Refinding Leadership in Refounding Public Administration

• Published date: 01 May 2018
• Date: 01 May 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0095399718763163
• Subject Matter: Articles

763163AASXXX10.1177/0095399718763163Administration & SocietyFairholm
research-article2018
Article
Administration & Society
2018, Vol. 50(5) 699 –724
Refinding Leadership
© The Author(s) 2018
https://doi.org/10.1177/0095399718763163
DOI: 10.1177/0095399718763163
in Refounding Public
journals.sagepub.com/home/aas
Administration
Matthew R. Fairholm1
Abstract
The refounding movement emerged the same time as Leadership Studies.
As leadership practices were conflated with management practices, much of
what might be useful in the refounding in the literature on leadership was
either (a) simply missed or (b) modestly addressed by these scholars. Any
reasserting of the refounding should consider the lessons of leadership and
especially of the leadership studies thread dealing with values leadership
theory. This article encourages theory building and a model as it traces the
development of leadership studies, leadership research during the refounding
project, and the increase of leadership research in the field.
Keywords
leadership, refounding, values, values leadership, constitutional governance
The refounding project gave leadership a limited nod as a part of its normative
theory aims. It did not fully account for the contemporary efforts in Leadership
Studies and suffered further by not exploring the variety of ways practitioners
ply their craft routinely within public organizations. I offer three major themes,
with several variations, to encourage the exploration of leadership within the
refounding perspective: (a) why the refounding may not have embraced fully
leadership studies in the mix of ideas, (b) the practicality of leadership studies
1University of South Dakota, Vermillion, SD, USA
Corresponding Author:
Matthew R. Fairholm, University of South Dakota, 414 E. Clark St., DH 119, Vermillion, SD
57069, USA.
Email: Matthew.Fairholm@usd.edu

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in the profession of public administration, and (c) how values-based leader-
ship can inform a normative Public Administration grounded in the founding
documents.
Variations to the first theme discuss traditional leadership threads emerg-
ing as Public Administration grew and explores the emergence of leadership
as a topic in Public Administration research since the refounding project.
Variations on the second theme offer practical leadership issues of public
administration practice to include distinctions between the terms manage-
ment and leadership and themes like collaboration, stewardship, and service.
Variations on the third theme expand upon the practical to indicate potential
normative positions about public administration informed by leadership prin-
ciples and by founding documents like the Constitution and Declaration.
Values-based leadership approaches are a natural complement of refound-
ing thinking. The connection exists between general refounding emphases
and values leadership concepts on one hand and normative suggestions of
values and the practical concerns of the work of public administration leader-
ship on the other. That link is illustrated at the end by a model that brings
together these two streams of literature to encourage more exploration of
these connections.
Theme 1: Leadership Studies and the Refounding
The literature emerging from the Blacksburg Manifesto and the works of
Wamsley (1990) and Wamsley and Wolf (1996) frame the efforts at refound-
ing the Public Administration. During this time, questions of the field’s legiti-
macy regained traction as bureaucracy, bureaucrats, government, and
governing were the focus of political critique, professional reforms, and intel-
lectual reappraisals (see McSwite, 1997). Recognizing a low regard for public
administration at the time and the potential harm it may have on the capacity
to govern the republic, the refounding argued for a Public Administration that
balanced its focused expertise in governing with the potential for abusing gov-
erning power without overt public controls. It sought to overcome the excesses
of expertise too often a concern in administration, a sense that administration
was the source of social ills, and a redefinition of administration as merely a
function of government and not one of its legitimate institutions. With an
underlying assumption that administration was envisioned by the founders
and not merely a reform product of the early 1900s, remedies included these
general categories: (a) refocusing on democratic, or rather, republican princi-
ples, institutions, and founding documents (Clay, 1996; Green & Hubbell,
1996; Rohr, 1986; Wamsley, 1996); (b) renewing a focus on and respect for
the public interest (Barth, 1996; Hart & Wright, 1998; Wamsley, 1990); (c)

