Journal of Public Affairs
Volume 13 Number 1 pp 130–141 (2013)
Published online 12 November 2012 in Wiley Online Library
(www.wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/pa.1453
■ Academic Paper
Modern leadership principles for public
administration: time to move forward
Dana S. Kellis1,2* and Bing Ran1
1
2
Penn State Harrisburg, Public Affairs, Middletown, Pennsylvania, USA
Pinnacle Health, Administration, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, USA
The historical aversion to effective leadership in American public administration literature imposes a troubling
controversy over the appropriateness of nonelected public leaders being allowed to exercise the authority and
capability to make decisions regarding the direction, focus, and intensity of their organizational efforts. Using
principles from distributed, transformational, and authentic leadership theories, we propose a new public leadership
theory that addresses the emerging unique characteristics of the public sector and test this theory using three
administrations of the Federal Human Capital Survey. Results show strong support for the application of these
theories in the public service. We advocate for the research and teaching of modern leadership of these theories in
the public administration field. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
INTRODUCTION
In the current context of recurrent crisis in the public
sphere, the challenge of defining, finding, and
supporting adequate leadership neither has been
greater nor has been more pressing. Domestic and
global recession, sovereign debt crises, multiple
armed conflicts, and global environmental and
natural disasters each challenge the capacity of
public managers to respond effectively. In many of
these crises, the inadequate leadership of some
public managers highlighted the importance of
understanding what constitutes effective public
leadership. For example, inadequate leadership
played a significant role in the Challenger and
Columbia Space Shuttle Disasters (Levine et al.,
1992; CAIB, 2003; Lambright, 2008). Failed federal,
state, and local leadership figured prominently in
the inadequate response to Hurricane Katrina
(Committee and USHS, 2006; Menzel, 2006; Waugh
and Streib, 2006; Lester and Krejci, 2007). Shortcomings of leadership were also instrumental in the
Federal Home Loan Bureau’s role in the recent
housing crisis (Hoffmann and Cassell, 2002; Hoffmann
and Cassell, 2005; Cassell and Hoffmann, 2009).
*Correspondence to: Dana S Kellis, Penn State Harrisburg, Public
Affairs 777 W. Harrisburg Pike w160a Olmstead Bldg, Harrisburg,
Pennsylvania 17057, USA.
E-mail: danakellis@aol.com
Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Despite these unprecedented demonstrations of
the risks and consequences of inadequate leadership
capacity in public organizations, the profession of
public administration (PA) has not fully embraced
leadership as a fundamental element of successful
practice. For much of its history, the field of PA
has struggled to identify the appropriate role of
leaders and managers in carrying out the affairs of
government. The debate encompasses the distinctions between administration, politics, and values
in a constitutional democracy (Wilson, 1887; Taylor,
1947; Waldo, 1948; Selznick, 1949; Appleby, 1973)
and has evolved to questions of privatization versus
accountability (Hood and Jackson, 1991; Rhodes,
1994; Peters and Pierre, 1998). Two opposing schools
of thought exist among PA scholars regarding the
role of leadership in the public sector. Advocates of
market-based approaches to public services delivery
believe that these result in greater levels of efficiency
and accountability (Denhardt and Denhardt, 2000).
Public interest advocates, on the other hand, point
out the shortcomings of economic individualism
(Bozeman, 2007) and believe public servants should
receive direction from politicians, courts, and legislators. Regardless of their philosophical underpinnings, PA authors warn that strong leadership poses
a danger to the democratic process (Bertelli and Lynn,
2006; Warner and Hefetz, 2008) and worry that
empowered leaders may succumb to moral hazards
such as shirking, opportunism, self-aggrandizement,
Modern leadership principles
or self-promotion (Donaldson, 1990; Cook, 1998;
Terry, 1998; Fairholm, 2004).
The reluctance of the PA field to develop and
embrace strong leadership models is reflected by a
significant gap in the development and progression
of general and public leadership theories (Olshfski
and Jun, 1989; Rost, 1990; Senge, 1990; Bennis
et al., 1994; Nalbandian, 1994; Chemers, 1997; Pearce
and Conger, 2003; Trottier et al., 2008). Despite good
evidence that effective leadership plays a key role in
the success of public endeavors, new approaches to
the process of leadership in the general literature,
including shared, transformational, and authentic
or values-based leadership theories, have seen less
investigation or application to public settings. Calls
for research efforts to better define the structure,
tools, processes, and functions of leadership in the
public sector (Olshfski and Jun, 1989) have been
lacking in regard to the public application of the
new leadership approaches (Wright, 2011).
In this paper, we argue for the establishment of a
public leadership theory that is supported by three
tenets, the principles of authentic, transformational,
and distributed leadership, to better equip public
managers to function in a crisis-laden complex
constitutional democracy. We then use data from
the Federal Human Capital Survey to examine
outcomes of effective leadership as they relate to
the principles of authentic, transformational, and
distributed leadership. We conclude the paper by
arguing that a leadership theory constituted by
these three tenets of leadership approaches can
provide a strong foundation for developing leadership roles and expectations in the public service.
