EXECUT1VE LEADERSHIP:

THE SOCIAL AND POLITICAL CONTEXT

 

The major element added to the environment of public organizations is the political context in which they exist. Bureau executives - whether appointed from outside or chosen from within must understand the larger context of leadership, that which goes beyond the internal functions of the organization and includes the larger social universe in which the bureau must operate While they cannot ignore the internal operations of the bureau, they must focus primarily on the larger institutional issues. The coin of the realm in the public sector is influence. Influence is gained through the skillful playing of the game called politics,  and  power is the reward received by the most skillful players. As has been pointed out by many students of public policy process, bureaucrats and especially bureaucratic leaders at the upper levels of the hierarchy are in an enviable position as the political game is played, as they have several advantages longevity, expertise, information and so on) that are inherent to their trade (Rourke 1984; Jones 1977; Lindblom 1980) Executive level leaders in the public/political environment must recognize the importance of the various elements of political leadership, know how these elements can be used and misused, and then develop expertise in using them.

 

Of course the use of influence (and its resulting power) operates in three different environments. Leaders obviously use these skills inside the organization. We will examine them later in this chapter, but here we shall primarily note how these skills are applied in the political system and the larger social system. In the political system several types of power are needed, depending on what part of the system is being addressed at the moment. Political parties, for example, are important actors in the political process, as are interest groups and the other parts of our federal system. Executive‑level leaders must understand, how these various parts fit into the larger political system, how they help to guarantee the more basic democratic goals of society, and how to work with each of them.

 

Before political understanding can develop however, it is essential for leaders to comprehend the larger social context in which the political activity occurs. Major social values change over time. For example, a struggle has been going on for years between groups with different interpretations of how economic resource development and distribution should take place in society. One segment of society (made up of a variety of interest groups banded together for a wide variety of reasons) supports the handling of economic issues through the private sector, while another segment believes the government should play a predomi­nant role in determining major economic questions, such as where cru­cial development efforts should go and how economic resources should            be distributed among the citizenry. Between these two extremes are sev­eral other groups that tend to move back and forth across them, de­pending on the particular economic and social situation at any given time. As the predominant coalition changes so does the role of the pub­lic bureaucracy's leaders. Bureaucracy leaders must be sensitive to societal, political, and bureaucratic values - all of which will undoubtedly vary to at least a limited extent, but often dramatically—and then run their bureaus and tailor their own leadership roles according to the parameters created by the larger universe that they are supposed to serve.

 

A bureau executive may have to take a variety of external factors (factors outside of his or her control) into account in making a decision about what leadership style to use. One question to be considered is "What is the political climate"? It was the impression of many public sector servants during the early part of the Regan administration that the anti-bureaucratic climate would make it easy for political appointees to move into offices and ride roughshod over the employees know in Washington vernacular as "bureaucrat bashing". In some cases, such as the attempt to close down the Economic Development Administration within the Department of Commerce, the administrator appeared to be­ believe that all the employees were lazy and probably not to be trusted; therefore, he felt that the best way to shut down the program was to tear it apart procedurally and structurally. While he ultimately failed, it was apparently his opinion that the political climate at least allowed such behavior and perhaps rewarded it. On the other hand, in a few cases, such as the closing of the Office of Economic Opportunity, Dwight Ink, the administrator, was able to carry out the mandate to shut down the program in a way that allowed the employees to go with dignity and recognized the feelings of everyone related to the program. In these cases, an administrator's personal predilections probably influenced how s/he interpreted the political environment.

 

Managing the Public Sector

 

Public managers who have been with their chief for more than once term - perhaps for years - have developed their own views of the chief's management ability and style. Typical, however, given the limited tenure of both chiefs and managers, the public manager finds himself or herself working for a new chief - often an inexperienced one.

 

From the point of view of the public manager two types of newly elected chiefs are typically encountered: the generals and the policymakers.

 

The "generals" know that the job has to do with the running government and that management is involved somehow with getting programs going and making things work. But this chief does not really understand the process of implementation. The general sees management as a rather simple military exercise where the general tell the subordinates and the subordinates tell the troops until something finally gets done. This chief sees the problems as one of being demanding and tough of giving enough orders that everyone gets the message and performs. These qualities may be admirable, buy they are hardly sufficient to make government work.

 

While the general's style may work in the military (and it sometimes fails there), it certainly does not work well in the civilian part of the public sector. In the military the commander controls all or most of the resources needed to complete the task at hand. But in the public sector the chief rarely if ever has such unilateral control. In addition, the resources public managers do not control are usually circumscribed by civil service rules, union agreements, and revenue levels. Furthermore, chief elected officials have no brig for the discipline of unruly or disloyal subordinates.

 

The general does not realize that, in government, implementation is very tough. It is one thing to decide that prison overcrowding must end but quite another to make it happen. Nothing is more disheartening to a public manager than to deliver a particularly tough program or project in one year, only to have the chief announce at the outset that something will take six months when it cannot possibly be done in less than a year. Educating the generals about the realities of public management is an especially frustrating task for managers.

 

The second type of novice chief is the policymaker. For the policymaker, implementation and management are simply not considered an important part of the chief's responsibility. This chief does not really understand that he or she runs a complex organization, with money, people, and facilities which must be made to perform effectively. Policymakers typically come from legislative backgrounds - they see the job of chief as doing what they did before, only in a bigger way. The policymaker holds this view for a number of reasons: because it is more comfortable, because management may seem boring because the chief does not really believe that anything can be dine in the public sector anyway, or because the chief simply knows no better.

 

In another vein, at one time many public executives had a very cavalier attitude toward equal opportunity issues. Now such an attitude toward hiring, promotion, and sexual or racial harassment is a guaran­tee of almost instantly being in political hot water. The political climate

has changed.

 

Another question is "What is the resource base, or the perception of the public and politicians about the availability of resources"?  Not too many years ago, the public sector in the united States appeared to oper­ate under the assumption that resources were readily available and that

they would continue to grow in abundance. This attitude affected the values of all of the actors in the political arena and made growth and the development of new programs a goal that was accepted by both politician and bureaucrat. Today the attitude has changed, and the values

operating among politicians, citizens, and bureaucrats have changed accordingly. With the current emphasis on cutting back programs, limiting growth, and increasing efficiency, any leader who wishes to be successful must operate with these goals in mind.

 

A third question about external political factors is "What is the potential for  mobilizing support for this program"? This question is another example of how political feasibility affects the style of leadership. Some segments of the political environment always seem to be well or­ganized and easily mobilized.  Big business and labor are equally well organized, and while each has its particular strengths and weaknesses, leaders of the public bureaucracy must reckon with both any time issues affecting their interests are involved. These groups can be mobilized to fight for or against those issues, and the bureau 1eader/can anticipate their cooperation or resistance, as the case may be.  Welfare recipients may be much harder to mobilize; thus, the leadership style used and the alternatives that are open may be limited. This does not mean that there are no opportunities to use one's leadership style and mobilizing talents; rather, it means that imagination and political savvy must be combined in finding other ways to get the important points about the particular welfare program across to the significant actors in the external environ­ment, and that a management style acceptable to both those inside and outside the organization must be employed. In other words:

 

If leaders are rigid, inflexible, and unimaginative in adjusting their preferred styles to the challenges they face, they have very seriously limited their chances of implementing their policy options. Hence, the final and most crucial ingredient in effective policy implementation involves

the personal component of leadership. (Nakamura and Smallwood, 1980, 167)

 

While flexibility and imagination are required, it is also important to note that institutional leaders must always fulfill four functions that are integral to the leadership position. Those functions, as enumerated by Philip Selznick, are:

 

1. the definition of institutional mission and role (i.e., the cre­ative task of getting goals).  

