This is a review of a paper by Janet Denhardt and Kelly Campbell titled 'the roles of democratic values in transformational leadership' published in the Administration & Society journal, volume 38, year 2006. The paper starts with reviewing the development of transformational leadership theory. The review compares the original concept of transformational leadership as set forth in Burns (1978) with the recent concepts that mostly influenced by Bass (1985). Denhardt and Campbell argue that the recent transformational leadership concept narrowed to ‘transformational as change’ which create problematic in its application in public sector (2006, p. 559). This led them to build an alternative model according to the Burns’s conception of transformational leadership as moral elevation and combined with normative public administration theories which include democratic values (Denhardt & Campbell 2006, pp. 567-568). I will argue that the public transformational leadership model introduced by the authors could: (a) contribute to a better public management, and (b) more relevant to a complex situation. At the end, as I learn from the model, I will suggest that effective leaders need strong relations and changes behaviours orientation, in addition to moderately strong task-oriented behaviours.
Contribute to a better public management
The paper emphasizes the importance of addressing the democratic values and, therefore, strengthening the role of citizen and the assertion of public interest (Denhardt & Campbell 2006, p. 562). This suggestion could overcome the weakness of the market-oriented government approach that being promoted through the new public management (NPM).
New public management could fail to create public value because it tends to leave some people behind the development. While NPM improve the efficiency and performance-focus of public organizations (OECD 2005, p. 10), it has resulted in an emergence of a "new poor" in some developing countries (Batley & Larbi 2004, cited in Haque 2007, p. 182). Efficiency and performance are two important NPM's doctrine that could be achieved, for example, by imposing the performance based finance management. However, the performance focus in NPM heavily associated with “service user” or “customer” as contrast to “citizen” which cover ‘unwilling customers’ (Borins 2002, p. 191). That is because citizens play a multi-function role in society. NPM approach could exclude non-customer citizens (such as tax payers who are not directly benefit by public service) from the attention of a public sector leader. This shortcomings could be sustained because NPM 'hinders any return to substantive democracy and limits the degree to which citizens can meaningfully affect policy and administration’ (Box et al. 2001, p. 613).
Democratic values are essential for public transformational leadership in the process of creating public value. In their search for performance, public sector leaders seek for public value rather than narrowing at 'customer' value. To achieve public value, they cannot just rely on the feasibility of their operation and administration, they must be legitimate and politically sustainable (Moore 1995, p. 71). The legitimacy and the operational capability can be simultaneously achieved if public leaders apply a 'substantive democracy'; that is the democracy which involves the revitalization of the role of public administrator and citizen in shaping the future (Box et al. 2001, p. 611). Democracy in internal would empower the public servants, while democracy in external would empower as well as gaining legitimacy from the citizens.
More relevant to a complex situation
In a complex situation, public leaders could not focus only on managing their administration. Indonesian public sector is a good example for a complex situation. Indonesian government is strong in terms of its authority power given by the constitution where government almost could or should do anything related to people’s life. However, Indonesian government has limited resources to implement its wide-range authority. For example, the ratio of tax revenue to GDP was only 9.9 per cent compared to an average of 14.0 per cent among non-OECD countries in Asia (IMF 2008, p. 11). This situation forces Indonesian government to encourage private sectors to contribute to public services including social welfare program. In this situation, public leaders should manage different stakeholders with different interests and different level of power, and also to ensure that the powerless have opportunity to contribute to the process of creating public value.
Public transformational leadership model introduced by the authors is more relevant in the complex situation. The authors argue that transformational leadership is not only about creating a change, but also to ensure that the process of change should involve moral elevation; that is a normative model of public leadership based on democratic values, citizenship, and service in the public interest (Denhardt & Campbell 2006, p. 558). The model will force the public leaders to create changes in participatory way by involving all important stakeholders. The process of changes is equally, if not more, important than the change itself. This will create a sustainable change in the complex situation because all stakeholders own the idea and the result which will make them committed to maintain and continuously improve the change in the future. In “transformation as change” model, by contrast, the leader would just focus on the effectiveness and efficiency of the change which can be done through unilateral way, but the impact would not sustainable.
Overall learning from the article
This paper shows me the comparison of two different model of transformational leadership; those are the ‘transformation as change’ and ‘transformation as moral elevation’. The two categories could be related to the current discussion about public sector model which can be contrasted to “market-oriented” and “public value-oriented”. The moral elevation model which preferred more by the authors has more potential to work to create public value in a complex situation.
The comparison of the two models generates idea about leadership behaviours for effective leaders in a complex situation. Yukl introduces a ‘metacategories’ of leadership behaviours into three dimensions: they are: task-oriented, relations-oriented, and changes-oriented behaviours (2010, pp. 117-130). As I learn from the paper, I argue that the moral elevation model of public transformational leadership requires strong relations-oriented and changes-oriented behaviours, and moderately strong need for task-oriented behaviours. This is because the process of change equally, if not more, important than the change itself. My argument is in line with Yukl’s argument on traits characteristic of effective manager; that is high socialized power orientation, a moderately strong need for achievement, and a relatively weaker need for affiliation (Yukl 2010, p. 74).
References
Bass, BM 1985, Leadership and performance beyond expectations, Free Press, New York.
Borins, S 2002, 'New public management, North American style', in K. McLaughilin, S.P. Osborne, & E. Ferlie (eds), New Public Management: Current Trends and Future Prospects, Routledge, London, pp. 181-194.
Box, RC, Marshall, GS, Reed, BJ & Reed, CM 2001, ‘New public management and substantive democracy’, Public Administration Review, vol. 61, no. 5, pp. 608-619.
Burns, JM 1978, Leadership, Harper & Row, New York.
Denhardt, JV & Campbell, KB 2006, ‘The role of democratic values in transformational leadership’, Administration & Society, vol. 38, pp. 556-572.
Haque, MS 2007, 'Revisiting the new public management', Review of The changing role of government: the reform of public services in developing countries by R. Batley and G. Larbi, Public Administration Review, Jan-Feb, pp. 179-182
IMF 2008, 'Tax administration reform and fiscal adjustment: the case of Indonesia (2001-07)', IMF Working Paper WP/08/129, International Monetary Fund, Washington, D.C., viewed 10 October 2010,
Moore, MH 1995, Creating public value: strategic management in government, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass.
OECD 2005, Modernising government: the way forward, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Paris.
Yukl, GA 2010, Leadership in organizations, 7th edn, Pearson, Upper Saddle River, N.J.
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