Servant and transformational leadership theories for public leadership development

Public Leadership

The task has been given to the local government Chief of Staff to design a plan to develop and implement the government\'s new million-dollar grant funded Public Leadership Academy. The objectives for the program will have long standing implications for the local community since the program will be responsible for training future public leaders. This analysis will identify the different theories of public leadership, leadership styles and competencies, as well as gauge the effectiveness of this information and how it might be relevant to the local governments new venture. There are two relevant theories that have been identified and applied to public leadership, which consist of servant and transformational leadership. It is clear that many of our institutions need to adapt to changes and serve the public interest in new ways.

Theories of Public Leadership

The stakeholder-oriented force behind knowledge sharing among public servants can be public service motivation (PSM), defined as a \"general altruistic motivation to serve the interests of a community of people, a state, a nation or humanity\" and others have noted that PSM is a transcendent force in public employees that \"pushes\" them to transcend the barrier of self-interests (Tuan, 2016). Any public servant has the obligation to pursue what\'s best for the public\'s interest and not their own, which is consistent with servant leadership. However, it is often the case that people make decisions with the same heuristics and decision making processes that they would do in their own lives. Therefore, to overcome this, it is important to have empathy and really be able to put yourself in the perspective of others.

The transformational leadership model is another popular models that was first introduced by Burns who proposed a dialectical concept of transformational leadership (TL), which was contrast with a model of transactional leadership (Judge & Bono, 2000). The definition of transformational leadership was described as something to the effect that a type of leader could better relate to and make appeals to the moral values of their followers. It has also been found that emotional intelligence plays a central role in the competencies that can provide a leader a path in which they can inspire organizational members to transform their personal self-interest into the broader organizational goals. The leader is also likely to be able to set a high level vision of the future that the organization and the community can relate to. However, this competency is highly dependent upon effective communication as well as emotional intelligence which can serve as the foundation of the relationship, both internally and externally.

Leadership Styles and Competencies

It can be difficult to get people to open up to you and explain their perspective. The capacity to assess and accept one\'s own emotional response and personal vulnerability, coupled with the ability and willingness to model healthy coping behaviors, illustrates powerful leadership tools in organizations that can greatly enhance the collective recovery effort when things do not go as planned or when overcoming adversity (Bunker, 1997). Therefore, one leadership tool that can open up lines of communication is to not only understand your own vulnerabilities, but to be able to communicate them in a way that opens dialogue and serves as a foundation for empathy.

The servant leadership model was identified as likely having has the greatest capacity to incorporate the competency of vulnerability. This leadership model was introduced by Robert Greenleafe in the 1970\'s and has become popular in many circles within the course of the last four decades. Despite this popularity, some have argued that the theory lacks a strong central theory and a working definition that clearly explains the of the concept of servant (Berger, 2009). Despite the potential vagueness of the leadership model in some key aspects, this model proposes a radical break from the typical top-down approach of the major leadership styles as it clearly incorporates concepts like standing back, forgiveness, courage, empowerment, accountability, authenticity, humility, and stewardship which are all key ingredients of an effective public leadership model (Van Dierrendonck & Nuijten, 2010).

Effectiveness of Leadership Styles and Competencies

Kent, Crotts, and Aziz (2001), as cited in Modassir &Singh (2008), later defined TL as the processes by which change or transformation is first introduced to organizations and the article further provided a background on the traits, dimensions, and the influences on the organization that are associated with the TL model (Modassir & Singh, 2008). The personality traits generally associated TL are associated with improving the motivation of the members of the organization that is above or beyond what would be typically required of them or what their contractual obligations are to the organization. The transformational leader is thus commonly associated with some form of inspirational or charismatic traits that enable them to influence their subordinates in such a manner that they are willing and able to put forth their best performances in the effort to collectively meet transformational organizational change objectives (Modassir & Singh, 2008).

Another study examines systematically studies relationship between some of the competencies related to TL and of emotional intelligence (EI), organizational citizenship and behavior (OCB) of a population using a sample of 57 dyads of managers and their supervisors (i.e., 114 respondents) which participated in this study (Modassir & Singh, 2008). Based on their research with this sample, the authors argue that the transformational leadership model is dependent upon the factors that are closely related to the competencies and their similarity to those defined within emotional intelligence and the organizational citizenship model. That is, if a transformational leader has high levels of emotional intelligence and is working in an organization that has a cooperative culture will be more likely to be effective leaders. Such relationships would serve as an ideal foundation of competencies to build a program of study regarding public leadership curriculum.