Who are leading? A survey of organizational context explaining leadership behaviour of managers and non-managerial employees in public organizations

Changing bureaucratic structures and increasing collaboration within public service delivery create new questions for leadership. With formal authority becoming more dispersed and various actors increasingly involved, revised expectations as to who contributes to organizational coordination are emer...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPublic management review Vol. 26; no. 4; pp. 1083 - 1107
Main Authors van der Hoek, Marieke, Kuipers, Ben S.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Abingdon Routledge 02.04.2024
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
Behavior
boundaryless organization
Bureaucracy
bureaucratic structure
Coordination
environmental complexity
formal leadership position
Government employees
Leadership
leadership behaviour
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Summary:Changing bureaucratic structures and increasing collaboration within public service delivery create new questions for leadership. With formal authority becoming more dispersed and various actors increasingly involved, revised expectations as to who contributes to organizational coordination are emerging. We investigate how both managers and non-managerial employees use leadership behaviours and how characteristics of the organizational context affect their engagement in leadership. Analyses of survey data collected among public servants (n = 1,266) in the Netherlands show that employees both with and without formal leadership positions demonstrate more leadership behaviour in situations of higher environmental complexity, but the latter group faces more bureaucratic constraints.
ISSN:1471-9037
1471-9045
DOI:10.1080/14719037.2022.2160005