Collective Leadership and Context in Public Administration: Bridging Public Leadership Research and Leadership Studies

• Author: Sonia M. Ospina
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12706
• Published date: 01 March 2017
• Date: 01 March 2017

Collective Leadership and Context in Public Administration: Bridging Public Leadership Research and Leadership Studies 275

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 77, Iss. 2, pp. 275–287. © 2016 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12706.

Collective Leadership and Context in Public Administration:

Bridging Public Leadership Research and Leadership Studies

Sonia M. Ospina is professor of public

management and policy in the Wagner

Graduate School of Public Service at New

York University. Her interest in participation

and inclusion in democratic governance

frames her social change leadership and

social innovation research and her goal to

develop collective leadership theory. She is

an elected fellow of the National Academy

of Public Administration in the United States

and of the Scientific Council of the United

Nations–based Latin American Center for

Development Administration.

E-mail: sonia.ospina@nyu.edu

Public

Administration

and the

Disciplines

Abstract : This article challenges the view that public leadership research should maintain a separate perspective in the

study of public leadership. It discusses the benefits of further embedding the public leadership research domain within

leadership studies, constructing a cross-fertilization that contributes to advance both. The article maps key concerns in

relational leadership theories, contrasting them with current work in the public leadership research domain and offer-

ing suggestions to close the gap. It highlights public leadership scholarship ’ s competitive advantage to contribute to theo-

rizing about leadership, given the importance of context for building contemporary theories of relational leadership.

Practitioner Points

• Practitioners may feel stuck with old heroic molds for new realities. Understanding collective leadership

opens new vistas for practice.

• Rather than the act of a single individual in charge of mobilizing others, leadership is intentional work to

create spaces where participants can enact their leadership for the common good.

• Leadership work requires awareness and ability to creatively manage the tension accountability demands

around hierarchy and horizontal demands for participation and collaboration.

• Studying collective forms of leadership to learn what works, what does not, and why may increase public

administration ’ s capacity to offer sensible and responsible advice to practitioners, who, in turn, can try new

insights to inform research.

• There is a big gap between what practitioners need to know about collective leadership and what dominant

theories of leadership offer them. Enhancing researcher capability and inviting practitioners to challenge

traditional approaches can yield useful insights for practicing leadership in today ’ s complex environments.

Rosemary O’Leary , Editor

Sonia M. Ospina

New York University

A n explosion of public leadership studies

reflects a growing research domain in public

administration. But there is a generalized

understanding among an important group of scholars

that studying public leadership implies a uniqueness

for which “generic” leadership theories have no

answers—espousing what Van Wart ( 2013 ) calls the

dissimilar-purpose thesis in the public leadership

debate. Spicker goes as far as arguing that “leadership

theories marginalize the relevance of many of the

characteristic features of public services” (2012,

43), such as the politics of decision making, the

complexity of accountability, the influence of the

external environment, and the public sector ethos as

a motivating performance factor. Recent assessments

of public leadership research stress this unique

perspective in public leadership, which emphasizes

public over leadership, as graphically described by

Vogel and Masal ( 2015 ).

Challenging this view, this article highlights instead

the benefits of further embedding the public

leadership research domain within leadership studies.

It builds on the robust argument made by some

scholars in the field that exchanging theory-driven

empirical insights across disciplines can advance

understanding and develop more robust theories,

thus contributing to scientific progress (Perry

1991 , 2016 ). Furthermore, it argues that a deeper

reciprocal relationship between public administration

and leadership studies better reflects the growing

convergence between the fields, as both public and

private sector organizations confront new contexts and

turbulent environments that challenge the dominance

of leader-centered conceptualizations.

The emergence of policy reform alliances and

networks of service delivery requires a different type

of leadership to address both vertical and horizontal

relationships of accountability (Fernandez, Cho, and

Perry 2010 ; Ospina and Foldy 2015 ; Van Wart 2011 ).

Private sector environments are also complex, volatile,

diverse, and boundary spanning (Schneider 2002 ;

Uhl-Bien and Marion 2009 ). These developments