The Dimensions of Public Leadership

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Table of Contents

Introduction
The literature on public leadership
Theories of public administration
The public sphere
Summary
References

Introduction

Public leadership is a complex issue involving administration, management, directing, and control mechanisms. In the public sphere, leading is the most basic of activity because it determines objectives and purposes. Unique abilities as a public leader may take a person to the top but may not be to his or her advantage when he or she is there. To a large extent, leadership behavior can be anticipated in advance of its activation. For each issue, in other words, one could plot a set of positions in the society out of which opinion-making activity is likely to emanate irrespective of the identity of the particular persons who occupy them. The aim of the paper is to review and analyze literature on the topic of public leadership.

The literature on public leadership

The literature on public leadership can be divided into two main groups:

Individuals as public leaders and impact and role of leadership in state institutions. Several dimensions within each group help to understand and examine the nature of public leadership and its impact on public life. Also, the large layer of literature examines and analyzes the nature of leadership and its practical application in the public sphere. J. D. Greene (2005), G. A. Brewer, et al (2000) pay special attention to leadership theories and their impact on public management. For instance, J. D. Greene provides a substantial analysis of the main leadership theories including trait theory, path-goal theory behavioral theories. Similar to Greene other researchers including Haraway and Kunselman (2006) underlines that despite wide variability in the composition and functioning of leadership, it does have stable, predictable elements. Most opinion-making capacities are attached to occupational roles rather than being derived from the talents of those who fill the roles. Moreover, these roles tend to circumscribe the kinds and number of issues on which their occupants can circulate opinions to an unknown audience. Such researchers as D.G. Zauderer (2005) and J. Douglas (2005) discuss the role of individuals as public leaders and their performance. For instance, in the article “Getting the Most from the Contributions of Government Leaders” Douglas (2005) examines functions and leadership relations with subordinates in government. In their research Brewer et al (2000) examine individual conceptions and styles of public leaders. In the article “Leading with Character” Zauderer (2005) examines the main taints and behavioral characteristics of public leaders including examines of famous political leaders.

The other layer of literature discusses the influence of leadership over the general public, the role of leaders as circulators of opinions and creators of issues. These are typical of the kinds of strategic assessments which leaders make and which alter the degree of consensus to the extent that they vary from issue to issue (Cayer & Weschler 2003, Gabris et al 2001, Yee, 2001). These researchers underline that substantive attitudes are those values, expectations, and interpretations with which opinion-makers respond to and order the world outside the policymaking process. Their interest in and knowledge about world affairs, their evaluations of particular policies, their readiness to accept new information and to adjust long-standing policy attitudes accordingly, their perceptions of human motives and of all the issues and objects composing the international environment, their values as to the relative importance of different issues and the priorities which should be attached to international, national, and local considerations, these are but a few of the many substantive attitudes which can affect the nature and extent of consensus among national leaders.

Theories of public administration

J. Shafritz et al (2004) and W.M. Haraway & J. C. Kunselman (2006) propose a theoretical interpretation of public administration and analysis of the main theories of public administration. The importance of “Classics of Public Administration” by J. Shafritz et al (2004) is that it collects the most significant scholars from this field. Haraway & Kunselman pay special attention to ethical and moral dimensions of public leadership. This systems view therefore suggests that organizations can and do change by mutually reinforcing and amplifying stimuli within their systems. It is changed based on the current ways of doing things: in this sense, it is an explanation of incremental change Lukensmeyer and Torres (2006) tends to view consensus-building less as a process and more as an attribute, can mobilize public opinion which is possessed exclusively by public leaders and which can be employed in a variety of ways.

The academic literature underlines that public leadership requires many of the characteristics common to all leaders, but also requires special abilities to manage employees accordingly to their psychological and professional needs. Personal leadership style is a unique combination of different principles and strategies aimed to motivate and inspire employees, manage and control their works to achieve organizational or project objectives and goals. More specifically, the attitudes of public leaders are conceived to be organized within the framework of either continental or segmental orientations. The former type is held by opinion-makers who cast their particular regional, party, or occupational interests within a larger, more national framework (Yee 2001; Cayer & Weschler, 2003).