 

2. The institutional embodiment of purpose (i.e., the capacity to build policy into an organization's social structure).

           

3. The defense of institutional integrity (i.e., maintaining values and institutional identity).

 

4. The ordering of internal conflict (i.e., reconciling the struggle among competing interests) (1957, 56‑64).

                       

In other words, leaders in the political arena must carry out their duties in a way that is congruent with the environment in which they are working. Scholars have attempted to describe how bureau leaders accomplish this task in the "implementation" literature. Nakamura and Smallwood, for example, point out a set of "political" problems faced by public leaders that are ignored by traditional organization theory/management behavior literature, but that cannot be ignored by the leader of a bureau. Traditional management behavior literature tends to look inward, with the emphasis on improving the internal structure and functioning of the bureau. Policy/implementation literature stresses the importance of understanding the external factors that influence a leader's ability to carry out the four functions described by Selznick.  Nakamura and Smallwood argue that there are five kinds of policy implementers: classical technocrats, instructed delegates, bargainers, discretionary experimenters, and bureaucratic entrepreneurs. These are the roles of bureau executives (see Figure 8‑3).

 

While Nakamura and Smallwood are arguing that particular leaders tend to operate in one of these five models, it can also be argued that successful bureau leaders adopt different styles of leadership over the years, depending on the prevailing assumptions of their  political leaders, their clientele, the interest groups that are watching their actions, and the general public. These changes may occur gradually as the public's perception of the role of government shifts, or they may occur rapidly when a new administration comes into power. We can certainly see

change if we look back to the 1960s at Johnson's Great Society and com­pare it to the Reagan administration's attitude toward the role of the fed­eral government. (This comparison is especially interesting and tells us [continued after figure 8-3]

 

FIGURE 8-3  Five kinds of policy implementers

 

Classical Technocrats. Implementers have some technical discretion, but their power to make any overall policy decisions is very strictly limited.

 

Basic Assumptions:

Policymakers delineate clear goals and implementers support those goals. 

Policymakers establish a hierarchical command structure and delegate technical authority to specific implementers to carry out their goals.

                        Implementers have the technical capabilities to achieve the goals.

 

Instructed Delegates. Implementers have more power to determine the means that will be employed to achieve the policymakers' goals.

 

Basic Assumptions:

Policymakers delineate clear goals and implementers agree on the desirability of those goals.

Policymakers instruct one or more groups of implementers to achieve the goals, and delegate discretionary administrative authority to those implementers.

Implementer have the technical, administrative, and negotiating capabilities to achieve the goals.

 

Bargainers. Implementers' power position vis‑a‑vis policymakers increases dramatically

because they can exercise considerable clout through threats of noncompliance and non­

 implementation.

 

                        Basic Assumptions:

                        Formal policymakers delineate policy goals.

Policymakers and implementers do not necessarily agree between (or among) themselves on the desirability of those goals.

Implementers bargain with policy makers and with each other over both goals and means.

 

Discretionary Experimenters. Implementers experience a dramatic delegation of power away from policymakers and toward themselves.

 

                        Basic Assumptions:

Formal support abstract general goals but are unable to articulate them

                        clearly owing to lack of knowledge and/or other uncertainties.

The policymakers delegate broad discretionary powers to implementers to refine the goals and to develop the means to accomplish them.

                        Implementers are willing and able to perform these tasks.

 

 

Bureaucratic Entrepreneurs. Power is shifted to implementers because they generate and control information, have continuity so they can outlast and wear down policymakers, and have and use entrepreneurial and political skills that allow them to dominate policy formulation.

 

                        Basic Assumptions:

Implementers formulate their own policy goals and marshal sufficient power to con­vince the formal policymakers to adopt those goals.

Implementers negotiate with policymakers to secure the means necessary to achieve their own policy goals.

                        Implementers are willing (and able) to carry out their policy goals.

 

a lot about the change in general public attitudes when we remember that Reagan, in his 1980 political campaign, during which he ran on a       basically antigovernment and antipublic service theme, constantly appealed to the spirit of  Franklin D. Roosevelt, father of the New Deal.)

The important factor, however, is the leader's ability to test and measure the political environment and then chose the leadership style that       will best meet the needs of his or her bureau and of the public in general.  After all, it is the pub ic that the bureau serves.

 

An alternative and more traditional vision of leadership, but one that addresses an important element of being an executive in the public sector, is presented by Jame Mac Gregor Burns (1978) in his discussion of the roles transactional leadership and transformational leadership.  The more common transactional leader serves as an agent of interaction and "commerce" between the various individuals within groups and be­tween the various groups in society.  Through the control and encour­agement of transactions involving resources, information, and other factors of importance to society, these leaders help to keep society func­tioning in a relatively smooth way and to ensure that goods and services are created and used in some sort of rational pattern. (No judgment is intended about the rightness or wrongness of the logic on which "ration­ality" is based since it can mean totally different things in different soci­eties.)

 

The transformational role is the one that Burns feels is most often ignored in modern studies of  leadership, and he attempts to examine this role in detail-both its positive and negative aspects. Transforma­tional leaders help individuals, groups, and societies to recognize and, achieve their higher and more humane aspirations, thereby moving human understanding and enterprise to a new moral and ethnic level. ­ While, in the total societal context, there are relatively few cases of transformational leadership, the few that existed take on significant and collective proportions historically, but at the time and point of action, leadership is intensely individual and personal.  "The essence of leader­ship in any polity is the recognition of real need, the uncovering and ex­ploiting of contradictions among values and between values and prac­tice, the realigning of values, the reorganization of institutions where necessary, and the governance of change" (Burns 1978, 43).

 

Such actions require an individual who can be cognizant of several pressures and movements at one time; further, more than one kind of  ethic may be involved. Burns notes that Max Weber contrasts two type of ethics in his writing: the "ethic of responsibility" and the "ethic of ultimate ends." The last examines the leader's behavior according to its adherence to "good" ends or "high" purposes. The ethic of responsibility, on the other hand, measures a set of actions by the leader, including (1) acquiring the capacity to use a calculating, prudential' rationalistic ap­proach; (2) making choices on the basis of many values, attitudes, and interests; (3) seeing the relationship of one goal to another; (4) under­standing the implications of choice for the means of attaining it (the cost for the benefit); and (5) recognizing the direct and indirect effects of dif­ferent goals for different persons and interests. The most important factor is that the leader using the ethic of responsibility carries out all of these calculations in a context of specificity and immediacy, and with an eye toward actual consequences rather than lofty intent (Burns 1978,45).  In our recent studies, we have tended to focus on the ethic of responsibility while ignoring the ethic of ultimate ends. In doing so, we have missed much of the importance of leadership, because as Burns notes:

 

For… Leadership, the dichotomy is not between Weber's two ethics but between the leader's commitment to a number of overriding, general welfare‑oriented values on the one hand and his encouragement of, and en­tanglement in, a host of lesser values and "responsibilities" on the other. (1978, 46).

