Answer to Question #316358 in History for Nickname

Question

Need an article review on topic of A model of political leadership by Kevin Morrell and Jean Hartley.

Please address all 7 components listed below in article review:

(1) how the topic relates to the principles of the social sciences, (2) the study's research questions or hypotheses, (3) the types of research methods used, (4) the types of data and analysis done, (5) how concepts discussed in class relate to the article, (6) how the topic relates to the challenges, concerns, and contributions of marginalized groups, and (7) the overall contributions of the studies to society.

Answer 1

In today’s interconnected and interdependent world, public leadership has to

be more than just leading public sector organizations. ‘Wicked’ problems that

cross organizational boundaries can only be addressed successfully by networks of

public, private and non-profit organizations, community groups and citizens and

other inter-organizational arrangements (see Chapter 15).

Public leaders are required to manage the consequences of ‘austerity’ measures

that feature in the fiscal policies of many governments, involving unprecedented

programs of public spending cuts. The leadership challenges are not simply

balancing the budget in the short term - new institutional responses and new

strategies have had to be developed.

 In this context, public managers are expected to ration or cut services (often

with great impact on vulnerable groups), and restructure public services leading to

de facto privatization. The unprecedented scale and speed of these public

expenditure cuts has created ethical pressures whereby many feel that they have to

make decisions at odds with their professional and moral values. The leadership

challenge in working to develop public support for new strategies can be described

as ‘moving beyond magical thinking’ (Callahan, 2012) that previously expected

increased public services while simultaneously rejecting increased fees or taxes.

In order to solve complex problems, public leaders have to be able to initiate

concerted action not only within their own organizations but among stakeholders

with different and competing interests. A shift to viewing leaders as facilitators of

stakeholder and civic engagement implies that hierarchical and formal forms of

authority do not fully explain the contemporary features of public leadership.

As there are varied, multifaceted challenges in the public sector, likewise there is no

one perspective that fully defines leadership (Yukl, 2002). It is better to see

leadership as a complex multifaceted phenomenon. The complexities of leadership

are driven both internally by personal learning and developing resilience, as well as

externally by the variedness of people, organizations and institutions (Bennis,

2009).

The complex interactions between power and organizational politics

profoundly impact understanding about how leadership works, or does not work.

The authority, power and legitimacy of leaders are potentially contestable, and

conflict suffuses organizational functioning. This applies especially to public

services where it is difficult to see the ‘bottom line’, and where there is much scope

for disagreement on aims and means. There is always a political (small ‘p’)

dimension to leadership: organizational members will often seek ‘… to mobilize

support for or against policies, rules, goals, or other decisions in which the

outcome will have some effect on them.’ (Robbins, 1987, p. 194).

The formal authority that goes with a leader’s role is an important, usually

hierarchically based, source of power (note that formal authority may be an

attribute of a team, board or committee, not just a person). However, formal role

authority is just one power base for organizational leadership. Burnes (2000, pp.

178–9) lists four other kinds:

• coercive power – the threat of negative consequences should
• compliance not be forthcoming;
• remunerative power – the promise of material rewards as inducements

to cooperate;

• normative power – the allocation and manipulation of symbolic rewards,;
• knowledge-based power – the control of unique information needed to

make decisions.

Leadership occurs through groups as well as highly placed individuals. Power is

more diffuse than we might imagine, and does not operate only through orthodox

hierarchy. A corollary is that leadership is exercised in a political environment – a

seen and unseen network of relations and tactics that people employ to either

commit to, or dissent from, decisions that affect them. Effective leadership in a

political environment often calls for working with opposition and/or embracing

dissent.

The growth of performance targets and other managerialist approaches may create more ‘macho’ – individualistic and competitive – organizational cultures. In addition it is likely that traditional so-called ‘male’ command-and-control assumptions about leadership are perpetuated by the emphasis on ‘strong’ leadership in the ‘modernizing government’ agenda. A consequent question facing junior women managers is whether opportunity for promotion in an organization is real, or as found in an in-depth research of a large US public organization, the reality was more an ‘illusion of opportunity’ (Ospina, 1996).

The tensions began almost as soon as Labor got into power. Some permanent secretaries departed at the earliest possible moment. Senior press officers went even more quickly. The clashes seemed to subside, but, in reality, they just faded from public view.

References

Gary A. Yukl (2002), Leadership in organizations. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Sonia Ospina (1996), Illusion of opportunity: employee expectations and workplace inequality. Ithaca: ILR of Cornell University Press

Stephen Robbins (1987), Organization theory: concepts, controversies and applications. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Yiannis Gabriel (1999), Organizations in Depth. London: Sage. John Greenwood (2000), ‘Should the civil service become fully politicized?’, in Lynton Robins and Bill Jones (eds.), Debates in British politics today. Manchester: Manchester University Press: 63–77.