Leadership

This study rejects the hierarchical perspective of traditional leadership approaches in public administration. The hierarchical perspective tends to treat public managers at the top as leaders, public employees at the bottom as followers, and leadership as management. This study proposes shared leadership as an alternative to traditional leadership approaches. In theory, shared leadership is not about a hierarchical position but about a mutually shared process that occurs throughout public organizations. The literature has made assertions that shared leadership emerges from horizontal organizations, adaptable cultures, and turbulent environments. However, little research has been conducted to test the effects of these organizational dimension variables on shared leadership in either the public or private sector. This study is a first step to examine the multiple relationships among organizational structure, culture, and context and shared leadership. It is also a first attempt to measure the concept of shared leadership. This study presents case-based empirical research. The study collects data from public employees across the bottom and the top of Broward County government in Florida because the study asserts that every public employee, regardless of hierarchical position, can be a public leader and display leadership. The data was collected using a mail survey of 261 public employees in the county government. Multiple regression analysis was conducted to test the conceptual model developed in this study. The model consists of five hypothesized positive relationships (hierarchy of position, functional specialization, supportive culture, technology, and organizational crisis), five hypothesized negative relationships (hierarchy of authority, centralization, bureaucratic and innovative cultures, and organizational size), and one positive or negative control variable (gender) with shared leadership. The results show that organizational crisis, technology, innovative culture, and hierarchy of position variables are significantly and positively associated with shared leadership. Public employees' perceptions of shared leadership are partially explainable from organizational structure, culture, and context factors. Indicating that shared leadership occurs in the perceptions of street-level public employees, this study implies that the horizontal and hierarchical perspectives on leadership coexist in bureaucratic organizations. This study concludes that every public employee displays leadership and is a public leader.

This study explored the question, "What is the experience of being a leader during participation in a ropes course program and at work?" The ropes course as a training medium provides opportunities for people to engage in challenging activities to improve interpersonal skills. From ten ropes course programs and 130 participants, the researcher purposefully selected thirteen co-researchers who exhibited pre-determined leadership behaviors. Dialogue with each co-researcher provided rich descriptions and metaphors about the experience of being a leader. Using heuristic research methods, the researcher analyzed the data and uncovered redundant themes to better understand the phenomenon of being a leader. While each experience was unique, the composite encompassed the principles of several leadership theories. The significant meaning revealed was that being a leader was a big responsibility and it provided opportunities to transform and be transformed, which was enjoyable, rewarding and sometimes frustrating. Six major findings emerged from the inquiry. The first related to the concept of leaderless groups and emergent leaders. A leader emerged from each of the leaderless groups that started on the ropes course. The second finding was that the experiences of leading on the ropes course and at work closely mirrored each other. The third finding represented the major difference between being a leader on the ropes course and being a leader at work. The ropes course provided a setting for participants to experience being transformational leaders, without the ramifications of office politics, transactions and economic pressures. The fourth finding was that managing followers was the single most frustrating aspect of the experience of being a leader. All of the frustrations occurred when the values and principles espoused by leaders and followers were not aligned. The fifth finding was that the experience of being a leader was holistic because it encompassed who the individuals were, how they performed in two different settings, what feelings this evoked and what significance it held for them. The sixth finding revealed that trait, style, situational, transformational and visionary leadership theories are not mutually exclusive. The study findings serve as a guide for practitioners to design more meaningful leadership development programs.

Procedure. The Ideal Leader Behavior Description Questionnaire (ILBDQ) was the instrument used with 516 respondents in this study. The ILBDQ provided an Initiating Structure score and Consideration score for each respondent. Findings. On a statewide basis, among participants, no significant differences in perception were observed at the .05 level of confidence except for high school principals on the Consideration dimension. Also, certain significant differences were observed between some regions and within some regions. Differences were noted by years of academic experience, degree earned, age of respondent, and/or position held. Recommendations. (1) Incorporate variables of administrative level, region, years of experience, degree, and age in the development of principal competencies. (2) Initiate follow-up studies using the same methods to determine the impact of competency training. Include elementary and middle school principals and compare results. (3) Investigate the regions that are most widely divergent and explore the cause(s) of divergence. (4) Initiate a follow-up study of a comparison of the items on the ILBDQ with the Florida principal competencies.