We call for further investigation into the association
of these principles with the performance of public
organizations at federal, state, and local levels and
their usefulness in predicting changes in measurable
departmental outcomes.
THREE TENETS OF PUBLIC LEADERSHIP
A common thread in recent PA leadership research
has been leaders’ difficulty functioning effectively
in the complex environments that characterize the
modern public service, especially when faced with
a crisis or other organizational challenge. Riccucci
and Getha-Taylor (2009) refer to these complex
public service environments as the ‘new normalcy,’
a term that reflects the challenges public leaders face
in balancing operational priorities with unanticipated emergent needs, particularly in the setting of
markedly constrained resources and an increased
focus on performance (Ingraham, 2005). Although
effective leadership will be a crucial determinant of
public organizations’ success in adapting to their
changing environments (Hennessey, 1998; Ingraham,
2005), traditional approaches to public leadership are
increasingly ineffective (Chrislip and Larson, 1994).
Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
131
Ashby’s law of requisite variety (1958) predicts that
straightforward management and lower-level leadership skills will be inadequate in this ‘new normalcy’
that requires public leaders to effectively identify
and support the public’s interests (Jaques, 1976;
Avolio et al., 2000; Kellerman and Webster, 2001).
A number of leadership ideas and innovations
from the general leadership literature have been
developed to reflect and address these new requirements for leadership and whose application to the
public service should be considered (Trottier, et al.,
2008; Fernandez et al., 2010). Three of them are
especially of importance to address the unique
challenges faced by public managers and should
be incorporated into an overarching public leadership theory: the core democratic values of modern
public leaders; a transformational focus on enfranchising, developing, and retaining the highly skilled
knowledge-based professional workforce; and the
distributed nature of public leadership positions
that characterizes today’s public service. A new
public leadership theory supported by these three
key tenets recognizes the increasingly complex
structures and interrelationships within and between
public organizations, the increased levels of complexity, and the added constraints of a democratic system
with ambiguous goals in which public leaders must
grapple with, and the different legal underpinnings
and different core values compared with their
nonpublic colleagues. Combining these three areas
of emphasis into a single leadership theory provides
a solid foundation upon which public managers can
be trained, upon which they can exercise leadership,
and upon which expectations of leadership outcomes
can be based.
The first tenet of the new public leadership theory
focuses on the authentic values of leaders. Being the
most central quality for leaders, authentic values
constitute an essential component of leadership in
the public sphere, forming a bridge between discretion without which effective leadership is unlikely
and accountability that is essential for democracy.
As public leaders function in a dynamic and complex leadership environment, to maintain democratic principles, they must negotiate between the
Scylla and the Charybdis of discretion and accountability. Adequate discretion is the lifeblood of
leadership. It forms the substrate upon which leadership processes give birth to change and progress.
However, as the public bureaucracy increases in size
and complexity, the likelihood increases that public
leaders may abuse their discretionary latitude
when they encounter opportunities to design or
implement policy that disregards or contravenes
the public will (Fung, 2007). Increased access to
government officials as granted by the Administrative Procedure Act (1946) allows interest groups
to collaborate directly with leaders thus potentially circumventing public interest (Stewart, 1975).
Redford (1969) uses the term ‘overhead democracy’
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D. S. Kellis and B. Ran
to describe the flow of power from the electorate
to their elected representative, and thence to strictly
supervised appointed heads of administrative departments, thus implying discretion is ‘antidemocratic.’
Bertelli and Lynn (2003) support Redford’s contention that restricting managerial discretion in favor of
close supervision enhances democratic principles.
This idea is further supported by the diminished
democracy theory, which holds that the price of maintaining national sovereignty and integrated international markets is decreased influence by the polity
(Bezdek, 2000; Skocpol, 2004).
Leader discretion may still be compatible with
democratic principles if there is adequate accountability, but this can be problematic as well. Bovens
(2005) refers to accountability as the sine qua non
of democratic governance, explaining that public
leaders are the agents of electorate principals that
hold them accountable for effective and efficient
performance of electoral mandates (Prezeworksi
et al., 1999). Adequate accountability serves to
legitimize the public service (Bovens, 2005), protects
it from corruption and other destructive behavior
(Rose-Ackerman, 1999), and helps to improve
its performance through learning (Aucoin and
Heintzman, 2000). Nevertheless, in the excess,
accountability may result in worse performance
(Adelberg and Batson, 1978; Tetlock et al., 1989) as
government leaders become overly rigid, subject to
scapegoating, and become more focused on being
held accountable than on performing the task at
hand. Schneider (1999) posits a direct correlation
between the power of target groups and the degree
of accountability to which public servants providing
service are held, such as relatively lax accountability
of prison workers for their treatment of inmates.