 

And above all, the leader must accept and cope with ambiguity at the same time that s/he is attempting to develop and maintain overall goals for his or her followers. For, as noted by Harlan Cleveland:

 

The executives work often consists in meeting a series of unforeseeable obstacles on the road to an objective which can be clearly specified only when he is close to reaching it. He tries to imagine the unforeseen by posing contingencies and asking how his organization system would adjust if they arose. But the planned‑for contingency never happens; something else happens else instead. (1972, 78)

 

When we talk about leadership in this all‑inclusive way, we must discuss personal characteristics, behavior, and environmental forces or situations. Personal traits and behavior are covered in the next section of this chapter, but some specific comments related to executives need to be noted here.

 

In a similar vein, but at a different level of government James Barber (1985) argues that a president's personality is pattered by a series of influences; this patterning is "a matter of tendencies".  Three personality factors constitute the corps of this patterning.

 

1. Style: the president's habitual way of performing his three political roles: rhetoric, personal relations, and homework. Style is his way of acting.

 

2. Worldview: the president's primary, politically relevant beliefs, particu­larly his conception of social causality, human nature and the central moral conflicts of the time. Worldview is his way of seeing.

 

3. Character: the way the president orients himself toward life (not for the moment, but (enduringly). At the corps of character a man confronts himself. Character is his way of judging himself and his self‑esteem.

 

Leaders of the public bureaucracy need to combine intellect and action. Too many cases can be presented of situations where individuals have operated only in one realm - to the detriment of the other. While clear conceptualization, masterful analysis, and maximum results are all goals that are highly desirable, any attempt to achieve the ultimate level of any of these goals is liable to create "intellectual gridlock" and lead to minimal results. It only takes a few examples of agonizing and fence‑sitting intellectually oriented leaders who allow the opportunity to pass by while collecting the last bit of information for their decision to create the anti intellectual biases and mythology that are so common throughout political society. On the other hand, there are just as many stories about the "bull in the china closet" who charges off without hav­ing done enough thinking and creates political havoc for other members of the executive because of his/her naive or uninformed action. What is needed is a leader who deals with both analytical and normative ideas and brings them both to bear on the environment through timely action (Burns 1978).

 

Executive Responsibility

 

Executive positions (a) imply a complex morality, and (b) require a high ca­pacity of responsibility, (c) under conditions of activity, necessitating (d) commensurate general and specific technical abilities as a moral factor.... (I)n addition there is required (e) the faculty of creating morals for oth­ers....

 

(a) Every executive possesses, independently of the of the position he occupies, personal and moral codes. When the individual is placed in an executive position there are immediate incumbent upon him, officially at least, several additional codes that are codes of his organization.

 

(b) The capacity of responsibility is that of being firmly governed by moral codes - against inconsistent immediate impulses, desires, or interests, and in the direction of desires or interests that are consonant with such codes. Our common word for one aspect of this capacity "dependability", by which we mean that, knowing a man's codes—that is, being  aware of his character—we can reasonably foresee what he is likely to do, usually under a variety of circumstances.

 

(c) Generally the conditions of executive work are those of a great activity… It is clear that the higher the position the more exposed the incumbent to action imposed from numerous directions, calling for the activity of decision.

 

(d) The capacity of responsibility is in executive ranks rather a con­stant, and the tendency of activity to increase with scope of position is often controllable. The increase in complexity of moral conditions, however, is not controllable by the person affected, so that despite control of activities the burden increases from conflicts of morals as the scope of the executive position broadens....

 

The moral complications of the executive functions, then, can only be en­dured by those possessing a commensurate ability. While, on one hand, the requisite ability without an adequate complex of moralities or without a high sense of responsibility leads to the hopeless confusion of inconsistent expediencies so often described as "incompetence", on the other hand, the requisite morality and sense of  responsibility without commensurate abili­ties leads to fatal indecision or emotional and impulsive decisions, with per­sonal breakdown and ultimate destruction of the sense of responsibility. The important distinctions of rank lie in the fact that the higher the grade the more complex the moralities involved, and the more necessary higher abili­ties to discharge the responsibilities, that is, to resolve the moral conflicts implicit in the positions....

 

(e) The distinguishing mark of the executive responsibility is that it re­quires not merely conformance to a complex code of morals but also the cre­ation of moral codes for others. The most generally recognized aspect of this function  called securing, creating, inspiring of  "morale" in an organiza­tion. This is the process of inculcating points of view , fundamental attitudes, loyalties, to the organization of cooperative system, and to the system of ob­jective authority, that will result in subordinating individual interest and the minor dictates of personal codes to the good of the cooperative whole.

 

But there is another aspect of moral creativeness that is little understood, except in the field of jurisprudence. This is the inventing of a moral basis for the solution of moral conflicts—variously called "handling the exceptional  case," "the appellate function," "the judicial function."  This function is exer­cised in the cases that seem "right" from one point of view, "wrong" from an­other.... Probably most of [these cases] are solved by substitute action, [but even in these cases] the codes governing individual relationships to or­ganized effort are of wide variation, so that either action or failure to act in these cases does violence to individual moralities, though the alternatives will affect different persons in different ways.

 

[Executives are also responsible for] morally justifying a change or redefinition or new particularizing of purpose so that the sense of conformance of moral codes is secured.  One final effect is the elaboration and refinement of morals-of codes of conduct... That it can degenerate into mere sub­tlety to avoid rather than to discharge obligations is apparent in all executive experience. The invention of the constructions and fictions necessary to se­cure the preservation of morale is a severe test of both responsibility and ability, for to be sound they must be "just" in the view of the executive, that is, really consonant with the morality of the whole; as well as acceptable, that is, really consonant with the morality of the part, of the individual.

 

Any leader who accomplishes this goal, however, must understand that two further factors will result from his or her actions. First,  some people will not appreciate what has been accomplished (hopefully, many will); the actions will generate controversy and perhaps even hatred. Certainly, not everyone will love an intellectually active leader.  This is precisely why it is so often argued that it is impossible to judge the quality of leadership given by a president of the United States until at least one generation has passed. To quote Burns:

 

No matter how strong [the] longing for unanimity, . . almost all leaders . . . must settle for far less than universal affection. They must be willing to make enemies—to deny themselves the affection of their adversaries. They must accept conflict. They must be willing and able to be unloved .  It is hard to pick one's friends, harder to pick one's enemies. (1978, 34)

 

This happens because  leaders must take sides.  They must decide what goal they will support, what process is correct in attempting to achieve that goal, what group they will lead, and in almost every case there is at least one other perspective—often with equally ardent supporters.