Problem. This study sought to answer the following research questions: (1) Is there a difference between the expectations of district administrators, teachers, and principals concerning the leader behavior dimension of Initiating Structure of the elementary school principal? (2) Is there a difference between the expectations of district administrators, teachers, and principals concerning the leader behavior dimension of Consideration of the elementary school principal? Procedures. Forty-five elementary school principals, forty-five teachers, and forty-five district administrators constituted the sample for the study. The Ideal Leader Behavior Description Questionnaire developed at Ohio State University was utilized to gather data. The research instrument yielded scores for each respondent along two subscales or dimensions, namely, Initiating Structure and Consideration. The statistical technique of one-way analysis of variance was used with the .05 level of significance selected upon which to evaluate the results. In addition, items were ranked according to importance as indicated by the responses of individuals in each group. Findings. (1) District administrators, teachers, and principals did not differ significantly in their expectations concerning the ideal leader behavior dimensions of Initiating Structure or Consideration of the elementary school principal. (2) District administrators, teachers, and principals expected the ideal principal to exhibit moderately high levels of Initiating Structure and Consideration. (3) Examination of item responses revealed dissimilarities as well as similarities between the expectations of the groups concerning the ideal principal. Recommendations. Research could be conducted to determine: (1) if moderately high Initiating Structure and Consideration behaviors are actually being exhibited by the principals as is expected by the reference groups, (2) the degree of relationship existing between the expectations of teachers and the principal in school centers, (3) if teachers in particular situational environments have different expectations for the ideal principal than do teachers in other environments, (4) if principals with particular leader behavior preferences are observed as being more effective in certain situations, and (5) why respondents expect the principal to behave in certain ways.

This dissertation investigated the problem of short-term tenure of city managers as an indicator of the appropriate "fit" between the personality types and leadership styles of city managers and the city councils they serve. Moving from theory to practice in public administration, this research presents findings, not offered to date, based on a rigorous, nation-wide study of city managers. The study focuses on years of service - tenure of city managers as a function of the city managers' personality types, leadership styles, and perceptions of support from their city councils. Results of the study were generated through an analysis of data collected in a national survey of city managers, endorsed by the Executive Director of the International City/County Management Association (ICA), using three self-administered instruments: a general demographic city manager questionnaire, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator(RTM)-Form G (MBTI(RTM) Form G), and the Leader Behavior Analysis II(RTM)-Self (LBAII(RTM)-Self). A theoretical model, "Fit," was created and tested, and the variable relations were found to be statistically significant. The findings revealed that "Fit," measured as years of service - tenure, is a function of the manager's leadership effectiveness and personality compatibility with the orientation and expectations of the city council as indicated by the annual performance evaluation. The findings were tested through predicted values and were confirmed through three case studies of city managers, with long tenure, and their city councils in small, medium, and large cities. Independent variables found to significantly affect, positively or adversely, the dependent variable, years of service - tenure, were: leadership effectiveness scores; personality type dimensions, Introverted (I) and Perceiving (P); and city council perceptions measured by city-council-conducted performance evaluations of the city manager. Other statistically significant independent variables include: experience of the city manager; total number of cities the city manager has served; the manager's age and race; and demographic information of the city in which the city manager serves, such as median household income, cities with a predominant white population, and the percentage of population not born in the United States of America. The "Fit" Model provides a meaningful tool for present and future city managers to become conscious of their respective personality type and dominant leadership style in relationship to the culturally heterogeneous cities they lead and manage. Armed with such awareness, city managers can be empowered with the knowledge of whether they are "appropriately fitted" with the city councils and the citizens they serve.

In this dissertation, a theoretical framework is developed from Camilla Stivers' (2002) argument that images of expertise, leadership and virtue are used to defend public administration's legitimacy in the face of criticisms about the inefficiencies of government and the power wielded by bureaucrats. Stivers argues that these legitimizing and traditional images have historical and cultural roots in ideas associated with masculinity, and that this harms women in the public sector. The realm of policing faced similar criticisms and defended its legitimacy by altering practices, the day-to-day actions of police practitioners. The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the possibility that police practitioners have defended their legitimacy on the same basis as public administrators have done by offering images of expertise, leadership and virtue, which Stivers (2002) claims are deeply gendered. Using Ethnographic Content Analysis (ECA), imagery is qualitatively examined using using Stivers' (2002) descriptions of characteristics, qualitiers, values and actions that she associates with images of expertise, leadership and virtue... Masculine images of virtue portray the police as dedicated and committed professionals who protect the citizenry through laudable programs and initiatives. Masculine images of leadership are less prevalent, but consistently portray the police as controlling and direction-setting visionaries. Alternative imagery patterns include leadership images more aligned with femininity, such as collaboration and cooperation. Throughout the thirty-one years, these patterns of images are observed, despite differences in practices associated with the three paradigms of policing.