Module 4 Paper
Provide a summary of the required module readings. Be sure to discuss and analyze key perspectives from Module 4 readings. Include in your discussion a clear linkage between key perspectives and at least the following learning objective: An understanding of the role and responsibilities of government organizations in society.
Paper Requirements:
This paper should be double spaced, size 12, Times New Roman font. This paper should be at least five pages in length (there are no maximum lengths for papers).
Academic Paper
Modern leadership principles for public
administration: time to move forward
Dana S. Kellis1,2* and Bing Ran1
1 Penn State Harrisburg, Public Affairs, Middletown, Pennsylvania, USA
2 Pinnacle Health, Administration, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, USA
The historical aversion to effective leadership in American public administration literature imposes a troubling
controversy over the appropriateness of nonelected public leaders being allowed to exercise the authority and
capability to make decisions regarding the direction, focus, and intensity of their organizational efforts. Using
principles from distributed, transformational, and authentic leadership theories, we propose a new public leadership
theory that addresses the emerging unique characteristics of the public sector and test this theory using three
administrations of the Federal Human Capital Survey. Results show strong support for the application of these
theories in the public service. We advocate for the research and teaching of modern leadership of these theories in
the public administration field. Copyright 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
INTRODUCTION
In the current context of recurrent crisis in the public
sphere, the challenge of defining, finding, and
supporting adequate leadership neither has been
greater nor has been more pressing. Domestic and
global recession, sovereign debt crises, multiple
armed conflicts, and global environmental and
natural disasters each challenge the capacity of
public managers to respond effectively. In many of
these crises, the inadequate leadership of some
public managers highlighted the importance of
understanding what constitutes effective public
leadership. For example, inadequate leadership
played a significant role in the Challenger and
Columbia Space Shuttle Disasters (Levine et al.,
1992; CAIB, 2003; Lambright, 2008). Failed federal,
state, and local leadership figured prominently in
the inadequate response to Hurricane Katrina
(Committee and USHS, 2006; Menzel, 2006; Waugh
and Streib, 2006; Lester and Krejci, 2007). Shortcom-
ings of leadership were also instrumental in the
Federal Home Loan Bureaus role in the recent
housing crisis (Hoffmann and Cassell, 2002; Hoffmann
and Cassell, 2005; Cassell and Hoffmann, 2009).
Despite these unprecedented demonstrations of
the risks and consequences of inadequate leadership
capacity in public organizations, the profession of
public administration (PA) has not fully embraced
leadership as a fundamental element of successful
practice. For much of its history, the field of PA
has struggled to identify the appropriate role of
leaders and managers in carrying out the affairs of
government. The debate encompasses the distinc-
tions between administration, politics, and values
in a constitutional democracy (Wilson, 1887; Taylor,
1947; Waldo, 1948; Selznick, 1949; Appleby, 1973)
and has evolved to questions of privatization versus
accountability (Hood and Jackson, 1991; Rhodes,
1994; Peters and Pierre, 1998). Two opposing schools
of thought exist among PA scholars regarding the
role of leadership in the public sector. Advocates of
market-based approaches to public services delivery
believe that these result in greater levels of efficiency
and accountability (Denhardt and Denhardt, 2000).
Public interest advocates, on the other hand, point
out the shortcomings of economic individualism
(Bozeman, 2007) and believe public servants should
receive direction from politicians, courts, and legisla-
tors. Regardless of their philosophical underpin-
nings, PA authors warn that strong leadership poses
a danger to the democratic process (Bertelli and Lynn,
2006; Warner and Hefetz, 2008) and worry that
empowered leaders may succumb to moral hazards
such as shirking, opportunism, self-aggrandizement,
*Correspondence to: Dana S Kellis, Penn State Harrisburg, Public
Affairs 777 W. Harrisburg Pike w160a Olmstead Bldg, Harrisburg,
Pennsylvania 17057, USA.
E-mail: [emailprotected]
Journal of Public Affairs
Volume 13 Number 1 pp 130141 (2013)
Published online 12 November 2012 in Wiley Online Library
(www.wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/pa.1453
Copyright 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
or self-promotion (Donaldson, 1990; Cook, 1998;
Terry, 1998; Fairholm, 2004).