 

The question then, is not the inevitability of conflict but the function of leadership in expressing, shaping, and curbing it…Leaders, whatever their professions of harmony, do not shun conflict, they confront it, exploit it, ultimately embody it. (Burns 1978, 37‑39)         

 

Political conflict, the second result of active leadership, occurs within a set of rules that helps to keep it in bounds and hopefully makes it constructive for society.  Bureau executives must be willing to scuffle and swap, bargain and bluff, wheel and deal, and perform all the other

functions involved in the political process. And as long as the political process guarantees the rights of minorities and losers, the leader must know how to cope with both winning and losing, at least over the short run, while recognizing that political tides ebb and flow.

 

As an operator in a political milieu, the bureau executive must use all available resources, such as public opinion and clientele support.  The leader of any bureaucracy must also recognize the limits of all forms of expertise and of his or her contacts in political offices.  There are other limiting factors that prey on almost all political executives, such as conflicting commitments, motives, and goals in any political administration and even within the particular administrator. There is a limited amount of time given to any executive to accomplish his or her goals. Finally, bureau executives often find it extremely difficult to mar­shal ideological and political resources outside the immediate system; this problem appears to be increasing with the current antigovernment, antibureaucracy sentiment, and decreasing or steady‑state resources. Thus, Burns is correct in saying:               

 

The distinguishing characteristics of executive leaders . . . are their lack of reliable political and institutional support, or dependence on bureaucratic resources such as staff and budget, and most of all their use of themselves—their own talent and character, prestige and popularity, in the           

clash of political interests and values.... Executive leaders in a power struggle may appeal to public opinion but lack the machinery to activate it, shape it, channel it, and bring it to bear on the decision‑making process. Hence they. . .must depend more on personal manipulation and executive management than on institutional support. (1978, 371‑72)

 

They must also depend on the others with official leadership posi­tions in the hierarchical chain of command—the bureau managers and supervisors. Therefore, let us move on to leadership theories that pri­marily apply to those roles.

 

The Manager's Mission

 

I can remember, when I first became administrator of the New York City Health Services Administration (the first nonphysician to hold that posi­tion), that I would call in my commissioners and senior managers and ask them what they'd been doing—what their agencies or units or programs had been up to in the last few weeks or months or years.

 

Some of these senior officials would start by telling me how many meet­ings they had attended, how many memos they'd written, how many staff they'd hired, and similar benchmarks of bureaucratic activity. l'd look at them and say: "But whom did you make healthy today (or last week, or last year)? Did you make anybody in New York healthier—and how do you know?

 

In short order people came to realize where I wanted my emphasis—not on the mechanics of running public agencies but on the outcome of the ser­vices we were there to deliver. It's not that I didn't understand the impor­tance of dealing with the chief, overhead agencies, and the rest of the charac­ters in our daily fare; it's just that I wanted the right perspective—I wanted my

managers to be conscious of the fact that we were there to make people healthier, and not to lose sight of that fact in the daily squabbling that we all had to endure.

 

No one can predict with certainty what will make a good public manager. No single combination of education, experience, personality, and talent will make the same person a great commissioner of welfare for New York City and a smashing water and sewer director in Seattle. Each state, city, county, and township has a unique set of political, social, and economic challenges to which an aspiring public manager must adapt.

 

But . . . there are predictable problems, dilemmas, conflicts, and  confrontations that are sure to occur at some point, to some degree, in every public manager's life. And one thing . . . is certain: a manager's view of his or her mission will be the key to success in the public world.  

 

Charisma, rhetoric, and good public relations, while sometimes crucial to a particular problem or issue, are not sufficient to sustain a public manager. Performance--the ability to deliver against multiple odds, and to de­liver quickly and consistently--is what matters.

 

If a manager's mission is to promote a given politician or a particular ide­ology but services are poorly managed and people (our clients) are poorly served, then what is the point?  As manager, your mission must be first and foremost, to make government work—to decide what issues you have, how they relate to government's role, how that translates into government pro­grams,

and how you can make those programs work. With that perspective in hand, an aspiring or a veteran manager can make judgments about whereto work, whom to work for, and how to tackle the environment.

 

Sitting behind the desk, meeting with interest after interest, fighting against another round of red tape with the budget bureau, and listening to one more lecture from a twenty‑two‑year‑old on the governor's staff, all make maintaining perspective a challenge in itself.  Public management is

not a profession for the faint of heart, for those who want always to be loved and admired, or for those who think there is nothing to running the public's business but a little common sense and acumen. It is tough work, and its rewards are often ambiguous, but they are by no means nonexistent.

 

LEADERSHIP IN THE MIDDLE OF THE BUREAU:    

THE MANAGERS

           

Managers are "in the middle" in several ways. They are usually chosen from, and still belong to, the civil service; therefore, they often directly responsible to political appointees. While managers usually come from specialist or professional backgrounds and have been promoted because they functioned well in the o­rganization's technical roles, they now must think as program generalists and carry out  coordinative functions that do not require their original talents.  Whereas those below them in the bureau focus specific tasks or functions and those above them consider broad policy and bureau goals, manager must turn those policies and objectives into outputs by developing and coordinating structures and functions.  Finally, managers must fulfill contradictory roles.  Subordinates expect them to represent their interests upward to higher officials, while higher officials expect them to present organizational goals down­ward to the workers and to see that those objectives are achieved.

 

Because of all of the countervailing forces, contradictory roles, and sequentially changing foci, managers not only are in the middle, but they have one of the most difficult jobs in the world. Likewise, management is difficult to describe and theorize about (although that has not stopped anyone from trying). Just as the position and practice of man­agement fall in the middle, so does the study of it. Managers need to understand those on both ends of the leadership continuum, as they interact with both and must serve as a link between them (Likert 1961, 1967).  Since this connection with both ends of the continuum is so important, the theories of leadership that are identified principally with the two ends—executives and supervisors—tend to apply to management as well. The obverse is also true: Those theories that focus on management spill over in both directions to a great extent; still, we can examine three major theories or models that will help to clarify the manager's role in the bureau.

 

Manager Traits, Motivations, and Skills

 

Throughout this century there has been an ongoing interest in the par­ticular traits and skills

exhibited by leaders.  Originally, researchers were interested in discovering what traits were present among leaders that did not exist among followers, or which existed to a greater degree among leaders. Later research has focused on ways to select supervisors and managers or to predict managerial success. The most thorough compendium of the research on leadership traits appears in Stogdill's Handbook of Leadership (Bass 1981). In this volume, Stogdill surveyed 124 articles dealing with personal factors associated with leadership, all published between 1904 and 1947. He then surveyed another 163 arti­cles that appeared between 1948 and 1970. It is useful to discuss the two studies separately because the publication of the first paper (chapter 4, Bass 1981) proved to be

 

a turning point in the study of leadership. Before this date, universal traits of leadership were emphasized.  After the publication of this paper, specific situational analyses

took over, in fact dominated the field, much more than argued for by Stogdill.... Both individual traits and situational as­sessments as well as the interaction between them are important, and that was Stogdill's main thesis. (1981, 43)

 

While Stogdill found little agreement among the studies carried out through 1947 (see Figure 8), there were some significant findings, and he classified these under the general heading of "capacity, achievement, responsibility, participation, and status."  The second survey of litera­ture on leadership (through 1976) appeared to support the generaliza­tions presented earlier. Although a lot of new characteristics were intro­duced, they tended to be variations on the general concepts mentioned above; the summary of that study appears to support that statement.

