2. LECTURE CONTENT
• Leadership approaches – Adaptive leadership
• Public managers in bureaucratic, NPM, and new public service models
• What is public value?
• Moore’s strategic triangle and political management
• Some limitations (or advancements) from the Hartley et al. 2017 reading
• A strategic approach – the role of public managers in creating ‘communities of participation’
• Concluding remarks
3. LEADERSHIP APPROACHES
• Transactional vs. transformational leadership
• Transactional leader motivates and incentivises employees simply with rewards and
punishments, depending on the achievement of predefined goal(s)
• Requires supervision, oversight, performance monitoring
• Transformational leaders are ‘change agents’
• Transformational leadership requires inspiration, consideration, stimulation and
charisma
• Transformational approach emphasises vision and overarching organizational change
– inspiring people to embrace change by fostering particular work cultures
4. ADAPTIVE LEADERSHIP
• ‘The Work of Leadership’ by Heifetz and
Laurie in the Harvard Business Review
“Followers want comfort, stability, and solutions
from their leaders. But that’s babysitting. Real
leaders ask hard questions and knock people
out of their comfort zones”
• Organisations face adaptive challenges, and
“real leaders” must lead adaptive work…
Adaptive work:
1. 'Get on the balcony’
2. Identify the adaptive
challenge
3. Regulate distress
4. Maintain disciplined attention
5. Give the work back to the
people
6. Protect voices from below
5. PUBLIC MANAGERS IN BUREAUCRATIC, NPM & NEW PUBLIC
SERVICE MODELS
Bureaucratic Model New Public Management New Public Service
• Weber’s (1946)
bureaucracy
• Wilson’s (1887) policy-
administrative divide
• Taylor’s (1911) scientific
management model of
work organisation
• Monopolistic forms of
service provision (large
multipurpose
hierarchical
organisation)
• Programs are
implemented through
top-down control
mechanism, with limited
discretion
• Citizen involvement is
• Economic markets should be the
model for relationships in the public
sector – ‘run government like a
business’
• Policy, implementation and delivery
functions should be separated and
governed by contracts
• New administrative technologies:
performance-based contracting,
competition, market incentives
• Citizen as customer
• Goals of public managers built
around the achievement of
performance targets
• Growing recognition that ‘the social values
inherent in public services may not be
adequately addressed by the economic
efficiency calculus of markets’ (Hefetz and
Warner 2004, p. 174)
• The role of public managers is to build
support and legitimacy for policy, in order to
create “public value”
• Public administrators should serve and
empower citizens as they manage public
organizations and implement policy
(Denhardt and Denhardt 2000, p. 550)
• Creating and maintaining trust, and
responding to the collective preferences of
the citizenry
6. WHAT IS PUBLIC VALUE?
• ‘The value created by government through services, laws, regulation and other actions’
(Kelly et al. 2002, p. 4)
• ‘A reflection of collectively expressed, politically mediated preferences consumed by the
citizenry – created not just through ‘outcomes’ but also through processes which may
generate trust and fairness’ (O’Flynn 2007, p. 358)
• We can define it as a correlate to private value and stakeholder return
‘Think of citizens as shareholders in how their tax is spent. The value may be created through
economic prosperity, social cohesion or cultural development. Ultimately, the value – such as
better services, enhanced trust or social capital, or social problems diminished or avoid – is
decided by the citizen. Citizens do this through the democratic process, not just through the
ballot box, but through taking part in … consultations and surveys, for example’ (Horner and
Hazel 2007, p. 358)
7. ANZSOG PUBLIC VALUE DIMENSIONS
• public satisfaction
• economic value – generating economic activity/employment
• social and cultural value – social capital/cohesion
• political value – democratic dialogue, public participation
• ecological value – sustainable development, reducing pollution, waste, global warming
• service delivery – take‐up, satisfaction, choice, fairness, cost
• financial performance – revenues, expenditure value for money, efficiency
• non‐financial performance – efficiency, customer satisfaction, service quality
• social value from the user perspective, tangible economic value from the administration perspective, intangible economic value
from the administration perspective
• trust and legitimacy
• protecting citizens’ rights
https://anzsog.edu.au/research-insights-and-resources/research/how-do-we-
measure-public-value/
10. MOORE’S STRATEGIC TRIANGLE
• Should I do it? (public value)
• May I do it? (legitimacy and
support)
• Can I do it? (productive
capabilities)
11. PUBLIC MANAGEMENT AS POLITICAL
MANAGEMENT
• Follows two cases where managers facing strategically important decisions but have limited individual
power
• Political management is about ‘building support and legitimacy for a policy, or enhancing the effective
claim that an official may make on the society at large’
• Public managers must obtain the resources needed to achieve the goals (what they consider to be
publicly valuable) – gain legitimacy and persuade the authorizing environment
• Principals (political superiors, legislative overseers, overhead agencies etc.)
• Media
• Interest Groups
• Courts
Political astuteness as a key skill – political environment is not stable
12. LEADERSHIP AND PUBLIC VALUE
‘Leading and recognizing public value’ Hartley, Parker and Beashel (2017)
1. There is not a homogenous public, but rather a set of publics – different views and
priorities about public value
2. Public value can be created, but also lost or displaced
3. Public value theory underestimates inequality in stakeholders’ power (in their ability to
make their voice heard in the policy process
• Leadership can be undertaken by multiple actors not just public managers
• Building publics
• The need to be politically astute
13. STRATEGIC APPROACH – CREATING
COMMUNITIES OF PARTICIPATION
• Public managers bring together the participants necessary to pursue and enact
their core tasks – they can promote or inhibit inclusion
• Why they should promote inclusion (Feldman and Khademian 2007):
• Different perspectives enhance the design as well as implementation of policies
• Informed deliberative processes are fundamental to democracy
14. A STRATEGIC APPROACH
• Three domains of participants: political, technical and local
• Two types of work for public managers:
• Informational work: public managers as brokers, translators and synthesizers
• Relational work: public managers create a community of participation
• Boundary objects and boundary experiences to promote inclusive communities of
participation (branding?)
15. CONCLUDING REMARKS
• How useful are leadership theories in thinking about what makes a good public
manager?
• Different conceptions of public managers between bureaucratic, NPM and new
public service models – are they necessarily competing?
• Public value for who? Can public managers actually create inclusive communities
in the face of such polarization today
• Is public value a new paradigm, a narrative for reform, or a way for public
managers to justify the expansion of their role into the political domain?