Professional Development Leadership in Public Organizations: A Refined Conceptualization

• Author: Clara Siboni Lund
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00910260221118576
• Published date: 01 December 2022
• Date: 01 December 2022
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/00910260221118576

Public Personnel Management

2022, Vol. 51(4) 516 –537

© The Author(s) 2022

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DOI: 10.1177/00910260221118576

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Article

Professional Development

Leadership in Public

Organizations: A Refined

Conceptualization

Clara Siboni Lund1

Abstract

Professional development leadership (PDL) can potentially align organizational goals and

professional norms, thereby increasing the performance of professional employees

in public organizations. Public management research has largely overlooked this

type of leadership behavior, however, which may be due to the fact that it remains

conceptually under-developed. This article presents a refined conceptualization of

PDL based on theorizing and the abductive analysis of 31 interviews with managers

and professionals in public organizations. The ambition of PDL is to facilitate a shared

understanding of professional quality within the scope of organizational goals and to

influence others to realize this understanding in practice. Core behaviors are attempts

to create alignment between organizational goals and professional norms, to develop

professional knowledge, and to activate professional knowledge and norms in practice.

The conceptualization comprises a steppingstone for systematic research on PDL, and

public managers may find inspiration as to how they can address professional norms

and knowledge in their leadership practice.

Keywords

professional development leadership, public leadership, professional quality,

professional norms, professional knowledge

Many public employees are members of occupations with specialized, theoretical

knowledge and professional norms, which influence their reasoning and practice

(Abbott, 1988; Cecchini & Harrits, 2022; Freidson, 2001). Public professionals follow

1Aarhus University, Denmark

Corresponding Author:

Clara Siboni Lund, Assistant Professor, Crown Prince Frederik Center for Public Leadership,

Department of Political Science, Aarhus University, Bartholin Allé 7, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.

Email: csl@ps.au.dk

1118576PPMXXX10.1177/00910260221118576Public Personnel ManagementLund

research-article2022

Lund 517

professional norms and apply their specialized knowledge when solving complex tasks,

such as teaching children to read or operating on cardiac patients. High-profile scandals

exposing serious professional malpractice resulting in the death of patients have driven

stricter professional regulation in public organizations (McGivern et al., 2015). This

exemplifies how public organizations are deeply dependent on public professionals to

follow professional norms and to apply professional knowledge to uphold the profes-

sional quality of the public service-delivery. However, professionalism can also lead to

challenges in public organizations, as professionals may hold different views on desir-

able objectives than the stated organizational goals (Brehm & Gates, 1997; Raelin,

1986; Walker et al., 2013).

The important role of professionalism in public work is acknowledged and discussed

in the sociology of professions (Abbott, 1988; Andersen & Pedersen, 2012; Freidson,

2001), and the street-level bureaucracy literature is paying increasing attention to the

role of professionalism in discretionary practices on the frontlines (Evans, 2016;

Harrison, 2016; Harrits, 2019). The public management and leadership literature can

also benefit from shedding more light on the attempts made by public managers to

influence the role of professionalism in public service delivery. This is particularly the

case because public managers play an important role in getting organizational and

professional logics to come together (Andersen et al., 2018; Evans, 2011; Grøn et al.,

2020; Noordegraaf et al., 2016). For example, managers may attempt to influence how

the role of professional knowledge and norms via leadership, which generally

describes processes of influencing and facilitating efforts to accomplish shared objec-

tives (Yukl, 2012, p. 66).

This has been illustrated using the concept of professional development leadership

(PDL), which describes leadership aimed at establishing a common understanding of

what constitutes professional quality (Grøn et al., 2020). PDL is a theoretically under-

developed concept, however, and what it entails is unclear. The lack of a clear concep-

tualization prevents rigorous empirical investigations of the role of PDL in public

organizations. Thus, the aim of this article is to refine the conceptualization of PDL to

build a framework for analyzing and understanding leadership aimed at influencing

the role of professionalism in public service delivery.

This article adopts an abductive approach, as it refines the conceptualization of

PDL based on an iterative process moving back and forth between theory and in-depth

qualitative analysis (Schwartz-Shea & Yanow, 2011). The theoretical foundation is

based on existing discussions on public professionals and public leadership (e.g.,

Andersen & Pedersen, 2012; Freidson, 2001; Jensen et al., 2019; Schott et al., 2016).

The in-depth qualitative analysis is based on 31 interviews with professionals and their

managers in public health and care organizations. The abductive approach implies that

the qualitative material does not serve to test the theoretical concept. Instead, the

empirical material has been applied iteratively, and, in the article, it serves to nuance

the conceptual understanding of PDL by illustrating how public managers can exercise

PDL in practice.

The refined conceptualization defines PDL as leadership aimed at facilitating a

shared understanding of professional quality within the scope of organizational goals