 

The leader is characterized by a strong drive for responsibility and task completion, vigor and persistence in pursuit of goals, venturesomeness         

 

FIGURE 8‑4   Leadership traits—categorized by Stogdill 

 

1. Capacity: intelligence, alertness, verbal facility, originality, judgment.

 

2. Achievement: scholarship, knowledge, athletic accomplishments.           

 

3. Responsibility: dependability, initiative, persistence, aggressiveness, self‑confi-

    dence, desire to excel.        

 

4. Participation: activity, sociability, cooperation, adaptability, humor.

 

5. Status: socioeconomic position, popularity.

 

6. Situation: mental level, status, skills, needs and interests of followers, objectives to be achieved, and so on.

 

and originality in problem solving, drive to exercise initiative in social situ­ations, self-confidence and sense of personal identity, willingness to accept consequences of decision and action, readiness to absorb interpersonal stress, willingness to tolerate frustration and delay, ability to influence other persons' behavior, and capacity to structure social interaction systems to the purpose at hand. (Bass 1981, 81)

 

The level of agreement on relevant traits is low, and the findings prove useful primarily in an inductive and insightful way. No longer do scholars believe that "leaders are born" nor do they believe that there is a set of traits that is essential to leader success.  Instead, there is agreement that the traits noted above, and perhaps some others, greatly increase the probability of success as a leader.

 

Closely related to the trait research were some other approaches to the study of leadership that focused on the motivation and values held by managers and executives. Numerous individuals have zeroed in on managerial motivation. For example, David McClelland decided that three factors—needs for achievement, power and affiliation—were central to the effectiveness of managers (1975; see also Winter 1973). In established bureaucracies, the dominant motive of most successful or­ganizational managers is the need for power.  Along with a drive for power appears to go the self‑confidence and assertiveness that are nec­essary to lead and control a large and complex group. The power drive, however, needs to be moderated by a sense of concern for the group, or a social sense, that generates a use of power to benefit others, and not simply for one's own advantage. A leader with a power drive that is moderated by social concern is usually more open to advice, to active par­ticipation in decisions by subordinates, to the development of clear and understandable organization structures, and therefore, to a general pride in belonging to the organization. The successful leader also has a moderate need for affiliation, in some cases only to be able to fulfill the social and public relations activities that are inherent in managerial and executive positions, but more importantly, because affiliation is essential to the leader's establishment of effective interpersonal relationships with subordinates, peers, and superiors. After all, commitment and loyalty tend to be reciprocal feelings.

 

Nor can the achievement motivation be absent. Obviously, a bal­ance of the three drives is necessary, with the levels being determined by the situation facing the organization and the leader.

 

Motivation is closely related to the values held by managers; it could be argued that these values are what fuel or create motivation.  Therefore, numerous attempts have been made to identify and categorize the values held by managers deemed successful. One example of such an effort is the survey developed by Gordon (1975,1976). Gordon measures six major values. 

 

· Support:  Being treated with understanding, kindness and consideration; receiving   encouragement from other people.

 

· Conformity:  Following regulation; doing what is accepted, proper or socially correct.

 

            · Recognition:  Attracting favorable attention; being admired, looked up to, or important.         

 

            · Independence:  Being free to make one's own decisions or do           

            things in one's own way; experiencing freedom of action.

           

· Benevolence:  Being generous and other directed; sharing with and helping those who are less fortunate.

 

· Leadership:  Having authority over people; being in a position of influence or power.         

 

Results regularly show that effective managers and executives tend to have higher leadership ranking and lower support, conformity, and benevolence scores. Other studies have tended to show that managers, when asked about their own values, tend to see themselves as pragmatic, identifying personal qualities such as skill, ambition, achievement, and creativity as most instrumental in achieving success (England 1967). Human relations factors, such as rationality and individuality, and ethi­cal factors are recognized as important, but definitely secondary to the just‑mentioned values.

 

When the trait, motivation, and value concepts are combined with the specific skills needed for a particular managerial position, one has the components that are regularly considered when bureau managers are chosen. These are the factors considered important to successful management. From these basic assumptions, in fact, spring the testing procedures mentioned in Chapter Three. Assessment centers, for example, put individuals through a series of tests to determine their potential as managers because it is felt that such a rnulti-faceted regimen is the best method currently in existence to examine the participants' traits, values and skills.

 

We have found, after at least eighty years of research on leadership traits, that they are important, they cannot be ignored. However, other factors must also be taken into consideration. One way of recognizing and dealing with those other factors is to examine the behavior of man­agers and how they handle the many roles they must fulfill.

 

Managerial Behavior and the Fulfillment of Multiple Roles

 

The number and variety of tasks performed by the manager of a bureau are actually larger than our imagination allows us to perceive and com­prehend. Successful bureau managers usually reach a point, when try­ing to describe the reasons for their success, where they can no longer verbalize their thoughts and actions; and at this point, they use apho­risms such as "flying by the seat of my pants," "following my sixth sense," and "using my gut reactions." Scholars, armed with their best methodologies and the latest statistical tools, can only explain a small portion of the total behavior of managers, and find little comparability between successful managers who work in the same organization or cir­cumstance.

 

Henry Mintzberg (1973) examined much of the research that dealt with the activities of managers in a variety of organizations. From this material and his own research, he developed a group of dis­tinguishing characteristics and roles that describe what managers do First, he examined the roles; then he went on to describe the way they are carried out. There are ten major roles, all of which are important to, and will probably be used by, every manager at one time or an­other. However, the relative importance of the roles is determined by a set of factors that includes such elements as position in the hierar­chy, technology involved among those being led, the "social system" that exists among subordinates and peers, proximity to the organiza­tion's exterior, and danger perceived from the environment. These roles are described briefly below, and in those cases where a role is probably more important to executives or supervisors, that fact is noted in parentheses. Still, it must be reiterated that managers will be involved in all the roles to some extent.

           

1. Figurehead role. (primarily an executive role.) Executives/managers hold formal positions within the organization and these posi­tions create an obligation to participate in organizational duties, rituals, and ceremonies. These vary from singing certain documents and communications and greeting visitors to throwing out the first ball at the an­nual office picnic and presenting the gold watch to a colleague at her re­tirement dinner. These jobs help to set a psychological tone for the bureau and the manager, even though they are only peripherally related to accomplishing the objectives of the organization.

