Public leadership: motivated by values not bonuses

Abstract

Purpose

Turbulent times are here to stay and public leadership needs to become less managerial, more adept at harnessing resources and transforming governance. While the media continues to search for heroic leaders there is a growing awareness that there is more to public leadership than charisma and that compliant leaders do little to nurture innovation. The purpose of this paper is to address the varying concepts of leadership within public services in the UK.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper addresses the varying concepts of leadership within public services in the UK and offers a comparative discussion on these choices of types of leadership.

Findings

Evidence shows that successful public leaders tend to motivated by social values rather than money and that in the UK, transformative leadership is stronger at the local level than in central government, where although embryonic, political and executive leaders are forging platforms for innovation and new governance systems that central governments could learn from.

Originality/value

There are examples of exemplary public leadership in the UK and this paper attempts to unpack where these are, how they challenge existing leadership thinking and why new forms of leadership are critical at this time.

Citation

Maddock, S. (2012), "Public leadership: motivated by values not bonuses", International Journal of Leadership in Public Services, Vol. 8 No. 3, pp. 112-120. https://doi.org/10.1108/17479881211279986