Instructor Resources
Denhardt, Managing Human Behavior in Public and Nonprofit Organizations 4th edition
SAGE Publications 2016
Chapter 7 – Leadership in Public Organizations
Slide 1 – Opening
Slide 2 – Chapter Objectives
•Understand the importance of motivation in public organizations
•Debunk the myth of the unmotivated public employee
•Define motivation theories
•Understand the 9 ways of acting to improve motivation in your organization
Slide 3 – Leadership in Context
•Leadership is becoming one of the most widely debated but least clearly understood concepts in
the study of public and private organizations these days. There are frequent calls for enhanced
leadership in organizations 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are outdated and unworkable in modern society.
Slide 4 – Leadership Study Important
•Over the coming years, we will see more and more instances of what we term shared leadership
in public organizations, both within the organizations and as administrators relate to their many
external constituencies.
•Leadership inevitably is associated with important human values, including the most fundamental
public values, such as freedom, equality, and justice. Through the process of leadership, people
Slide 5 – Traditional Approaches
•Leadership no longer is simply what those in leadership positions do. Rather, it refers to a
process by which one or more people influence others to pursue a commonly held objective. We
might define leadership in this way: Leadership occurs where one or more members of a group or
organization stimulate others to more clearly recognize their previously latent needs, desires, and
potentialities and to work together toward their fulfillment. Whether leadership comes from
someone in a formal position of “leadership” or from someone else, we can say that leadership
has occurred only when the group has been stimulated to move in a new direction.
Slide 6 – Trait Approach
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Instructor Resources
Denhardt, Managing Human Behavior in Public and Nonprofit Organizations 4th edition
SAGE Publications 2016
•Commentators tried to address the question of what constitutes effective leadership and what
personal characteristics are associated with successful leaders through biographical studies of
well-known leaders. The lives and careers of leaders were studied to try to determine what
qualities set leaders apart from others.
•Stogdill analyzed some 124 studies of leadership traits that had been conducted between 1904
and 1947. His synthesis of these studies suggested that leaders are indeed different from others
in a group or organization in several ways. For example, most of the studies showed that leaders
tended to be more intelligent, more dependable or responsible, and more active in social
Slide 7 – Trait Approach
•These characteristics were found to distinguish leaders from others, effective leaders from
ineffective leaders, and higher-level leaders from lower-level leaders. But again, Stogdill pointed
out that the possession of certain traits is not as determining of leadership as the interaction of
personality and social situations. But despite these reservations, Stogdill concluded that
personality is indeed a factor—although not the only factor—in differentiating leaders from others.
Slide 8 – Leadership Styles
•[Ohio State University Study] Consideration describes the extent to which the leader is concerned
for the welfare of those in the group. A considerate leader might compliment people on their work,
emphasize the importance of job satisfaction, help to put employees at ease, and so on. The idea
of consideration is primarily focused on relationships. Initiation of structure, on the other hand,
describes the extent to which the leader initiates activity in the group, organizes the group, and
Slide 9 – Leadership Grid
•The grid has two key dimensions: concern for production and concern for people (essentially the
task and relationship distinction once again). Concern for production might be expressed in a
focus on results, performance, and the “bottom line,” whereas concern for people might be
expressed in a focus on job satisfaction, working conditions, and wages and salary. Each of these
concerns is found in differing degrees in different people, and indeed these concerns are found to
differ from time to time in the same person. These degrees are represented on a scale from 1 to 9
and, when they are combined, yield the grid shown in Figure 7.1.
Slide 10 – Situational Leadership
•One of the most widely known approaches to leadership behavior is what is called situational
leadership®, an approach developed by Hersey and Blanchard during the late 1960s. The
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Instructor Resources
Denhardt, Managing Human Behavior in Public and Nonprofit Organizations 4th edition
SAGE Publications 2016
emphasis in situational leadership® is on the relationship between the leader and his or her
followers.
Slide 11 – Contingency Approach
•Some situations are more favorable for some leaders, and other situations are more favorable for
others.