 

2. Leader role. (divided between all three levels.) Supervisors/ managers must hire, train, praise, motivate, integrate, direct, and even dismiss employees. Executives/managers create the conditions that allow work to be efficiently and effectively done, conditions that set the "tone" of the bureau, because the style of leadership that they use tends to permeate the organization.  Therefore, the leader role is the vehicle that allows the manager to provide guidance and create favorable con­ditions for doing the bureau's work.

 

        3. Liaison role. For a bureau to function effectively, there must be communication and coordination between the various units inside the organization and with relevant elements of the environment.  This is accomplished by the manager's liaison role in which s/he establishes and maintains a web, or network, of relationships with relevant individuals and groups outside his or her particular unit or subunit. Who is relevant to a manager depends on an individual's position in the bureau. Chief executives look outward for contacts in an effort to make sure the orga­nization has the proper linkups with other organizations and important political actors.  Managers and supervisors focus on relationships that are important to their part of the organization. By making contacts, do­ing favors, and keeping an ear to the grapevine, each manager is at­tempting to sway "influential others" inside or outside of the organiza­tion who, in turn, can have an effect on the success of the manager's operations. Obviously, these liaison activities are carried out in both formal and informal settings, inside and outside the immediately affected bureau.

 

4. Monitor role. Managers receive information from a variety of sources. Some is passed on to subordinates or to outsiders (other man­agers in the organization or relevant individuals or groups in the envi­ronment), but most of the information is analyzed in a constant search for problems and opportunities so that  both external events and internal  processes can be better understood. In this way, managers can immediately correct situations causing difficulty, encourage success and, prepare for future events.

 

5. Disseminator role. Since managers have access to information that is not available to subordinates, it is the manager's function to assimilate and properly interpret the information and pass it on to those who need it.  Some of the information is factual: This may be passed on in its original form or may require "massaging" so that it is more meaningful to those receiving it. Other information relates to values, attitudes, or preferences of individuals and organizations

that  influence the manager:  This information must be assimilated and evaluated as to its importance and then passed along as man­dates, goals, values, policies, suggestions, or as responses to inquiries from subordinates.

 

6. Spokesperson role. Managers must serve as transmitters of in­formation about their units to their superiors within the bureau and to interested parties on the outside. Each manager must act as lobbyist, public  relations officer, and negotiator because she is in the appropriate formal position, she has the best knowledge about her unit and its environment, and she can guarantee that her unit speaks with "one voice" as it deals with all the other groups in the process.          

 

7. Entrepreneur role. The entrepreneur role may seem at first  blush an inappropriate one for a public manager; but on further consideration it becomes obvious that this role is essential in all sectors  of society (Lewis 1980).  As noted by Matthew Holden, (1966), there is a high degree of "bureaucratic imperialism")in public agencies;  therefore, chief executives and managers must at least be on the look­out for bureaucratic marauders who may attack by snatching bits of authority and resources from their units or who may try to grab the entire operation and place it in a disadvantageous situation. By the same token, managers watch for opportunities to strengthen or ex­pand their operation, hopefully in ways that "make sense" or lead to  better service for the public.  Managers also act as initiators and de­signers of changes that are aimed at improving the situation of their units. Such changes might include the purchase of new equipment, the reorganization of formal structure, or the development of a new and needed program. Mintzberg describes the entrepreneur as a juggler.  "At any one point in time he has a number of balls in the air. Periodically, one comes down, receives a short burst of energy, and goes up again. Meanwhile, new balls wait on the sidelines and, at inter­vals, old balls are discarded and new ones added" (1973, 81).

 

8. Disturbance‑Handler role. Sudden crises, such as a conflict between subordinates, a natural disaster, or the loss of key employ­ees, take up much of a manager's time. These crises cannot be ignored, and managers usually spend so much time dealing with mat­ters of this type that they have little opportunity to do any reflective thinking or to plan.              

 

9.  Resource‑Allocator role. Managers use their control over money, material and personnel to guarantee their coordinative and integrative roles in the organization. In this role, the manager can determine bureau priorities and strategy through decisions about the use of resources The role also guarantees that s/he maintains control of both specific processes and overall bureau operations by requiring his or her involvement in any decisions affecting major shifts in re­source.

 

10. Negotiator role. When a manager acts in this role, s/he is probably involved because of several of the other roles noted above (e.g., the spokesperson and resource allocator). Managers can repre­sent or speak for their units better than almost anyone else. For this reason, negotiations are not considered seriously underway until "the person who can make the decisions" is directly involved. Another way to note this role is through the insistence than an individual must "go directly to the top," as it is recognized that only at this level can bargains be struck and commitments made. Although the scope and type of negotiations change at different levels of an organization, anyone in an executive or managerial role is involved in the negotiat­ing role.

 

The roles all exist, but the decision as to what combination of roles is important at any one time and how much emphasis to place on them is something that can often be decided only by managers after they have examined the major factors impinging on both them and their unit. Once those matters have been decided the roles are enacted through a set managerial work activities. But everyone in a bureau is active (even if not always in constructive ways), so the problem is to define how managerial activities are unique. Mintzberg again devised a set of distinguishing characteristics, or characteristics that were more descriptive of how managers spent their time in com­parison to other members of the organization. It should be noted as we begin this discussion, however, that in each case the characteris­tics connote degree; that is, they are not a description of activities that were unique to managers and nonexistent among other bureau members. Mintzberg identified five major characteristics, four of which are described below.

 

             1. Work pace. Managers tend to work without a break, at a    grueling pace, for long hours, and even take work home with them. Two factors may explain this characteristic. Individuals who have reached managerial positions tend to be imbued with the work ethic and to find their primary self-gratification through their work. Sec­ond, since they have trained their minds to search for and analyze in­ formation related to their work and their organizations, they find it nearly impossible to turn off their minds when they close the office door.

 

2.  Activity duration and variation. Managers tend to engage in a wide variety of activities that occur, one could say, almost at random, with receiving only a brief burst of attention before the next impinges on the manager's consciousness. Most activities take only a few minutes and very few—approximately one‑tenth—require more than an hour. The frequent changes of subjects and the impor­tance of the matters, require that managers shift focus and mood con­stantly. This characteristic becomes even more pronounced when an individual operates at the lower management levels.

 

3. Action rather than reflection. Managers seldom engage in general planning, abstract discussion, or reflection; instead, they tend to gravitate toward the active aspects of their jobs. While they enjoy nonroutine activities, they do not like ambiguity and therefore prefer well‑defined goals and functions. Specific rather than general or ill‑defined issues gain most managers' attention, and they focus on current rather than older information.

 

 4. Communication media usage. (This characteristic is essential to several of the roles mentioned earlier.) Managers use five major methods of obtaining and dispensing information: written messages, scheduled meetings, unscheduled meetings, observational tours, and telephone messages. While each medium is used for a slightly differ­ent set of purposes, any method that allows oral communication is preferred. Managers in every study are found to spend a majority of their time in oral communication, with two‑thirds of that time spent either on telephone or in unscheduled meetings. Obviously we cannot conclude from what was noted in characteristics three and four that these contacts tend to be either varied or of short dura­tion.