The reluctance of the PA field to develop and
embrace strong leadership models is reflected by a
significant gap in the development and progression
of general and public leadership theories (Olshfski
and Jun, 1989; Rost, 1990; Senge, 1990; Bennis
et al., 1994; Nalbandian, 1994; Chemers, 1997; Pearce
and Conger, 2003; Trottier et al., 2008). Despite good
evidence that effective leadership plays a key role in
the success of public endeavors, new approaches to
the process of leadership in the general literature,
including shared, transformational, and authentic
or values-based leadership theories, have seen less
investigation or application to public settings. Calls
for research efforts to better define the structure,
tools, processes, and functions of leadership in the
public sector (Olshfski and Jun, 1989) have been
lacking in regard to the public application of the
new leadership approaches (Wright, 2011).
In this paper, we argue for the establishment of a
public leadership theory that is supported by three
tenets, the principles of authentic, transformational,
and distributed leadership, to better equip public
managers to function in a crisis-laden complex
constitutional democracy. We then use data from
the Federal Human Capital Survey to examine
outcomes of effective leadership as they relate to
the principles of authentic, transformational, and
distributed leadership. We conclude the paper by
arguing that a leadership theory constituted by
these three tenets of leadership approaches can
provide a strong foundation for developing leader-
ship roles and expectations in the public service.
We call for further investigation into the association
of these principles with the performance of public
organizations at federal, state, and local levels and
their usefulness in predicting changes in measurable
departmental outcomes.
THREE TENETS OF PUBLIC LEADERSHIP
A common thread in recent PA leadership research
has been leaders difficulty functioning effectively
in the complex environments that characterize the
modern public service, especially when faced with
a crisis or other organizational challenge. Riccucci
and Getha-Taylor (2009) refer to these complex
public service environments as the new normalcy,
a term that reflects the challenges public leaders face
in balancing operational priorities with unantici-
pated emergent needs, particularly in the setting of
markedly constrained resources and an increased
focus on performance (Ingraham, 2005). Although
effective leadership will be a crucial determinant of
public organizations success in adapting to their
changing environments (Hennessey, 1998; Ingraham,
2005), traditional approaches to public leadership are
increasingly ineffective (Chrislip and Larson, 1994).
Ashbys law of requisite variety (1958) predicts that
straightforward management and lower-level leader-
ship skills will be inadequate in this new normalcy
that requires public leaders to effectively identify
and support the publics interests (Jaques, 1976;
Avolio et al., 2000; Kellerman and Webster, 2001).
A number of leadership ideas and innovations
from the general leadership literature have been
developed to reflect and address these new require-
ments for leadership and whose application to the
public service should be considered (Trottier, et al.,
2008; Fernandez et al., 2010). Three of them are
especially of importance to address the unique
challenges faced by public managers and should
be incorporated into an overarching public leader-
ship theory: the core democratic values of modern
public leaders; a transformational focus on enfran-
chising, developing, and retaining the highly skilled
knowledge-based professional workforce; and the
distributed nature of public leadership positions
that characterizes todays public service. A new
public leadership theory supported by these three
key tenets recognizes the increasingly complex
structures and interrelationships within and between
public organizations, the increased levels of complex-
ity, and the added constraints of a democratic system
with ambiguous goals in which public leaders must
grapple with, and the different legal underpinnings
and different core values compared with their
nonpublic colleagues. Combining these three areas
of emphasis into a single leadership theory provides
a solid foundation upon which public managers can
be trained, upon which they can exercise leadership,
and upon which expectations of leadership outcomes
can be based.
The first tenet of the new public leadership theory
focuses on the authentic values of leaders. Being the
most central quality for leaders, authentic values
constitute an essential component of leadership in
the public sphere, forming a bridge between discre-
tion without which effective leadership is unlikely
and accountability that is essential for democracy.
As public leaders function in a dynamic and com-
plex leadership environment, to maintain demo-
cratic principles, they must negotiate between the
Scylla and the Charybdis of discretion and account-
ability. Adequate discretion is the lifeblood of
leadership. It forms the substrate upon which lead-
ership processes give birth to change and progress.
However, as the public bureaucracy increases in size
and complexity, the likelihood increases that public
leaders may abuse their discretionary latitude
when they encounter opportunities to design or
implement policy that disregards or contravenes
the public will (Fung, 2007). Increased access to
government officials as granted by the Administra-
tive Procedure Act (1946) allows interest groups
to collaborate directly with leaders thus poten-
tially circumventing public interest (Stewart, 1975).