Public leaders have traditionally been subject to
Weberian vertical accountability in which they
are accountable to their direct supervisor in the
bureaucratic chain of command (Bovens, 2005), a
relationship increasingly supplanted by horizontal
accountability to constituents. For example, media
coverage holds public leaders at all levels of government bureaucracy accountable directly to the
public for their actions and decision. Public–private
partnerships and other cooperative relationships
between multiple levels and divisions of government
reside outside the bounds of vertical bureaucratic
control and require more innovative horizontal
approaches to accountability such as contracting or
citizen-based oversight (McQuaid, 2010). New public
management-inspired privatization initiatives for the
provision of public services have been particularly
challenged to establish accountability (Mulgan,
2000; Trebilcock and Iacobucci, 2003; McQuaid, 2010).
Authentic leadership theory, a prototypical valuesbased leadership theory, creates a democratic space
between discretion and accountability by focusing
on and requiring transparency and consistency
between a leader’s values, ethics, and actions (Chan
Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
et al., 2005). Authentic leaders that have clarity of
understanding regarding their personal values and
ethical reasoning are inclined to develop positive
psychological states and are known for their integrity
(Gardner et al., 2005). They are ‘moral agents who
take ownership of and responsibility for the end
results of their moral actions and the actions of their
followers’ (Hannah et al., 2005, p. 47). As moral
leaders, they analyze moral issues through deontological (rules, laws, duties, norms), teleological
(utilitarian, consequence), and areteological (inherent
virtuousness) lenses. Authentic leaders have a deeper
understanding of and a greater ability to explain their
moral self in leadership events as the result of a
higher level of complex cognitive ability and of core
moral beliefs (Hannah, et al., 2005). Democracy and
democratic values are protected far better by the
internal moral compass of an authentic leader than
could be hoped for by the external imposition of
rules, laws, or values by politicians or the polity. By
focusing on the development and recognition of a
strong internal value system and accompanying
moral behavior, authentic leadership allows for the
greater discretion and lower levels of accountability encountered in modern public leadership
environments.
The second tenet of the new public leadership
theory extends first to the dyadic relationship
between leaders and followers and focuses on public
workers’ development and value as described by
transformational leadership theory. First proposed
as a counterweight to transactional leadership by
Burns (1978), it has been the subject of a large
volume of research and development. On the basis
of four relational leadership concepts, including
idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individual consideration,
transformational leadership recognizes the influence
of leaders’ relationships with their followers along
these four axes on outcomes of organizational initiatives. Bass expanded transformational leadership
framework to a ‘full range’ theory that includes
transactional leadership styles of laissez faire,
passive management by exception, active management by exception, and contingent reward, and
transformational leadership styles of individualized
consideration, idealized influence, intellectual stimulation, and inspirational motivation (Bass, 1996).
Trottier et al. (2008) showed that Bass’s expanded
concept of the transformational leadership accurately describes federal employees’ perception of
effective leadership. Transformational leaders exert
a strong effect on the ways in which workers
view their job (Piccolo and Colquitt, 2006), as well
as their engagement in change initiatives (Detert
and Burris, 2007). It is associated with improved
performance in both public and private contexts.
Considered a form of neo-charismatic leadership
by some authors, it combines the observed benefits
of traditional trait-based leadership (charisma) with
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Modern leadership principles
those of relational leadership to form an approach
to leadership often studied in the public service
literature, although this association is not constant
in the literature (Colbert et al., 2008; Jung et al.,
2008; Ling et al., 2008).
The third tenet of public leadership theory further
extends leadership to the distributed and networked
nature of modern public organizations. The infrastructure underlying delivery of public services
grows increasingly complex, often involving multiple partnerships, departments, levels of government and networks at any given time. Schneider
(2002) uses the term ‘radix’ to describe public,
nonprofit, and private organizations operating in
this complex environment and functioning as
flexible value chains and support activities for
customers. Characterized by structures such as
teams, alliances, contingent workers, and outsourcing arrangements and nonvertical power relationships, radix organizations reflect the complexity
that public organizations have assumed, such as
outsourcing arrangements of various services and
ambiguous power and authority infrastructure
(Schneider and Ingram, 1993; Schneider, 2002). Such
ambiguity requires new approaches to leadership
that transcend hierarchical traditions in favor of
more collaborative and interactive approaches. For
example, far from the hierarchical structure of traditional PA or new public management-inspired
market-based direct contracting for services, public
managers increasingly find themselves in networks
within and between different levels of government,
in relational contracts with private and nonprofit
entities and in partnerships with private and
nonprofit entities that have ambiguous lines of
authority and accountabilities (Osborne, 2010). These
networks, contracts, and partnerships transcend
political jurisdictions, require expertise well beyond
what elected politicians or the general electorate
possess, and are tasked with accomplishing crucial
mission objectives. Leadership in such institutions is
shared and distributed between the various components’ leaders, such that each individual leader must
collaborate with other leaders in the network to bring
about significant organizational change. This distributed nature of leadership is incorporated into stakeholder, shared, and integrated leadership theories.