 

Managerial Style

 

So many roles and behaviors are involved in managing that it is hopeless for an individual to have to think about the process and make carefully considered decisions about which role and which behavior fits each arising situation. The world moves too fast. Before all the possible combinations can be considered, the situation changes and the process of analysis must start over. In such a case, the manager suffers from "role and behavior gridlock."  Conse­quently, the individual develops a general management "style" -- or a habitual way of performing--that includes a particular style for the most common bureau situation and a set of standard responses or styles for the most common crises or recurring phenomena that require special attention. These styles quickly become known to other actors in the bureau, especially the manager's subordinates, and one can commonly hear people say, "Boy, the boss is going to blow her stack when she finds out about this" or "No matter what the crisis, the boss always keeps the group focused on the agency goals." Styles become important because they  have critical cues to everyone in—and often outside—the agency about what the manager's values and per­spectives are and how the actors in the unit should proceed.

 

When managers' roles behaviors and the characteristic (styles) used to fulfill those roles are combined into a single equation, it becomes obvious that the task of management in a bureau is in­credibly complex. On top of all this, the manager is the linchpin that holds together the upper and lower levels of the bureau. Therefore, the manager is truly the person in the middle. With it all, many man­agers are successful, and one of the major reasons is that these indi­viduals have been able to make the transition from technician and professional to coordinator, communicator, and fulfiller of all the other management functions. Along the way, they have usually passed through the supervisory ranks. Good supervision leads to good management, and successful supervisors—with continued growth and training—often become successful managers. This is true because the managerial position requires perspectives and skills that are simply "another step forward" on the continuum between super­visors and executives.

 

LEADERSHIP AT THE INDIVIDUAL AND GROUP LEVEL:

THE SUPERVISORS

 

At the productive heart of the bureau, the groups that are "getting the work done" are led by supervisors. Supervisors are not usually in­volved in making policy for the bureau or even establishing the coordinative structures. Rather, supervisors have three major fo­cuses in all their activities: production, maintenance, morale, and maintenance of group cohesiveness. Higher officials de­cide what is to be done and how the bureau will be structured to ac­complish those goals; the supervisor makes sure that the particular tasks and goals of his or her group are completed properly and productively. While supervisors must organize and coordinate their groups, the main talents they need are a combination of the skills used by their subordinates and the ability to work with those subor­dinates on an interpersonal level. Since they are usually chosen from the workers, supervisors can be expected to possess the requisite technical skills; thus, the area of expertise that must be either present or quickly developed is the interpersonal.

 

Supervisory Behavior

 

Much of the research on group leadership—often referred to as the Ohio State University studies have focused on what Stogdill defined as consideration and initiaition of structure.

 

[Consideration] comprised the extent to which a leader exhibited con­cern for the welfare of the other members of the group. Considerate super­visors expressed appreciation for good work, stressed the importance of job satisfaction, maintained and strengthened self‑esteem of subordinates by treating them as equals, made special efforts for subordinates to feel at ease, were easy to approach, put subordinates' suggestions into operation, and obtained approval of subordinates on important matters before going ahead.

 

[Initiation of structure] referred to the extent to which a leader initiated activity in the group, oganized it, and defined the way work was to be done. The initiation of structure included such behavior as insisting on maintaining standards and meeting deadlines, deciding in detail what will be done and how it should be done. Particularly relevant were defining and structuring the leader's own role and those of subordinates toward goal at­tainment.

 

The two behaviors almost always happen together: Both are present and active at the same time. In fact, other behaviors (noted in the sec­tion on managers) are obviously involved, although to lesser degrees, and the success or failure of a supervisor depends on the mixture of be­haviors that is appropriate to the situation at hand. Still, these two fac­tors are especially important, and studies of the relationship between consideration and initiating structure showed that supervisors high in consideration experienced fewer grievances and lower turnover among their subordinates than supervisors who emphasized the structuring of behavior. Finally, these re­searchers found that those situations where a substantial amount of structuring was required, a high level of consideration alleviated much of the dissatisfaction. Therefore, to maintain standards and productiv­ity while minimizing subordinate dissatisfaction, it is essential for su­pervisors to use behavior that emphasizes both factors. (In the public sector, where other tools are often unavailable to supervisors because of civil service limitations, a judicious combination of both factors be­comes exceedingly important.)

 

While this research was impressive and met the test of common sense, there were mixed findings when it was tested by other research­ers. There is a question about whether the findings can be generalized to other kinds of leaders or to subordinate behavior in anything but a production situation. Nevertheless, the idea behind the consideration and initiating structure relationship has been the basis for several important management/supervision theories or models now used widely throughout the Western world. However, when these models are examined, it becomes apparent that in addition to style, another factor must be considered to understand what supervisors do in the real world. That factor is "the situation." The situational concept also applies to the other levels of bureau leadership, of course; we discussed it earlier. But it is a central concept in most modern models of supervisory leadership, so we must look at it closely.

 

Situational Theories of Group Leadership

 

Supervisory styles change dramatically depending on the time and place where they are applied. No leader is going to respond to all situations in the same way; nor would such behavior be productive. Instead, the response will be determined by how three questions about the individual leader and the group are answered: (1) What are the important factors that must be taken into consideration if a particular individual is going to be successful in leading this group? (2)How many of those factors can be combined and still be manipulated by the individual who is attempting to lead? (3) How does the leader keep track of newly developing factors that may prove important to leadership success?  Supervisors are human beings, with all the limitations inherent in the species. They can only deal with a limited number of factors, and the real world is far more complex than any model. That is at least part of the reason why the leadership models that researchers have developed are relatively simplistic. When applying any model to a real situation the important thing to accomplish is the selection of the "right" factors for inclusion in the model and then to develop a way to deal with the constantly changing environment. Most of the existing models start with the two factors in the Ohio State University leadership studies and build from there.

 

One popular model for supervision of both individuals and groups is known as the “managerial grid” (Blake ad Mouton 1964, 1969, 1981).7 The grid is based on the overlaying of two dimensions of behavior—“concern for people” and “concern for production”— that are very similar to consideration and initiating structure. A grid is used for two reasons: First, managers cannot be realistically dichotomized in description; and second, managers cannot always operate the same way. Leadership behavior depends on the situation being faced, and more than one set of behaviors exists and needs to be used as the situation changes. According to the managerial grid, the goal is a supervisor who is sensitive to the need for production while emphasizing human relations. By achieving such a relationship between production and human sensitivity, the supervisor creates among his or her subordinates a feeling of a "common stake in the outcome of their endeavors" (Blake and Mouton 1969, 62) and allows for a much higher chance of success in achieving the organizations goals and its continued existence over the lone run.