Redford (1969) uses the term overhead democracy
Modern leadership principles 131
Copyright 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Public Affairs 13, 130141 (2013)
DOI: 10.1002/pa
to describe the flow of power from the electorate
to their elected representative, and thence to strictly
supervised appointed heads of administrative depart-
ments, thus implying discretion is antidemocratic.
Bertelli and Lynn (2003) support Redfords conten-
tion that restricting managerial discretion in favor of
close supervision enhances democratic principles.
This idea is further supported by the diminished
democracy theory, which holds that the price of main-
taining national sovereignty and integrated inter-
national markets is decreased influence by the polity
(Bezdek, 2000; Skocpol, 2004).
Leader discretion may still be compatible with
democratic principles if there is adequate account-
ability, but this can be problematic as well. Bovens
(2005) refers to accountability as the sine qua non
of democratic governance, explaining that public
leaders are the agents of electorate principals that
hold them accountable for effective and efficient
performance of electoral mandates (Prezeworksi
et al., 1999). Adequate accountability serves to
legitimize the public service (Bovens, 2005), protects
it from corruption and other destructive behavior
(Rose-Ackerman, 1999), and helps to improve
its performance through learning (Aucoin and
Heintzman, 2000). Nevertheless, in the excess,
accountability may result in worse performance
(Adelberg and Batson, 1978; Tetlock et al., 1989) as
government leaders become overly rigid, subject to
scapegoating, and become more focused on being
held accountable than on performing the task at
hand. Schneider (1999) posits a direct correlation
between the power of target groups and the degree
of accountability to which public servants providing
service are held, such as relatively lax accountability
of prison workers for their treatment of inmates.
Public leaders have traditionally been subject to
Weberian vertical accountability in which they
are accountable to their direct supervisor in the
bureaucratic chain of command (Bovens, 2005), a
relationship increasingly supplanted by horizontal
accountability to constituents. For example, media
coverage holds public leaders at all levels of govern-
ment bureaucracy accountable directly to the
public for their actions and decision. Publicprivate
partnerships and other cooperative relationships
between multiple levels and divisions of government
reside outside the bounds of vertical bureaucratic
control and require more innovative horizontal
approaches to accountability such as contracting or
citizen-based oversight (McQuaid, 2010). New public
management-inspired privatization initiatives for the
provision of public services have been particularly
challenged to establish accountability (Mulgan,
2000; Trebilcock and Iacobucci, 2003; McQuaid, 2010).
Authentic leadership theory, a prototypical values-
based leadership theory, creates a democratic space
between discretion and accountability by focusing
on and requiring transparency and consistency
between a leaders values, ethics, and actions (Chan
et al., 2005). Authentic leaders that have clarity of
understanding regarding their personal values and
ethical reasoning are inclined to develop positive
psychological states and are known for their integrity
(Gardner et al., 2005). They are moral agents who
take ownership of and responsibility for the end
results of their moral actions and the actions of their
followers (Hannah et al., 2005, p. 47). As moral
leaders, they analyze moral issues through deonto-
logical (rules, laws, duties, norms), teleological
(utilitarian, consequence), and areteological (inherent
virtuousness) lenses. Authentic leaders have a deeper
understanding of and a greater ability to explain their
moral self in leadership events as the result of a
higher level of complex cognitive ability and of core
moral beliefs (Hannah, et al., 2005). Democracy and
democratic values are protected far better by the
internal moral compass of an authentic leader than
could be hoped for by the external imposition of
rules, laws, or values by politicians or the polity. By
focusing on the development and recognition of a
strong internal value system and accompanying
moral behavior, authentic leadership allows for the
greater discretion and lower levels of account-
ability encountered in modern public leadership
environments.
The second tenet of the new public leadership
theory extends first to the dyadic relationship
between leaders and followers and focuses on public
workers development and value as described by
transformational leadership theory. First proposed
as a counterweight to transactional leadership by
Burns (1978), it has been the subject of a large
volume of research and development. On the basis
of four relational leadership concepts, including
idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intel-
lectual stimulation, and individual consideration,
transformational leadership recognizes the influence
of leaders relationships with their followers along
these four axes on outcomes of organizational initia-
tives. Bass expanded transformational leadership
framework to a full range theory that includes
transactional leadership styles of laissez faire,
passive management by exception, active manage-
ment by exception, and contingent reward, and
transformational leadership styles of individualized
consideration, idealized influence, intellectual stimu-
lation, and inspirational motivation (Bass, 1996).