Stakeholder or collaborative leadership theory
recognizes that organizational hierarchy has become
less important than interorganizational relationships
defined in multiple manners such as contracting
and alliances (Schneider, 2002) and that one person
is unlikely to possess all of the skills, knowledge,
and expertise needed by modern public organizations (Chrislip and Larson, 1994), thus creating a need
for public leaders to bring together diverse internal
and external stakeholders to address public concerns
(Chrislip and Larson, 1994; Freeman, 2000). It
emphasizes stakeholder value as the fundamental
aim of the organization as opposed to shareholder
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133
value and suggests that organizations must include
both internal and external stakeholders when making
strategic decisions (Freeman, 1984).The theory also
has a value basis as it requires leaders to act equitably
and ethically when resolving conflicting priorities
between different stakeholders (Evan and Freeman,
1988; Yukl, 2006). One form of stakeholder leadership
is shared leadership theory, which further characterizes leadership as a process in which individuals,
teams, or organizations exert influence on their environment. Cox et al. (2003) describe shared leadership
as a ‘collaborative, emergent process of group interaction through an unfolding series of fluid, situationally appropriate exchanges of lateral influence.’
Shared leadership does not call for a succession of
individuals to function as the group leader. Rather,
it places them simultaneously in the position of
sharing the influence and direction of the team or
organization. Shared leadership helps improve the
morale and satisfaction of employees in public as well
as private organizations (Sweeney, 1996; R. Denhardt,
1999). Kim (2002) confirmed a positive relationship
between job satisfaction and shared leadership in
local government agencies. Improved job satisfaction,
in turn, has been linked to lower absenteeism and
turnover (Pierce et al., 1991; Eby et al., 1999). Choi
(2009, p. 94) examined shared leadership in public
organizations and found that public employees often
participate in leadership in specific situations,
concluding that ‘organizational crisis, information
technology, innovative culture, and hierarchy of
position are significantly associated with shared
leadership’ in public organizations.
Essentially, the distributed nature of this tenet of
the new public leadership theory proposes that
public leaders are most effective when they focus on
organizational stakeholders, including employees
within their organization, citizens being served, partnering institutions involved in providing, or creating
the service, in addition to the leadership hierarchy in
their own organization. It encourages public leaders
to share leadership among these stakeholders as
required by the various contexts and circumstances
that arise, thereby creating a leadership process
rather than vesting all leadership responsibilities
and activities in a single person.
In summary, we propose a new public leadership
theory that combines salient features of authentic,
transformational, and distributed leadership theories;
proposing effective leadership in the public sector is
networked and often nonhierarchical, is based on
core values, and is more effective when utilizing
transformational rather than transactional principles.
These three tenets provide a basis for research into
leadership of a modern public sector characterized
by ambiguous boundaries between public, private,
and nonprofit organizations working in partnerships,
contracts, and collaboratives with unclear lines of
authority and accountability. It acknowledges the
existence and importance of a knowledge-based
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D. S. Kellis and B. Ran
public service motivated by individualized intellectual and inspirational influence rather than by more
prescriptive managerial approaches. It calls for strong
leadership in the public sector by transcending the
barriers of limited accountability and discretion,
placing the onus for appropriate orientation and
focus of leaders on their internal compass rather than
external regulations. Preliminary studies of each of
these individual theories suggest that they add value
to the public service; however, no study to date
has considered these three aspects of leadership
combined as part of a unified approach to leadership
in the public sector. To fill in this gap in literature, we
used the Federal Human Capital Surveys administered in 2006, 2008, and 2010 to examine the utility
of a comprehensive public leadership theory comprised of these three tenets.
FEDERAL HUMAN CAPITAL SURVEYS: AN
EMPIRICAL EXAMINATION OF THE THREE
TENETS
To examine the importance of the three tenets of
new public leadership theory in the public service,
we used data from the Federal Human Viewpoint
Survey (formally known as the Federal Human
Capital Survey) conducted biannually by the Office
of Personnel Management. This survey is used to
‘gauge the impressions of our civil servants and
seek out those areas where agencies are doing well
and where improvement is needed’ (Hager, 2008).
It is a ‘tool that measures employees’ perceptions
of whether and to what extend conditions characterizing successful organizations are present in their
agencies’ (OPM, 2008). The OPM randomly selects
over 400 000 individuals from among all full-time
permanent employees in participating federal agencies to participate in these surveys. They are conducted principally via the internet, although paper
copies of the survey are provided to individuals
lacking internet access. Employees are contacted
multiple times if needed to encourage completion
of the survey. The data are weighted to reflect under
or over representation of different response groups,
and response rates then undergo ‘raking’ to adjust
for demographic inequalities.
The leadership focus as well as the extensive
nature of this survey in terms of both the number
of federal employees and the number of public
organizations that participated in the survey makes
it an ideal source of information to examine the
different aspects of a new public leadership theory.