Leadership consensuses are also shaped by how opinion-makers play their roles by what shall henceforth be designated as behavioral variables. These include the frequency and extent of interaction between different types of opinion-makers, the degree to which they are active in circulating opinions in various issue-areas, the intensity and style of the actions directed at fellow opinion-makers as well as those undertaken with the mass public in mind, and the wide range of possible means whereby they introduce opinions into the channels of communication. It seems reasonable to presume, for example, that the greater the interaction among diverse types of leaders, the more they will comprehend each other’s attitudes and thus the readier they will be to join together in support of a particular policy (Cayer and Weschler, 2003).

The researchers mentioned above agree that the theory of leadership is based on the power of personality. The leadership of the position is ineffective without functional capability. Position and function should coincide, but this is not always the case. The leadership of personality may only be an attempt to dominate by “masterful or persuasive” traits. Organizing ability is more important than ascendancy traits, and learning the job is more important than the ability to exploit one’s personality (Greene, 2005). Coordination involves educating and training individuals so that each can give what he or she is capable of giving, providing an opportunity for participation, and unifying the various contributions. Following Zauderer’s (2005) definition of purpose is required so that all may feel that they are working for a common end. Anticipation entails understanding the long-term good of the greater community and creating situations in which that good can be achieved. To perform these functions, the leader must have a thorough knowledge of the job, and the ability to grasp the total situation, the capacity to create as well as direct power, the talent to see future directions, and a pioneer’s sense of adventure. Although much of the discussion centers on the role and functions of the top executive, Zauderer believes the future will depend on more widely diffused leadership in the public sphere.

The public sphere

According to Brewer (2000), the need for leadership exists at many points in the public institutions, and each person should be prepared to answer the challenge of leadership of his or her job. This diffusion of leadership does not mean that responsibility is likewise diffused. Centralization and decentralization can be accomplished simultaneously as the top executive retains responsibility for the whole, while each individual assumes responsibility for his or her function in the whole. In this way, the leader neither abandons responsibilities nor takes responsibility from others. Instead, the leader makes each feel his or her responsibility. Contrary to the popular conception of the public leader as a boss, Douglas (2005) argues that the mark of a good leader is how little bossing he has to do. The effective public leader shows others what to do to meet their responsibilities. The relationship between leaders and followers should be reciprocal, with leaders guiding and followers keeping their leaders in control by making suggestions, taking wrong orders back for correction, and keeping the faith in a common purpose. “Leadership concerns effectiveness and results. The survey underscores that agencies and the American people achieve the highest return on their investment in leadership development when it is managed as critical to mission delivery” (Douglas 2005, p. 56).

In the public sphere, when the personal authority of the charismatic leader is displaced by mechanisms or rules for formally ascertaining the “divine will,” a simplification of charisma has taken place. Regarding succession, as established procedures used to select a successor come to govern the process, the forces of tradition and rationalization begin to take effect, and charisma is disassociated from a person and embedded in an objective institutional structure (Brewer et al 2000). In the process, an unstable structure of authority is transformed into the more permanent traditional or legal-rational structures of authority. With simplification, discipline in the form of consistently rationalized, trained, and exact execution of received orders replaces individual action. With the development of legal-rational authority, either through the routinization of charisma or the breakdown of the privileges of traditional authority, there is a certain “leveling” influence with the recognition of authority treated as a source of legitimacy rather than as a consequence of authority. Thus, legitimacy in legal-rational authority takes on some democratic overtones (Yee, 2001).