Trottier et al. (2008) showed that Basss expanded
concept of the transformational leadership accur-
ately describes federal employees perception of
effective leadership. Transformational leaders exert
a strong effect on the ways in which workers
view their job (Piccolo and Colquitt, 2006), as well
as their engagement in change initiatives (Detert
and Burris, 2007). It is associated with improved
performance in both public and private contexts.
Considered a form of neo-charismatic leadership
by some authors, it combines the observed benefits
of traditional trait-based leadership (charisma) with
132 D. S. Kellis and B. Ran
Copyright 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Public Affairs 13, 130141 (2013)
DOI: 10.1002/pa
those of relational leadership to form an approach
to leadership often studied in the public service
literature, although this association is not constant
in the literature (Colbert et al., 2008; Jung et al.,
2008; Ling et al., 2008).
The third tenet of public leadership theory further
extends leadership to the distributed and networked
nature of modern public organizations. The infra-
structure underlying delivery of public services
grows increasingly complex, often involving mul-
tiple partnerships, departments, levels of govern-
ment and networks at any given time. Schneider
(2002) uses the term radix to describe public,
nonprofit, and private organizations operating in
this complex environment and functioning as
flexible value chains and support activities for
customers. Characterized by structures such as
teams, alliances, contingent workers, and outsour-
cing arrangements and nonvertical power relation-
ships, radix organizations reflect the complexity
that public organizations have assumed, such as
outsourcing arrangements of various services and
ambiguous power and authority infrastructure
(Schneider and Ingram, 1993; Schneider, 2002). Such
ambiguity requires new approaches to leadership
that transcend hierarchical traditions in favor of
more collaborative and interactive approaches. For
example, far from the hierarchical structure of trad-
itional PA or new public management-inspired
market-based direct contracting for services, public
managers increasingly find themselves in networks
within and between different levels of government,
in relational contracts with private and nonprofit
entities and in partnerships with private and
nonprofit entities that have ambiguous lines of
authority and accountabilities (Osborne, 2010). These
networks, contracts, and partnerships transcend
political jurisdictions, require expertise well beyond
what elected politicians or the general electorate
possess, and are tasked with accomplishing crucial
mission objectives. Leadership in such institutions is
shared and distributed between the various compo-
nents leaders, such that each individual leader must
collaborate with other leaders in the network to bring
about significant organizational change. This distrib-
uted nature of leadership is incorporated into stake-
holder, shared, and integrated leadership theories.
Stakeholder or collaborative leadership theory
recognizes that organizational hierarchy has become
less important than interorganizational relationships
defined in multiple manners such as contracting
and alliances (Schneider, 2002) and that one person
is unlikely to possess all of the skills, knowledge,
and expertise needed by modern public organiza-
tions (Chrislip and Larson, 1994), thus creating a need
for public leaders to bring together diverse internal
and external stakeholders to address public concerns
(Chrislip and Larson, 1994; Freeman, 2000). It
emphasizes stakeholder value as the fundamental
aim of the organization as opposed to shareholder
value and suggests that organizations must include
both internal and external stakeholders when making
strategic decisions (Freeman, 1984).The theory also
has a value basis as it requires leaders to act equitably
and ethically when resolving conflicting priorities
between different stakeholders (Evan and Freeman,
1988; Yukl, 2006). One form of stakeholder leadership
is shared leadership theory, which further charac-
terizes leadership as a process in which individuals,
teams, or organizations exert influence on their envi-
ronment. Cox et al. (2003) describe shared leadership
as a collaborative, emergent process of group inter-
action through an unfolding series of fluid, situation-
ally appropriate exchanges of lateral influence.
Shared leadership does not call for a succession of
individuals to function as the group leader. Rather,
it places them simultaneously in the position of
sharing the influence and direction of the team or
organization. Shared leadership helps improve the
morale and satisfaction of employees in public as well
as private organizations (Sweeney, 1996; R. Denhardt,
1999). Kim (2002) confirmed a positive relationship
between job satisfaction and shared leadership in
local government agencies. Improved job satisfaction,
in turn, has been linked to lower absenteeism and
turnover (Pierce et al., 1991; Eby et al., 1999). Choi
(2009, p. 94) examined shared leadership in public
organizations and found that public employees often
participate in leadership in specific situations,
concluding that organizational crisis, information
technology, innovative culture, and hierarchy of
position are significantly associated with shared
leadership in public organizations.