A number of authors have used some portion of this
data to investigate leadership in public organizations. Trottier et al. (2008) used the 2002 survey to
show the relative effectiveness of transformational
leadership as compared with transactional leadership approaches. Fernandez et al. (2010) used 2006
survey data to establish a link between integrated
Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
leadership and federal agency PART scores. Yang
and Kassekert (2010) used 2006 survey to show a
strong correlation between ratings by employees
and job satisfaction. Although these cross-sectional
researches on individual administration of the
survey has established a good indicator between
leadership and its effectiveness, what is missing yet
in literature is a longitudinal analysis of the effects
of the modern leadership principles comprised of
the salient features of authentic, transformational,
and distributed leadership theories.
For the purposes of this study, we used data from
the 2006, 2008, and 2010 surveys. Survey data was
obtained from the OPM website and included
results of the surveys for 45 Federal departments
in 2010 and 2008 and for 43 in 2006. The total data
points are 697 177 (263 475 for 2010, 212 223 for
2008, and 221 479 for 2006). The data consist of the
number of individuals in each department who
selected ‘strongly agree,’ ‘agree,’ ‘neither agree nor
disagree,’ ‘disagree,’ or ‘strongly disagree’ for each
question. Although each survey contained approximately 75 questions, we restricted our analysis to
the 55 questions that were common to all three of
the surveys. To obtain a score for each department
for each question, responses were weighted, with
‘strongly agree’ weighted 100, ‘agree’ weighted 80,
‘neither agree nor disagree’ weighted 60, ‘disagree’
weighted 40, and ‘strongly disagree’ weighted 20.
These weights were multiplied by the number of
individuals selecting that response, and the summation of the results was divided by the total number
of responses to obtain a total score.
To delineate the dependent variable, three categories of outcomes of effective leadership were identified (Appendix I). These categories include job
outcomes (five survey questions), organizational outcomes (three survey questions), and leader outcomes
(two survey questions). Job outcomes were derived
from questions in which respondents ranked their
overall satisfaction with their current positions.
Organizational outcomes were calculated from questions in which respondents indicated their perception
of their respective organization’s effectiveness and
success in achieving their designated mission. Leader
outcomes were measured from questions in which
respondents rated their leaders’ effectiveness in
directing the organization and in meeting the respondents’ expectations for appropriate leader behavior.
A combined outcomes score was obtained as an
additional dependent variable by combining the
results of all three outcome categories into a single
outcomes measure.
The three predictor question categories (Appendix I)
included transformational leadership (17 questions),
distributed leadership (four questions), and valuesbased leadership (10 questions). These categories
correspond to the subcomponents of the new public
leadership theory of transformational leadership,
distributed leadership, and authentic leadership.
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Modern leadership principles
Performing a backward elimination stepwise regression analysis of these predictive categories with the
outcomes measures yielded the following results
(Table 1).
As shown in Table 1, all three leadership
approaches were predictive of important aspects of
outcome measurements in these surveys. Transformational leadership was predictive of organizational
and leader-based outcomes in all three surveys as
well as when the three surveys were combined.
Distributive leadership approaches were predictive
of organizational outcomes in all three surveys and
of job-based outcomes in 2008 and 2010. Valuesbased leadership was predictive of all three outcome
measures (job, organizational, and leader) when the
three surveys were combined but was only predictive
of leader-based outcomes in 2006 and 2008 and of
job-based outcomes in 2006.
Predictive models for organizational and leaderbased outcomes had Pearson coefficients of 80 or
greater for all three surveys, suggesting strong
predictive values for the models. Job-based outcome
measures had Pearson coefficients between 48 and
62, which, although not as robust as the other outcome measures, support the predictive models.
Factor analysis is shown in Tables 2 and 3.
Cronbach’s alpha is greater than 0.9 for all predictive factors, suggesting strong reliability for these
factors’ measures (Carmines and Zeller, 1979).
Intrayear correlations between the factors for each
year’s surveys are positive and strong, supporting
the claim of construct validity for the surveys.
Interyear correlations are less strong, suggesting
analysis using combined data from the three
surveys is less robust.
DISCUSSION
This analysis of the Federal Human Capital Survey
results over a period of 6 years (three surveys) provides strong support for the new public leadership
theory and its application to the Federal workforce.
Outcomes or impact of leadership activities identified by the survey (job, organization, and leader)
were predicted by a leadership model that includes
authentic, transformational, and distributed leadership. For the overall model, transformational and
values-based leadership were most significantly
correlated with overall outcomes. However, considering each survey and each outcome separately
provided a more complex picture.
Job-related outcomes for all three surveys combined were best predicted by values-based leadership alone, which was also the case for the 2006
survey. However, in both 2008 and 2010, distributed
leadership scores were the only predictive factor for
job-related outcomes. Transformational leadership
did not predict job-related outcomes in either the
Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
135
combined results nor in any of the individual
surveys. This trend from a predictive effect of
values-based leadership in 2006 to a distributed
leadership effect in 2008 and 2010 was also seen
for the other individual outcome measures.