Slide 12 – Contingency Approach
•Position power refers to the degree to which the position enables the leader to get others to
comply with his or her directions. It is the power that the group builds into the situation and is
reflected in things such as having an official title (and the perquisites of high office) and having
the authority to hire and fire or to give raises in rank and pay.
•Task structure refers to the degree to which the task undertaken by the leader and group is
structured or unstructured. Tasks that are highly structured give the leader more control, whereas
Slide 13 – Path-Goal Theory
•This approach is based on expectancy theory, which we discussed earlier and, as you recall,
suggests that people are satisfied with their work if they believe it will lead to things that are highly
valued and that they will work hard if they believe their effort will lead to things that are valued.
Somewhat like contingency theory, the path–goal approach suggests combinations of leadership
styles and subordinate attitudes or expectations.
Slide 14 – Path-Goal Theory
•The bottom line is that the leader should help subordinates to establish goals and set the
appropriate paths to those goals, and then should work with employees to encourage them in
task completion and to remove obstacles that might stand in the way of their success.
Slide 15 – Contemporary Approaches
•Most contemporary works along these lines assume that there are traits that a leader possesses
to a greater degree than do others in the organization. Most also agree that these traits can be
developed if they are not initially present in the individual.
Slide 16 – Contemporary Approaches
•Bennis (1997) offered 10 traits of “dynamic leaders.”
•Of the 10, 6 characteristics are classified as personality characteristics: self-confidence,
decisiveness, resilience, energy, flexibility, and emotional maturity.
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Instructor Resources
Denhardt, Managing Human Behavior in Public and Nonprofit Organizations 4th edition
SAGE Publications 2016
Slide 17 – Leadership Traits
•Intelligence and self-understanding. Intellectual ability seems to be positively associated with
leadership success, although substantial differences in the verbal or conceptual ability of leaders
and members of the organization might interfere with effective communications. Leaders need a
strong capacity for conceiving possibilities that might be hidden within a situation, the ability to
articulate their ideas clearly and persuasively, and the intelligence to understand the context in
which those ideas are to be played out. Leaders must be intelligent with respect to the outside
world, but they also must be adept at self-understanding.
•Self-confidence and self-esteem. Obviously, those who aspire to leadership must have a certain
degree of confidence that they will succeed. They must feel sure of their own abilities as well as
Slide 18 – Credibility
•If credibility is the foundation of all leadership, then what are the things leaders do that enhance
their credibility?
•Challenging the process. Leaders accept the challenge of change. The specific challenge may
come in a number of ways—from trying to introduce a new program of quality service to citizens,
to implementing a new program, to turning a decaying organization around. They encourage risk
and innovation— in themselves and in others. And they learn from both their successes and their
failures.
•Inspiring a shared vision. Leaders look into the future, explore its possibilities, and dream about
what the future might be like. This vision or mission represents an important change—a desire to
make something happen that is new, different, and hopefully better.
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Instructor Resources
Denhardt, Managing Human Behavior in Public and Nonprofit Organizations 4th edition
SAGE Publications 2016
their understanding of those beliefs and values. They are people who have a clear sense of their
own behavior—what they are doing and how it is affecting the group.
•Encouraging the heart. The most successful leaders encourage others to do their very best and
Slide 19 – Contemporary Summary
Slide 20 – Transformational Approach
•Transformational leadership—has its roots in studies of political and governmental leadership.
•Leadership, according to Burns, is an aspect of power, but it is a separate process. Power is
exercised when potential power wielders, acting to achieve goals of their own, gather resources
that enable them to influence others. Power is exercised to realize the purposes of the power
wielders, whether or not those purposes also are the purposes of the respondents. Leadership,
Slide 21 – Transformational Strategies
•Transformational leaders, according to Bass, achieve good results by employing one or more of
four strategies.
Slide 22 – Value-Based Leadership
•In this view, the organizational “bottom line” is less important than the leader’s capacity for
honesty, integrity, character, or spirit. Although there is the implication that, in the long run, the
servant-leader will help the organization accomplish its work more effectively, the first priority is
service to others—citizens, clients, customers, or the community.