 

Another of the better known of the situational theories of leadership is the contingency model proposed by Fiedler (1964, 1967). By having the leader rate, on a bipolar scale containing several items about personal characteristics, his or her least preferred co-worker (past or present), an LPC score is developed that Fiedler believes can be interpreted to predict supervisor effectiveness. (Individuals who are critical of their least preferred co-worker receive low LPC scores and those who are tolerant receive high ones.) While the interpretation of LPC scores has changed over the years, the situational variable involved has remained constant. The factor around which the LPC scores and leader effectiveness revolves is the extent to which the situation gives a leader influence over subordinate performance. The level of influence is measured according to three criteria:

 

1. Leader-Member Relations. If leaders enjoy the loyalty and support of subordinates, enthusiastic compliance with their wishes and orders usually follows. The opposite can be expected if attitudes and feelings toward the leader are reversed.

2. Position Power. If a leader has substantial power built into his position, he can use it to reward and punish compliance or noncompliance with wishes or orders. If a leader does not have such power, he must rely on other sources of influence to gain compliance.

3. Task Structure. If tasks are highly structured, standard operating procedures exist, finished products or services are clearly defined, and the quality of work done by subordinates is clear, so control and guidance are easier. If task structure, procedures, and end products are not so clear, the leader can have less control, give less guidance, and workers can find more ways to circumvent the leaders wishes and orders.

 

Fiedler goes on to argue that when situational control is either very high or very low, based on these three criteria, an individual with low LPC scores will more effective, while in a situation with intermediate levels of situational control, supervisors with high LPC scores will be more-successful.

 

The factor that most interests us at the moment is the introduction for the first time of situational variables into a discussion of what might be the appropriate behavior for a group leader. Fiedler verbalized in his theory what had been recognized for a long time but had not been dealt with in a formal way: Proper leader behavior must be based on an evaluation of the situation in which it occurs.                                                                                  

 

Another theory that introduces a situational component into the determination of supervisory behavior is that of Hersey and Blanchard(1982), who use  task-behavior/relationship-behavior matrix (like the one we discussed in the last section) and introduce a specific situational variable into the model. The situational variable is follower maturity, which appears to be borrowed from McClelland’s discussion of the high achiever and defines the concept as “the capacity to set high but attainable goals (achievement motivation), willingness to take responsibility, and education and/or experience” (1961, 161).

 

According to Hersey and Blanchard, the combination of behaviors—relationship and task oriented— requires  changes of supervisors as the maturity level of subordinates increases (see Figure 8-5). The task oriented behavior steadily decreases as subordinates achieve higher levels of maturity. On the other hand, the relationship oriented behavior increases as subordinates advance from immaturity to a moderate level of maturity. Then,  subordinates move on to a higher level of maturity, the amount of considerate, supportive, consultative behavior is reduced as the leader delegates responsibility and increases the independence of the worker.  Mature workers, because of their initiative, self-confidence, and commitment, do not need much supportive behavior from their superiors.                                                  

 

Perhaps the supervisory model that uses the most comprehensive, set of intervening variables8 is the “multiple linkage model” of leader effectiveness developed by Gary Yukl. Yukl looks at an extensive set of situational variables that affect individual and group performance as well as the ability of the supervisor to influence the intervening variables that determine that performance.  As a first step in the model, Yukl presents factors that influence group performance. These include:

 

 

·        Subordinate Role Clarity: The extent to which subordinates understand their job duties and responsibilities and know what is expected of them.

 

·        Subordinate Task Skills: The extent to which subordinates have the experience, training, and skills necessary to perform all aspects of their jobs effectively.

 

·        Resources and Support Services: The extent to which subordinates are able to obtain the tools, equipment, supplies, and support services to do their jobs.

 

·        Task-Role Organization: The extent to which the work unit is effectively organized to ensure efficient utilization of personnel, equipment, and facilities and the avoidance of delays, duplication of effort, and wasted effort.

 

·        Group Cohesiveness and Teamwork: The extent to which subordinates get along with each other, share information and ideas, and are friendly, helpful, considerate, and cooperative (1981, 154).

 

The performance of individual subordinates depends on the first four factors and the performance of the group as a whole is related to the next two.  All six factors interact to determine the levels of individual and group commitment, morale and productivity, and the factors are themselves influenced by a set of intervening variables that Yukl classifies in three categories.

 

The first category of variable directly affects one or more of the six factors spelled out above, thus indirectly influencing individual and/or group performance.  Examples of this type of variable are the formal reward system, intrinsic motivating potential of a task, level of formal role prescriptions, the budgetary and resource allocation system, and the size of the work group. The second type of variable affects the relative importance of the six factors to the group. Technology, for example, may change and increase or decrease the task skill needed by workers or the amount of time required to give subordinates feedback if they are doing something either well or poorly. If few supplies, equipment, and support services are required by a task, then such factors will not be important. Finally, the third type of situational variable in Yukl’s model deals with "organizational constraints on leader actions to alter directly the intervening variables” 1981, 158). The ability of a leader to act is constrained by such factors as position in the hierarchy, ability to control rewards and punishments, and discretion over work assignment, procedures, and resources.99 (The third factor focuses on constraints of special importance to public organizations.)

 

From the set of factors influencing group behavior and the interacting situational variables, Yukl has developed a set of nineteen types of behavior that are appropriate for use in different situations (see Figure 8-6). Here we see what may be the most complex formal model of situational leadership behavior that has been developed to date. It uses the same approach as the other theories mentioned above, but increases the complexity, sophistication, and delicacy of

the calculations that must occur. In each case, the supervisor or leader is expected to evaluate the situation (set of circumstances related to the internal external forces acting in or on the organization) and the existing characteristics of the organization (the strengths and weaknesses associated with the organization's members, resources, processes, and objectives), after which a decision is made as to what particular style of leadership is appropriate at this time. That decision must look at both the short- and long-term effects of the style and balance its costs and benefits. In the meantime, the leader must have a built-in barometer that is constantly measuring reactions to the current style and predicting when it is time to reinvestigate the situation or change the style of leadership that is in use.

 

At the upper levels of a large organization, the evaluation of the situation will lead to a general style that will probably evolve slowly. Frequent and dramatic changes are liable to create chaotic conditions because any shift in leadership style can only be adjusted to gradually. A dramatic change may be required in case of a crisis; however, such a change is usually carried out with assurances that the new emphasis meets the crisis and will be "the norm” for some time, or at least until the crisis is surmounted. At the lower levels of bureaucracy, the supervisor must increasingly consider group and individual situations, and at this level the diversity and frequency of change in style increases because of the higher volatility in situations involving smaller numbers of individuals. While workers still feel a need for continuity and focus or direction from their leaders, there is also a need for superiors to recognize and react to the changing situations faced by their subordinates. Herein lies the (key to the situational approach: The leader must respond to the needs of the organization and subordinates; subordinates should not have to analyze and react to the changing whims or mood of superiors. While an individual must have a variety of leadership styles that can be called into action as situations change, subordinates must be able to expect consistency in the way any particular recurring situation is met by their superior.

 

The situational approach to leadership is generally accepted as the most appropriate way to deal with the problem or challenge of managing the modern public bureau. No other way to manage has been discovered that allows one to deal with the innumerable cross pressures that exist in the public sector. How else can a bureau leader take into account the individual, organizational, and political demands that must all be considered as one attempts to achieve efficiency and effectiveness?