Leader outcomes were predicted by values-based
leadership variables in both 2006 and 2008 along with
transformational leadership effects but not in 2010,
when only transformational leadership was predictive of leader outcomes. Interestingly, the combined
outcomes had a significant but negative association
with distributed leadership. This suggests the possibility that Federal employees view leaders exercising
distributed leadership skills negatively or indicative
of weak or ineffective leadership as opposed to more
traditional approaches to leadership. The association
with transformational leadership styles indicates
that Federal employees place significant value on
personal development and engagement in the
various areas by their leaders.
Organizational outcomes were significantly correlated with values-based leadership in the combined
results but only with transformational and distributed leadership variables in the individual 2010, 2008,
and 2006 surveys. This suggests that the Federal
workforce places a value on distributed leadership
in the organizational setting, seeing the involvement
of a broader base of employees in leadership activities
as beneficial for their respective organizations,
perhaps because they perceived this greater involvement as more effective in achieving organizational
goals and mission. Similarly, transformational leadership skills were positively associated with organizational outcomes in all three surveys, again
suggesting that the Federal workforce perceived
individual development and engagement as beneficial in achieving organizational goals.
Values-based leadership assumed diminishing
importance as a predictor of outcome measures over
the course of the three surveys. In 2006, three of the
four outcome measures were significantly predicted
by values-based leadership scores, whereas in 2010,
none of the outcome measures were associated with
values-based leadership. Conversely, in 2006, only
one of the four outcomes measures was significantly
associated with distributed leadership as a predictor, whereas in 2008 and 2010, three of the four
outcome measures were associated with distributed
leadership. This drift away from values-based leadership towards distributed leadership as predictors
of the overall outcomes; job-based and leadershipbased outcomes over the course of the three surveys
raises important questions. It is possible that the
workforce perceived a strong values basis for their
respective leadership regardless of their perception
of the individual outcomes. Alternatively, it is
possible that the workforce changed their perception of the importance of values in their leaders in
favor of a greater expectation for distributed leadership approaches.
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136
Regression analysis of survey results
Category of outcomes
Combined results of three surveys
All outcome measures combined
Job-related outcome measures
Organization outcome measures
Leader outcome measures
Results of 2006 survey
Results of 2008 survey
Results of 2010 survey
TL: yes (1.145; p = 0.000)
DL: no
VB: yes (1.119; p = 0.000)
R2 = 70.0
TL: no
DL: no
VB: yes (0.988; p = 0.000)
R2 = 36.2
TL: yes (1.765; p = 0.000)
DL: no
TL: yes (0.967; p = 0.013)
DL: no
VB: yes (1.364; p = 0.001)
R2 = 83.5
TL: no
DL: no
VB: yes (1.041; p = 0.000)
R2 = 48.2
TL: yes (2.133; p = 0.000)
DL: yes (1.443; p = 0.001)
TL: yes (0.901; p = 0.09)
DL: yes (1.688; p = 0.000)
VB: no
R2 = 85.2
TL: no
DL: yes (1.379; p = 0.000)
VB: no
R2 = 61.9
TL: yes (1.815; p = 0.000)
DL: yes (1.818; p = 0.000)
TL: yes (1.402; p = 0.000)
DL: yes (0.731; p = 0.007)
VB: no
R2 = 87.0
TL: no
DL: yes (0.982; p = 0.486)
VB: no
R2 = 48.6
TL: yes (1.315; p = 0.000)
DL: yes (2.001; p = 0.000)
VB: no
R2 = 91.7
VB: yes (1.656, p = 0.001)
R2 = 66.5
TL: yes (1.97; p = 0.001)
DL: no
VB: yes (1.674, p = 0.004)
R2 = 61.9
VB: no
R2 = 86.2
TL: yes (1.683; p = 0.011)
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TL, transitional leadership; DL, distributed leadership; VB, values-based leadership.
‘Yes’: significant correlation of predictor with outcomes measure.
‘No’: correlation of predictor with outcomes not significant.
DL: no
VB: yes (2.075; p = 0.003)
R2 = 82.2
VB: no
R2 = 88.8
TL: yes (1.654; p = 0.043)
DL: no
VB: yes (2.473; p = 0.002)
R2 = 80.0
TL: yes (3.310; p = 0.000)
DL: no
VB: no
R2 = 87.2
D. S. Kellis and B. Ran
Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Table 1
Modern leadership principles
Table 2
Factor
2010 TL
2010 DL
2010 VB
2008 TL
2008 DL
2008 VB
2006 TL
2006 DL
2006 VB
137
Factor correlation
2010 TL
2010 DL
2010 VB
2008 TL
2008 DL
2008 VB
2006 TL
2006 DL
2006 VB
1.000
0.867
0.889
0.862
0.659
0.727
0.522
0.476
0.415
1.000
0.932
0.856
0.882
0.864
0.468
0.423
0.417
1.000
0.887
0.827
0.904
0.552
0.538
0.507
1.000
0.882
0.925
0.594
0.603
0.555
1.000
0.953
0.457
0.495
0.488
1.000
0.543
0.595
0.570
1.000
0.862
0.912
1.000
0.912
1.000
TL, transformational leadership; DL, distributed leadership; VB, values-based leadership.
