Publication
Who are leading? Explaining leadership behaviour in public organizations
Changing bureaucratic structures and increasing collaboration within public service delivery create new questions for leadership in public organizations. This article explores how both managers and non-managerial employees use leadership behaviours and how characteristics of the organizational context affect their engagement in leadership.
- Author
- Marieke van der Hoek & Ben Kuipers
- Date
- 29 December 2022
- Links
- Read the full article here
With formal authority becoming more dispersed and various actors increasingly involved, revised expectations as to who contributes to organizational coordination are emerging. This article investigates 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.