Abstract
Leadership is a topic that the field of public administration has in some way or another tried to come to grips with throughout its history. A number of troubling questions has complicated this effort. Is leadership a separate topic, or subsumed in the study of organization and management? Should degree programs in public administration devote specific courses to leadership, or (as in the case of ethics in many MPA programs) see it as embedded within the discussion of such areas as human resource management, public finance, and organization theory? If taught, what is the proper approach, stressing theoretical models and research or looking at public officials judged to be exemplary leaders? In short, how does leadership fit into the teaching and research agenda of the field?
The publication of James MacGregor Burns’ milestone book, Leadership, in 1978 led to a veritable explosion of interest in the topic of leadership. In particular, Burns introduced the concepts of transactional and transformational leadership approaches that galvanized much of the research agenda on leadership for the next two decades. Transformational leadership in particular seemed attractive to those for whom the traditional POSDCORB approach of public administration seemed stale and mechanistic. Stand-alone programs in leadership began to emerge in universities in the 1980s, as did courses and growing research in the topic within public administration.
No figure in public administration has worked harder and longer to bring some order to the chaos of leadership studies in the field than Montgomery Van Wart. His influence on the topic within public administration is evidenced by a continuing body of work on the subject beginning with his influential 2003 article on public sector leadership theory in Public Administration Review and moving to several book-length treatments of leadership, the latest of which is the subject of this review. The second edition of Dynamics of Leadership in Public Service: Theory and Practice is a major step forward in providing the field with a comprehensive, single-volume text that can be used in both master’s and doctoral courses.
Comprehensive is certainly an apt term for the approach taken by Van Wart. The book is organized into 17 chapters, divided into an introductory chapter followed by three parts. Part 1 looks at leadership theories. Part 2 reviews the application of theory and specific leadership competencies. Part 3, the shortest of the three sections with only two chapters included, examines how leaders can be developed and evaluated. There is only a short conclusion in the final chapter of Part 3, followed by four appendices, references, and an index.
Van Wart introduces the second edition in this way in the preface:
This book addresses leadership in public organizations from two perspectives. First, it examines—in detail—the competencies that organizational leaders at all levels need. Second, it offers a comparative review of the theoretical literature on leadership from a public sector perspective. Both of these elements have received remarkably little attention, despite the abundance of materials available for the private sector.
This highlights one of the strengths of the second edition: the decision by the author to begin by examining the theoretical foundations of leadership followed by a discussion of how they can be applied to develop leadership competencies.
Van Wart begins the first chapter with three cautionary points: leadership is a complex phenomenon; sophisticated intellectual and applied models are needed to avoid mere platitudes; and the scope of the leadership subject is so vast that concrete insights can only come from focus on particular domains. With these restrictions in mind the author reviews the history and development of leadership as a topic for research and theory, ending with an operational definition of leadership for individuals. As defined by Van Wart, “leadership is a complex process involving numerous fundamentally different types of acts” (p. 34). These fall into five categories: assessing one’s environment and leadership constraints; developing leadership traits and skills; refining and modifying leadership styles to fit situations; achieving predetermined goals; and continually self-evaluating their own performance. From this definition it is apparent that leadership in Van Wart’s view is a largely rational and cognitive process in which leaders are able to control situations by applying a range of theories and developing skills and competencies based on this understanding. They, not followers or situations, are in most instances the independent variable.
Part 2 of the book consists of seven chapters that examine in detail the major theoretical approaches Van Wart considers to be influential in the development of leadership studies. One of the advantages of his approach is not to array the theories strictly in an historical or development timeline, but to consider them analytically one after another, beginning with a discussion of leadership styles and moving to early managerial and transactional approaches; charismatic and transformational approaches; horizontal and distributed leadership models; ethics-based theories; specialized approaches such power, culture, diversity, and gender; and finally a range of integrative theories.
I found the chapter on ethics-based leadership theories especially strong, perhaps reflecting Van Wart’s considerable experience and expertise in the area of administrative ethics as well as leadership studies. He bases the chapter on the observation that ethics-based approaches wrestle with three concerns: what is the intent of individuals; what are the proper means for doing good; and what proper ends have been selected (pp. 143-144). His conclusion is that a regard for the interplay of the three factors, intent, means, and ends, is required for ethical leadership to be functional. The ethics-based approach also shows a strong input from writers associated with the field of public administration compared to most of the other theoretical approaches, with writers such as Terry Cooper, Larry Terry, James Perry, Matthew Fairholm, and others cited as contributing to the development of this theoretical stream. Although he notes some limitations inherent in the ethics-based approach, Van Wart concludes the chapter by noting that “yet for any of its perceived shortcomings, ethical leadership is certainly foremost in the minds of followers who routinely place trust, integrity, and similar concepts at the top of their preferences with respect to leaders, and is essential in public and nonprofit sector settings in which stewardship is inevitably considered fundamental to the right to serve” (p. 159).