Table 3
Means, standard deviations, and Cronbach’s
alpha for each of the predictive factors
Factor
Mean
Standard
deviation
Cronbach’s
alpha
2010 TL
2008 TL
2006 TL
2010 DL
2008 DL
2008 DL
2010 VB
2008 VB
2006 VB
71.27
71.16
70.65
71.64
72.60
72.25
73.58
73.55
72.54
2.94
2.90
2.68
2.70
2.76
2.50
2.91
3.15
2.91
0.9671
0.9608
0.9572
0.9145
0.9129
0.9040
0.9546
0.9208
0.9508
TL, transformational leadership; DL, distributed leadership; VB,
values-based leadership.
Descriptive statistics for values-based leadership
support the former conclusion. Responses to the
values-based leadership questions were not significantly different in any of the three surveys (2010 vs
2006, p = 0.097; 2010 vs 2008, p = 0.962; 2008 vs 2006,
p = 0.121). However, responses to values-based leadership questions were significantly higher (more
positive) than responses to transformational leadership questions in all three surveys (2010 mean value
responses were 73.6 compared with mean transformational responses of 71.6, p = 0.000; 2008 mean value
responses of 73.55 compared with mean transformational leadership values of 67.79, p = 0.000; and
2006 mean value responses of 72.5 compared with
mean transformational leadership values of 67.19,
p = 0.000) and were significantly higher than distributed leadership responses in 2010 (p = 0.001). In other
words, respondents gave uniformly highly positive
marks to values-based leadership questions in each
of the three surveys, reflecting a strong expectation
for values-based leadership regardless of their perception of their job, organization, or leadership
effectiveness.
The importance of distributed leadership was
also manifested in each of the three surveys. In each
survey, the scores for distributed leadership were
significantly higher than those for transformational
Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
leadership. In 2010, the mean for distributed leadership was 71.6 compared with a mean of 68.7 for
transformational leadership, p = 0.000. In 2008, the
mean for distributed leadership was 72.6 versus a
mean for transformational leadership of 67.8,
p = 0.000. In 2006, the mean for distributed leadership was 72.3 versus a mean for transformational
leadership of 67.2, p = 0.000. As with values-based
leadership, this implies a high expectation for and
perception of distributed leadership independent
of the performance of the organization, leadership,
or job satisfaction measures.
These results provide strong support for the combination of authentic, transformational, and distributed leadership approaches into a single cohesive
leadership theory for the public service. Using
survey respondents’ perceptions of their jobs,
organizations and leaders as indicators of success
of different leadership styles showed highly significant correlation of these three tenets with improved
performance of public organizations. The only comparative approach to leadership used in this study
was ‘contingent reward,’ in which employees are
rewarded for achieving certain outcomes or behaviors. In contrast to the findings by Trottier et al.
(2008), no correlation was found with any of the
outcome measures and this leadership approach.
Interestingly, these authors conducted their investigation using the 2002 Federal Human Capital
Survey and found that both transactional and
transformational leadership approaches provided a
strong basis for predicting different organizational
outcomes. It is possible that continued evolution of
the public service over the ensuing decade resulted
in a lower efficacy of transactional leadership.
If this were the case, it would give further support
to our contention that as the public service evolves
into a collection of radix organizations, different leadership styles and approaches will become necessary.
Traditional hierarchical production-oriented public
organizations may have been well-served by transactional leadership styles, but today’s complex public
organizations with ambiguous boundaries, diverse
and often unclear expectations of performance, and
J. Public Affairs 13, 130–141 (2013)
DOI: 10.1002/pa
138
D. S. Kellis and B. Ran
shifting concepts of accountability and discretion are
better served by a new approach to leadership as is
proposed by the new public leadership theory.
Although these results provide strong confirmatory evidence of the utility of the new public leadership theory, significant opportunities remain to
delve further into the mechanisms and implications
of this theory. For instance, a number of Federal
departments are outliers from either an outcome
perspective or from the perspective of correlating
various leadership approaches with specific outcomes. It would also be valuable to use outcomes
measures independent of the surveys to confirm the
effect of the theory, such as PART scores and
employee turnover. A third area of potential research
would be to test other leadership approaches in
public settings to compare their relative utility in
explaining successful or unsuccessful organizational
and/or employee outcomes.