Essentially, the distributed nature of this tenet of
the new public leadership theory proposes that
public leaders are most effective when they focus on
organizational stakeholders, including employees
within their organization, citizens being served, part-
nering institutions involved in providing, or creating
the service, in addition to the leadership hierarchy in
their own organization. It encourages public leaders
to share leadership among these stakeholders as
required by the various contexts and circumstances
that arise, thereby creating a leadership process
rather than vesting all leadership responsibilities
and activities in a single person.
In summary, we propose a new public leadership
theory that combines salient features of authentic,
transformational, and distributed leadership theories;
proposing effective leadership in the public sector is
networked and often nonhierarchical, is based on
core values, and is more effective when utilizing
transformational rather than transactional principles.
These three tenets provide a basis for research into
leadership of a modern public sector characterized
by ambiguous boundaries between public, private,
and nonprofit organizations working in partnerships,
contracts, and collaboratives with unclear lines of
authority and accountability. It acknowledges the
existence and importance of a knowledge-based
Modern leadership principles 133
Copyright 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Public Affairs 13, 130141 (2013)
DOI: 10.1002/pa
public service motivated by individualized intellec-
tual and inspirational influence rather than by more
prescriptive managerial approaches. It calls for strong
leadership in the public sector by transcending the
barriers of limited accountability and discretion,
placing the onus for appropriate orientation and
focus of leaders on their internal compass rather than
external regulations. Preliminary studies of each of
these individual theories suggest that they add value
to the public service; however, no study to date
has considered these three aspects of leadership
combined as part of a unified approach to leadership
in the public sector. To fill in this gap in literature, we
used the Federal Human Capital Surveys adminis-
tered in 2006, 2008, and 2010 to examine the utility
of a comprehensive public leadership theory com-
prised of these three tenets.
FEDERAL HUMAN CAPITAL SURVEYS: AN
EMPIRICAL EXAMINATION OF THE THREE
TENETS
To examine the importance of the three tenets of
new public leadership theory in the public service,
we used data from the Federal Human Viewpoint
Survey (formally known as the Federal Human
Capital Survey) conducted biannually by the Office
of Personnel Management. This survey is used to
gauge the impressions of our civil servants and
seek out those areas where agencies are doing well
and where improvement is needed (Hager, 2008).
It is a tool that measures employees perceptions
of whether and to what extend conditions character-
izing successful organizations are present in their
agencies (OPM, 2008). The OPM randomly selects
over 400 000 individuals from among all full-time
permanent employees in participating federal agen-
cies to participate in these surveys. They are con-
ducted principally via the internet, although paper
copies of the survey are provided to individuals
lacking internet access. Employees are contacted
multiple times if needed to encourage completion
of the survey. The data are weighted to reflect under
or over representation of different response groups,
and response rates then undergo raking to adjust
for demographic inequalities.
The leadership focus as well as the extensive
nature of this survey in terms of both the number
of federal employees and the number of public
organizations that participated in the survey makes
it an ideal source of information to examine the
different aspects of a new public leadership theory.
A number of authors have used some portion of this
data to investigate leadership in public organiza-
tions. Trottier et al. (2008) used the 2002 survey to
show the relative effectiveness of transformational
leadership as compared with transactional leader-
ship approaches. Fernandez et al. (2010) used 2006
survey data to establish a link between integrated
leadership and federal agency PART scores. Yang
and Kassekert (2010) used 2006 survey to show a
strong correlation between ratings by employees
and job satisfaction. Although these cross-sectional
researches on individual administration of the
survey has established a good indicator between
leadership and its effectiveness, what is missing yet
in literature is a longitudinal analysis of the effects
of the modern leadership principles comprised of
the salient features of authentic, transformational,
and distributed leadership theories.
For the purposes of this study, we used data from
the 2006, 2008, and 2010 surveys. Survey data was
obtained from the OPM website and included
results of the surveys for 45 Federal departments
in 2010 and 2008 and for 43 in 2006. The total data
points are 697 177 (263 475 for 2010, 212 223 for
2008, and 221 479 for 2006). The data consist of the
number of individuals in each department who
selected strongly agree, agree, neither agree nor
disagree, disagree, or strongly disagree for each
question. Although each survey contained approxi-
mately 75 questions, we restricted our analysis to
the 55 questions that were common to all three of
the surveys. To obtain a score for each department
for each question, responses were weighted, with
strongly agree weighted 100, agree weighted 80,
neither agree nor disagree weighted 60, disagree
weighted 40, and strongly disagree weighted 20.
