the Institute of Public Administration and take on the task of preparing and qualifying government leaders, building their capacities and developing competency-based career paths.
This reflects a state philosophy that it does not want simply to search for a director once a position becomes vacant, but rather to build a future leadership pool. Modern institutions do not always wait for a vacancy before thinking about a successor. Instead, they develop leadership tracks and identify the competencies that may take on responsibility in the future.
Leadership appointments as a test of trust
Despite all these procedures, leadership appointments remain one of the most sensitive issues in public administration, not only because of the importance of these positions, but because any appointment system needs the confidence of candidates, the government apparatus and the public in the integrity of its stages.
For this reason, transparency should not stop at announcing the position or the name of the successful candidate. Published data could be expanded to include the number of applicants, the number who met the requirements, the stages of assessment, those who reached the interview stage, the general methodology used for the competition, and performance indicators for the person appointed after taking office.
Perhaps the real test of the system in the coming years will not be the number of competitions conducted or positions advertised, but its ability to achieve three conditions: broadening competition, increasing the objectivity of selection, and linking appointments to measurable results.
If all three are achieved, leadership appointments will become part of long-term institutional reform rather than merely a change in the mechanism for filling vacancies.
The current stage already provides indications of a shift toward advertising leadership positions, electronic screening, appeals procedures, structured interviews and basing some appointment decisions on the results of competitions conducted under the Government Leadership System.
The most important indicator remains: Will these procedures evolve from written rules into an established institutional culture in which government leadership is selected on the basis of competition and competence, and officials are subsequently evaluated according to what they actually achieve?
This is precisely where leadership appointments meet the core of public sector modernization: rebuilding the state through the people who manage its institutions, rather than merely redesigning their structures.
Resource: Al-Ghad. Reporting: Mahmoud Al-Tarawneh