There are, however, some potential limitations of
the current study. The empirical portion of this study
is based on responses to a questionnaire that has
remained relatively consistent over the period
examined by this study. Nevertheless, respondents
answering to questions could have conceivably been
influenced by environmental or political factors not
covered by the study. High values of Cronbach’s
alpha for each of the predictive variables suggest a
reasonable degree of internal validity for the use of
these variables. Some have posited that causality
cannot be established through nonexperimental
research methods such as questionnaires (StoneRomero, 2009). Examples of problems with questionnaire-based research include common method bias,
in which survey respondents supply both the predictive as well as the outcome variables, acquiescence
effects in which respondents either agree or disagree
with Likert inventories, and low response rates
(Bryman, 2011). These difficulties are mediated to an
extent by the large size of the Human Capital survey
samples, the high response rates obtained, the diversity of the respondents (i.e., originating from multiple
federal departments, bureaus, and centers), and the
longitudinal nature of this study using multiple
administrations of the survey over a period of several
years. Few disagree that an experimental approach to
studying public leadership would be more robust;
the logistical difficulties involved in such an undertaking would, however, be considerable.
CONCLUSION
On the basis of our discussion and findings, we call
for further research and development of a new public
leadership theory comprised of the transformational,
distributed, and values-based leadership principles
to the field of PA. The highly complex environment
facing many public organizations cannot be successfully managed using traditional leadership techniques.
Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The public managers of tomorrow will need these
skills and insights to carry out their public service
mandates. We demonstrated a strong correlation
between the tenets of the new public leadership
theory and positive organizational outcomes as measured by the Federal Human Capital Survey over
a period of 6 years. Our findings provide strong
support for the concept of a combined values-based,
transformational, and distributed approach to public
leadership. We predict that public leaders are most
effective in meeting the expectations of public service
employees and thereby able to obtain greater organizational efficacy when they combine authentic
values-based leadership with a willingness and
ability to share leadership responsibilities with
internal and external stakeholders, and an ability to
effectively engage individual employees through
intellectual stimulation, inspirational motivation,
idealized influence, and individual consideration.
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APPENDIX I: SURVEY QUESTION
CATEGORIES FOR THE VARIABLES
1. Job outcomes
a. My work gives me a feeling of personal
accomplishment
b. I like the kind of work I do.
c. The work I do is important
d. Considering everything, how satisfied are
you with your job?
e. Considering everything, how satisfied are
you with your pay?
2. Organization outcomes
a. The skill level in my work unit has improved
in the past year
b. My agency is successful in accomplishing its
mission
c. Considering everything, how satisfied are
you with your organization?
3. Leader outcomes
a. I have a high level of respect for my organization’s senior leaders
b. How satisfied are you with the policies and
practices of your senior leaders?
4. Transformational leadership categories
a. Promotions in my work unit are based on
merit
b. In my work unit, steps are taken to deal with
a poor performer who cannot or will not
improve
c. In my work unit, differences in performance
are recognized ina a meaningful way
d. Awards in my work unit depend on how
well employees perform their job
e. Creativity and innovation are recognized
f. Pay raises depend on how well employees
perform their jobs
g. How satisfied are you with the recognition
you receive for doing a good job?
h. I am given a real opportunity to improve my
skills in my organization.
i. I have enough information to do my job well
j. I have sufficient resources to get my job done
k. My talents are used well in the workplace
l. My performance appraisal is a fair reflection
of my performance
m. My supervisor supports my need to balance
work and other life issues
n. Supervisors/team leaders in my work unit
support employee development
J. Public Affairs 13, 130–141 (2013)
DOI: 10.1002/pa
Modern leadership principles
o. How satisfied are you with the training you
receive for you present job?
p. I know how my work relates to the agency’s
goals and priorities
q. My training needs are assessed
r. I feel encouraged to come up with new and
better ways of doing things
s. In my organization, leaders generate high
levels of motivation and commitment in the
workforce
t. Managers communicate the goals and priorities of the organization.
u. Managers review and evaluate the organization’s progress toward meeting its goals and
objectives.
v. How satisfied are you with the information
you receive from management on what’s
going on in your organization?
w. My workload is reasonable
x. Physical conditions allow employees to
perform their jobs well
5. Distributed leadership
a. How satisfied are you with your involvement
in decisions that affect your work?
Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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141
b. Employees have a feeling of personal empowerment with respect to work processes
c. Employees in my work unit share job knowledge with each other.
d. The people I work with cooperate to get the
job done
6. Values-based leadership
a. My organization’s leaders maintain high
standards of honesty and integrity
b. Managers/supervisors/team leaders work
well with employees of different backgrounds.
c. I have trust and confidence in my supervisor.
d. Policies and programs promote diversity in
the workplace
e. Employees are protected from health and
safety hazards on the job
f. My organization has prepared employees for
potential security threats
g. Arbitrary action, personal favoritism and
coercion for partisan political purposes are
not tolerated.
h. Prohibited practices are not tolerated
i. I am held accountable for achieving results
j. I can disclose a suspected violation of any law,
rule or regulation without fear of reprisal.
J. Public Affairs 13, 130–141 (2013)
DOI: 10.1002/pa