These weights were multiplied by the number of
individuals selecting that response, and the summa-
tion of the results was divided by the total number
of responses to obtain a total score.
To delineate the dependent variable, three catego-
ries of outcomes of effective leadership were identi-
fied (Appendix I). These categories include job
outcomes (five survey questions), organizational out-
comes (three survey questions), and leader outcomes
(two survey questions). Job outcomes were derived
from questions in which respondents ranked their
overall satisfaction with their current positions.
Organizational outcomes were calculated from ques-
tions in which respondents indicated their perception
of their respective organizations effectiveness and
success in achieving their designated mission. Leader
outcomes were measured from questions in which
respondents rated their leaders effectiveness in
directing the organization and in meeting the respon-
dents expectations for appropriate leader behavior.
A combined outcomes score was obtained as an
additional dependent variable by combining the
results of all three outcome categories into a single
outcomes measure.
The three predictor question categories (Appendix I)
included transformational leadership (17 questions),
distributed leadership (four questions), and values-
based leadership (10 questions). These categories
correspond to the subcomponents of the new public
leadership theory of transformational leadership,
distributed leadership, and authentic leadership.
134 D. S. Kellis and B. Ran
Copyright 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Public Affairs 13, 130141 (2013)
DOI: 10.1002/pa
Performing a backward elimination stepwise regres-
sion analysis of these predictive categories with the
outcomes measures yielded the following results
(Table 1).
As shown in Table 1, all three leadership
approaches were predictive of important aspects of
outcome measurements in these surveys. Transfor-
mational leadership was predictive of organizational
and leader-based outcomes in all three surveys as
well as when the three surveys were combined.
Distributive leadership approaches were predictive
of organizational outcomes in all three surveys and
of job-based outcomes in 2008 and 2010. Values-
based leadership was predictive of all three outcome
measures (job, organizational, and leader) when the
three surveys were combined but was only predictive
of leader-based outcomes in 2006 and 2008 and of
job-based outcomes in 2006.
Predictive models for organizational and leader-
based outcomes had Pearson coefficients of 80 or
greater for all three surveys, suggesting strong
predictive values for the models. Job-based outcome
measures had Pearson coefficients between 48 and
62, which, although not as robust as the other out-
come measures, support the predictive models.
Factor analysis is shown in Tables 2 and 3.
Cronbachs alpha is greater than 0.9 for all predic-
tive factors, suggesting strong reliability for these
factors measures (Carmines and Zeller, 1979).
Intrayear correlations between the factors for each
years surveys are positive and strong, supporting
the claim of construct validity for the surveys.
Interyear correlations are less strong, suggesting
analysis using combined data from the three
surveys is less robust.
DISCUSSION
This analysis of the Federal Human Capital Survey
results over a period of 6 years (three surveys) pro-
vides strong support for the new public leadership
theory and its application to the Federal workforce.
Outcomes or impact of leadership activities identi-
fied by the survey (job, organization, and leader)
were predicted by a leadership model that includes
authentic, transformational, and distributed leader-
ship. For the overall model, transformational and
values-based leadership were most significantly
correlated with overall outcomes. However, consid-
ering each survey and each outcome separately
provided a more complex picture.
Job-related outcomes for all three surveys com-
bined were best predicted by values-based leader-
ship alone, which was also the case for the 2006
survey. However, in both 2008 and 2010, distributed
leadership scores were the only predictive factor for
job-related outcomes. Transformational leadership
did not predict job-related outcomes in either the
combined results nor in any of the individual
surveys. This trend from a predictive effect of
values-based leadership in 2006 to a distributed
leadership effect in 2008 and 2010 was also seen
for the other individual outcome measures.
Leader outcomes were predicted by values-based
leadership variables in both 2006 and 2008 along with
transformational leadership effects but not in 2010,
when only transformational leadership was predic-
tive of leader outcomes. Interestingly, the combined
outcomes had a significant but negative association
with distributed leadership. This suggests the possi-
bility that Federal employees view leaders exercising
distributed leadership skills negatively or indicative
of weak or ineffective leadership as opposed to more
traditional approaches to leadership. The association
with transformational leadership styles indicates
that Federal employees place significant value on
personal development and engagement in the
various areas by their leaders.
Organizational outcomes were significantly corre-
lated with values-based leadership in the combined
results but only with transformational and