By contrast to the ethics-based leadership chapter, the following chapter on specialized approaches seems to sacrifice depth for breadth in coverage of the vast body of leadership theory. The robust area of gender-based leadership theory is given relatively short shrift and seems incomplete, especially given the considerable contributions in this area by scholars in public administration such as Meredith Newman, Mary Ellen Guy, Camilla Stivers, and a host of others. It could be argued that each of the three topics lumped together in chapter 7—power, culture, and diversity—deserved individual attention. Certainly the area of gender-based approaches would allow for a more complete discussion, both of generic leadership concerns and those specific to the public sector setting.
Part 1 concludes with a discussion of integrative approaches. This chapter is useful in showing the trend toward incorporating elements of several theoretical approaches into an overarching approach that in Van Wart’s words “provides a broad sweep of the leadership context rather than a set of specific factors, situations, or behaviors, or a perspective” (p. 178). As he points out, each of these integrative approaches builds a composite approach in a unique way, which is illustrated graphically in useful exhibits laced throughout this challenging but ultimately satisfying conclusion to the section on theory.
Part 2 of the book moves from a review of theoretical perspectives on leadership to chapter-by-chapter discussion of competencies required of effective leaders. Instructors of master’s-level courses will find this part of the book useful in providing competency-based learning approaches in line with the NASPAA standards. The chapters in this part are filled with excellent sidebar examples to add to the textual treatment of leader competencies. This part of the book seems much more geared to the public administration audience than Parts 1 and 3. As noted above, the placement of these chapters after rather than before the theoretical chapters makes a good deal of sense and reflects criticism by students and faculty of the organization used in the first edition.
One of the surprising aspects of Part 2 is the chapter on traits. Traits-based approaches to leadership form a part of the history of leadership studies that many researchers would prefer to consign to the trash heap. Van Wart’s decision to include a chapter on traits, and to include it in the part of the book dealing with competencies and not theories, is risky; as he notes, it is difficult to determine what if anything differentiates the concepts of traits, skills, and behavioral competencies (p. 259). However one may feel about the trait-oriented approach, the decision to include such a chapter allows Van Wart to provide some of the most provocative examples of good and bad leadership, often bringing in examples that illustrate some of the points on ethics-based leadership made in the chapter discussing the ethics-based approach.
This brings us to the third part of the book, on leadership development and evaluating leaders. This part, especially the final chapter, seems underdeveloped compared to the comprehensive treatment of theory and competencies. In particular, the discussion seems to move away from the focus on public sector leadership developed in Part 2. Van Wart’s own integrative approach, graphically displayed in Exhibit 17.1 and incorporating five major elements, 37 specific leadership competencies, is the logical culmination of the entire book but deserves to be discussed in more detail. It is the most ambitious effort to combine leadership theories with skills and competencies that anyone in public administration has developed to date.
In the final analysis, Dynamics of Leadership in Public Service is a heroic exercise in distilling the vast body of literature and relevant examples of leadership for the public administration audience. I used the first edition of the book for a doctoral seminar on Leadership and Ethics and found it covered the subject well for an audience made up mostly of PhD students (who, incidentally, noted that the theory part needed to precede the competencies part, as now is the case in the second edition). It is doubtful that anyone else in the discipline has the ability to match Montgomery Van Wart’s skills in organizing and explicating this body of knowledge. While giving coverage to the range of approaches offered for understanding leadership, the author shows a clear preference for an individually focused, cognitively based, leader-centric approach. This is not surprising for someone who has taken the time to laboriously accumulate the knowledge needed to present students with a single-volume text geared to developing public sector leaders. Perhaps in the next edition more attention might be given to how problematic it is to determine reasonable expectations for leadership in public sector organizations. Who are we directing our attention to, careerists or top appointed executives? How can we differentiate leadership among the different groups of professionals who rise to top positions? How does the environment of public administration affect the ability of leaders to motivate and inspire a public workforce that is increasingly under fire, mistrusted, and underappreciated? For now, though, those teaching courses in leadership in MPA and doctoral programs will find this text an essential reading.