LEADERSHIP IN

PUBLIC ORGANIZATIONS

A leader is best when people barely know that he exists, not so good when people
obey and acclaim him, worst when they despise him. Fail to honor people, they
fail to honor you. But of a good leader, who talks little, when his work is done, his
aims fulfilled, they will all say, "We did this ourselves."
Lao Tzu, ancient Chinese philosopher, circa 600 BCE

L eadership is becoming one of the most

widely debated but least clearly under•
stood concepts in the study of public
and private organizations these days. There are
frequent calls for enhanced leadership in orga•
nizations of all types. Yet no one seems exactly
sure what constitutes leadership, where it comes
from, or how it might be developed.
Certainly, there is agreement that the
traditional top• down models of leadership
that we associate with groups such as the
military are outdated and unworkable in
modern society-even in the military. Today's
society can be described as (a) highly turbulent,
subject to sudden and dra• matic shifts; (b)
highly interdependent, requir• ing cooperation
across many sectors; and (c) greatly in
need of creative and imaginative solutions to
the problems facing us. Under these conditions,
public and private organizations need to be
considerably more adaptable and flexible
than in the past. Yet the traditional
command-and-control form ofleadership does
not encourage risk and innovation. Quite to the
contrary, it encourages uniformity and conven•
tion. For this reason, many people now argue
that a new approach to leadership is desirable.
Under these circumstances, as we think about
leadership and how we might exercise it in
groups and organizations, there are several
issues that we need to keep in mind.
Certainly, we need to understand how
leader• ship has been studied and practiced in
the past to understand the context in which
modern discussions of leadership are taking
place. Studies of the lives and careers of
outstanding leaders and related efforts to draw
up lists of the qualities or characteristics of
those leaders that made them successful
provide an important backdrop to our study
of leadership today. Similarly, studies suggesting
that different lead• ers exhibit different styles
help us to understand the range of options
available to us. And those explorations of the
various contexts or situations in which
leadership takes place, along with the

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CHAPTER 7 Leadership in Public Organizations li!
ORGANIZATIONS I 181

suggestion that different approaches might At the same time, we should those changes. First, we should understand both within the organizations and as
be more effective in different understand that leadership is changing in that, in today's world and adminis• trators relate to their many external
circumstances, will help us to situate our many ways, and we should be attentive to certainly in tomorrow's world, more and constituen• cies. As Helgesen (1996) put it,
own efforts to lead. more leaders in the future will be found "not only
among those at the top, the 'lead horses, but
also among those who constitute what in the
industrial era we called the rank and file" (p.
21). And, as we will
see, the notion of shared leadership is
espe•
these considerations might affect the
way in which you go about trying to
improve your own leadership capabilities.
We examine tradi• tional approaches to
leadership, contemporary approaches to
leadership, and some special
considerations related to leadership in the
pub• lic service. We then explore the
implications of these ideas for
leadership development. We begin by
examining the way in which you think
about leadership now.