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elevating citizenship and citizen participation (Cooper, 1984; Stivers, 1996);
(d) encouraging the collaboration of public officials in solving public prob-
lems (Barth, 1996; Dudley, 1996; Wolf, 1996); and (e) remembering the politi-
cal and moral thought that grounds the work in the first place (Hart & Wright,
1998; Lowi, 1993; Nigro & Richardson, 1992; Spicer, 1995; Spicer & Terry,
1993; Wise, 1993).
These five general categories frame the refounding’s efforts to promote a
more robust and relevant Public Administration. Forming the foundation of the
model presented herein, they link certain leadership ideas to public administra-
tion, though such was not an explicit goal at the time. The refounding did little
to discuss leadership qua leadership because leadership as a field of study was
immature during that period and the linkages may not have been easily seen.
However, the refounders did hint at notions of leadership that were more fully
elucidated in a maturing Leadership Studies field. That field was still relatively
unknown as the refounders made their arguments, but it could be said the
refounders helped leadership studies find a home in Public Administration. A
few authors sympathetic to the refounding project actually make leadership a
focus in a more fundamentally democratic Public Administration.
Outside the scope of the refounding project, leadership was often misun-
derstood in organizational literature. It was treated as just another word for
management, or better still, just another thing managers do (Kotter, 1990).
Because there was no generally acknowledged distinction between leader-
ship and management, discussing the evolution of scientific and administra-
tive management was to many the same thing as studying leadership.
Interestingly, the refounding rejected the idea that government could be
improved by simply improving its management (Wamsley & Wolf, 1996, pp.
9, 15), hence leadership (conflated with management) was easily dismissed.
The refounding’s focus on normative themes of Public Administration
rather than the day-to-day practice of the public administrator within a public
service context limited leadership’s relevance. The interesting element of
leadership is that it’s constellations of characteristics, behaviors, tools, and
commitments seem to encourage people to do things in ways that techniques
of control and management cannot. Seeing the benefits of infusing work and
the workers with a sense of meaning, values, and purpose (see Selznick,
1957), leadership becomes a practical endeavor, though informed by the
normative.
Perhaps also there was skepticism informed by a misunderstanding of
the nature of leadership about the appropriateness of leadership as a Public
Administration focus. Leadership was caught within the concepts of raw
power, domination, and authority (M. R. Fairholm, 2004) that Burns (1978)
suggested are to be overcome in a “hope to close the intellectual gap

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between the fecund canons of authority and a new and general theory of
leadership” (p. 26) that encompassed relationship and moral progress. Only
recently has the practitioner and the theorist elevated the study and practice
of leadership to a distinctive place alongside the historically studied tech-
niques of management.
Rise of Leadership Studies
It is unclear when Leadership Studies per se was formally recognized as an
academic endeavor, but Rost in 1991 authoritatively declared leadership
studies an emerging discipline. Its roots emerged during the same era as the
progressive reformers of the late-19th century. Couched in terms of adminis-
tration or management, even classic public administration authors can claim
pioneering efforts in Leadership Studies. Notions of hierarchy, control, mea-
surement, and management have buttressed public administration.
Management science (see Gilbreth, 1912; Taylor, 1915), administrative fun-
damentals (Gulick & Urwick, 1937), functions of the executive (Barnard,
1938; Cleveland, 1972), and studies of decision-making, management struc-
ture, organizational systems, and performance (Dimock, 1958; Simon, 1947)
can all be thought of as leadership studies but confused under the umbrella of
management. Differentiating leadership from notions of management
occurred in the literature about the time of the refounding project of the 1980s
and 1990s.
Some thinkers in public administration presaged a distinction as they went
beyond mere structure and function and discussed issues of group and social
pressures (Follett, 1998; Roethlisberger, Dickson, & Wright, 1941), private
and public leadership complexities (Appleby, 1945), informal culture and
consent of authority (Barnard, 1938), and perhaps most...