In the public sphere, the executive cannot abdicate his decision-making responsibilities. He may not have the specific knowledge required for effective decision-making. Zauderer’s (2005) solution is to deny the dilemma. The author counsels that the knowledge of the expert is joined with the knowledge of the executive. The opinion of the expert should not coerce but enter into the decision process using circular response and integration. Public leadership performs the functions of providing the opportunity for participation and guiding individual endeavors in the pursuit of common purposes Informal leadership is also found to be important (Brewer et al 2000). in public institutions, policy making is actually in charge of a leader.

Thus, critics admit that “in an era of declining trust in public institutions, public flight from politics, and urgent issues that require collaborative solutions, federal managers must rethink the way government engages with the public” (Lukensmeyer and Torres 2006, p. 26). The foregoing is in marked contrast to a more positive view which emphasizes a growing consensus-building potential because national leaders are changing as the nation becomes increasingly complex and its parts increasingly interdependent. It is reasoned that leadership groups are, therefore, less and less able to function autonomously and that, indeed, they are compelled to interact frequently. This recurring interaction is hypothesized to foster continental orientations and the integration of perspectives, thereby dissipating the value differences which have divided the national leadership into so many diverse segments. In turn, these changes are presumed to encourage a sense of shared responsibility (Zauderer, 2005; Yee, 2001).

Objective authority, or authority based on position or competence, is both present and important in the public sphere; and when the authority of position is combined with the authority of competence, it can be a very effective force. There are several reasons why authority is usually effective. First, the public organization can increase the size of the zone of indifference and the overall zone of acceptance (and correspondingly reduce the zone of rejection) by judiciously manipulating organizational incentives and employing persuasive techniques. Second, to the extent that directives fall within the range of duties anticipated at the time the individual joined the organization, those directives are likely to be in the individual’s zone of indifference and perceived as a “contractual obligation.” Third, orders are not usually given unless they conform to the four conditions outlined by Greene (2005). Finally, informal group attitudes tend to buttress the exercise of leadership authority (Brewer 2000). He acknowledges that status systems may lead to distorted evaluations of individuals, restrict the circulation of elites because of a reluctance to deprive a person of existing status, distort the system of distributive justice by according some more than their due measure of perquisites, exaggerate the importance of administrative matters over leadership, exalt the symbolic function of status, and generally limit the adaptability of the organization. But Barnard emphasizes the positive functions that the status system can perform for the organization.

Summary

In sum, public leadership can be explained as a philosophy and constituted an ideology that effectively supported the existing political order. the literature shows that researchers are primarily interested in human relations and the public sphere in general. They believe that the basic principles of human behavior, interacting, evoking, integrating, and emerging, to be the same in the public sphere as in other group settings. The authors chose to concentrate specifically on leadership styles and behavior, relations with subordinates, and policymaking.

References

Brewer, G. A., Selden, S.C., Facer, R. L. (2000). Individual Conceptions of Public Service Motivation. Public Administration Review, 60 (3), 25-28.
Cayer, J., Weschler, L. (2003). Public Administration: Social Change and Adoptive Management, 2nd ed.
Douglas, J. (2005). Getting the Most from the Contributions of Government Leaders: The Public Manager, 34 (2), 54-57.
Gabris, G.T., Golembiewski, R. T.,, Ihrke, D.M. (2001). Leadership Credibility, Board Relations and Administrative Innovation at the Local Government Level. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 11 (1), 89.
Greene, J. D. (2005). Public Administration in the New Century: A Concise Introduction.
Lukensmeyer, C.J., Torres, L. H. (2006). Today’s Leadership Challenge-Engaging Citizens. The Public Manager 35 (3), 26.
Haraway, W.M., Kunselman, J. C. (2006). Ethical Leadership and Administrative Discretion. Public Personnel Management, 35 (1), 1-19.
Shafritz, J., Hyde, A., Parkes, S.J. (2004). Classics of Public Administration, 5th ed.
Yee, C.G. (2001). Meeting the Leadership Challenge in Government Acquisition. The Public Manager, 30 (1), 27.
Zauderer, D.G. (2005). Leading with Character: The Public Manager, 34 (1), 44.
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