•Importantly, values-based leadership requires that leaders begin by changing themselves—that
is, by revising their own concept of leadership and the values that support bringing about change.
Slide 23 – Shared Leadership
•For those seeking to assert leadership in situations involving many groups and interests, the
traditional skills of organizational management—motivating, delegating, and so on—are less
applicable than is a new set of skills.
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Instructor Resources
Denhardt, Managing Human Behavior in Public and Nonprofit Organizations 4th edition
SAGE Publications 2016
Slide 24 – Shared Leadership
•Collaboration and shared leadership are significant trends in public administration, where the rise
of network governance has been remarkable.
Slide 25 – Challenges
•Thomson and Perry suggest five dimensions of collaboration that we might interpret as
challenges facing any potential leader of a governance network.
Slide 26 – Positive Leadership
•Consistent with the positive psychology approach, positive leadership suggests that we shift our
focus away from weakness and problems in the organizations (though it does not say they should
be ignored), and instead focus on strengths and opportunities. The result should be an
improvement both in individual and organizational performance and an improvement in personal
and interpersonal relationships.
Slide 27 – Leadership and Emotions
•Emotional intelligence to refer to “the sense in which there is intelligence in the emotions and the
Slide 28 – Leadership and Emotions
Slide 29 – Diverse Organizations
•Understanding cultural differences and managing conflicts that arise from cultural diversity are
very important for contemporary leaders in today’s globalized world. Leaders in different cultures
are not immune to the predominant values and practices of their cultures, so their characteristics
and behavior will be dependent on these values and practices.
Slide 30 – Diverse Organizations
•GLOBE developed nine cultural dimensions and identified several they call “global leader
behaviors (leadership dimensions),” which are more or less common to every culture.
•Although there are great differences among the traits and practices preferred by the world’s
cultures, GLOBE’s researchers contended that there are certain leader behaviors that are
universally endorsed by every culture. Charismatic/value-based leadership, according to the
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Instructor Resources
Denhardt, Managing Human Behavior in Public and Nonprofit Organizations 4th edition
SAGE Publications 2016
Slide 31 – Ethics of Leadership
•Part of the role of leader is to provide the assurance that we need to face the future. The leader is
the one who says, “It’s okay. We’ll be fine. What we’re doing is the right thing.” The leader
relieves the followers from the sense of loss, or the guilt they might otherwise feel in moving away
from long-standing patterns and preferences. But doing so requires the leader to assume a
certain responsibility, the responsibility to make sure that the process of moving forward is
undertaken with care and sensitivity.
Slide 32 – Ethics of Leadership
•In Five Minds for the Future, Gardner speculated that the changes in our world today and into the
future will require five specific “kinds of minds” in order to cope and to thrive. (1) The disciplined
mind is that which has mastered a single discipline, craft, or profession. It provides a foundation
for the work of other minds. (2) The synthesizing mind is able to bring together information and
Slide 33 – Public Service Leadership
Slide 34 – Public Service Leadership
•Policy issues such as building the local economy and protecting the welfare of children and youth
involve many different government agencies as well as many groups outside of government. They
cross organizational boundaries and even jurisdictional boundaries. No one group or organization
can exercise power unilaterally; indeed, the interconnected nature of most public problems
means that coordinating many different groups and interests is the main task of policy leadership
today.
Slide 35 – Public Service Leadership
•The leader’s role is, in large part, to “conserve” the public service values that are part of the public
organization. The “administrative conservator” may be called on to play different roles at different
Slide 36 – Public Service Leadership
•Others have focused on executive-level leadership in public organizations, Vinzant and Crothers
argued in Street-Level Leadership that leadership occurs throughout public agencies, even at the
front line.
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Instructor Resources
Denhardt, Managing Human Behavior in Public and Nonprofit Organizations 4th edition
SAGE Publications 2016
Slide 37 – Ways of Acting
•Examine the traits, skills, and commitments associated with leadership and assess your own
strengths and weaknesses
•Learn by observation
•Experiment with your own behavior
•Model important values
•Assume leadership
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