Transdisciplinary public leadership theory: Between the extremes of “traditional public administration” and “new public management”

• Date: 01 February 2019
• Published date: 01 February 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1887

ACADEMIC PAPER

Transdisciplinary public leadership theory: Between the

extremes of “traditional public administration”and “new public

management”

Emmanuel Yeboah‐Assiamah

1

|Kwame Asamoah

2

|Samuel Adams

3

1

School of Public Leadership, Stellenbosch

University, Stellenbosch, South Africa

2

Department of Public Administration &

Health Services Management, University of

Ghana Business School, Accra, Ghana

3

School of Public Service and Governance,

Ghana Institute of Management and Public

Administration, Accra, Ghana

Correspondence

Emmanuel Yeboah‐Assiamah, School of Public

Leadership, Stellenbosch University,

Stellenbosch, South Africa.

Email: yimmanuel@yahoo.com

The 21st century public organization is faced with complex problems, informed stake-

holders, and information flows, which necessitate a corresponding open system view

of leadership. The traditional notions of public administration and new public manage-

ment had been structured by strict bureaucratic rules and managerial flexibility,

respectively. This paper begins by theorizing two hypothetical constructs (helicopter

and deadbeat leadership), which engage in extreme micromanagement/surveillance

and negligence/indifference, respectively. Those form basis for designing an optimal

(transdisciplinary) leadership, which forges synergistic link between leaders, subordi-

nates, and external actors in codesigning objectives and strategies to address societal

problems. Strategies to promote transdisciplinary leadership are discussed.

1|INTRODUCTION

The public leadership literature had mainly been underpinned by

Weberian bureaucracy and Taylor's scientific management theory

(Bingham, O'leary, & Carlson, 2014; Frederickson, Smith, Larimer, &

Licari, 2015), which had maintained that mechanistic organizational

control remains more appropriate to stable organizational environ-

ments (Lawrence & Lorsch, 1967). Rational calculation (excessive con-

trol), rules (precision) associated with these theories tended to reduce

leaders and workers into a bureaucratic machine and behaved as “a

cog in a wheel.”In other words, ingenuity, initiative, and context‐

dependent decision making appeared largely inhibited (Torsteinsen,

2012). Observing the structural constraints and practical limitations

associated with the regime, new public management (NPM) theorists

rose in the 1980s and 1990s to advance a need for flexibility, innova-

tion, managerialism, and responsiveness in the public sector, which

challenged the basic tenets of bureaucratic/mechanistic organizational

forms (Miles, Snow, Matthews, & Coleman, 1997).

The 21st century public sector is faced with complex social prob-

lems mostly ill‐defined and “wicked”in nature (Geyer & Rihani, 2012;

Innes & Booher, 2010). Public organizations and officials are faced

with challenging goals exacerbated by limited resources flanked by

complex and informed stakeholders, alert media, advances in informa-

tion technology (IT), and information flow (Head & Alford, 2015;

Thomas, 2013). That regard, subordinates or external actors may be

well‐informed on a prevailing issue at times even more than manage-

ment or the so‐called “experts”(Von Krogh, Nonaka, & Rechsteiner,

2012). Public organizations have multiple departments or units and

stakeholders. Each of these entities has a peculiar goal (solving societal

problems) to make lives better for their clients (citizens), at times, man-

date or goals may overlap. Thomas (2013) contends “today's public

managers face a public far more complex than their predecessors

encountered. This public is more complex in its numbers, with more

organizations and more people, and more complex in the interests

those organizations and individuals represent, ranging from the con-

cerns of traditional business and labor groups to those of citizen and

public interest groups”(p. 1). This calls for a shift in the organizational

leadership approach toward a one that strives for an interplay

between leaders, organizational members, and external constituents

in a more participatory and consultative manner.

Assessment of literature reveals that theories of leadership mainly

emanate or are determined by the nature of interaction between

leaders and their subordinates (House & Aditya, 1997). They posit

“to this day, the dominant proportion of …studies is primarily con-

cerned with the relationship between leaders and followers”(p. 409).

A missing link has been an apparent neglect of the cultural context

within, which leaders operate, the interaction between leaders and

their external constituencies. Scholars (Brown & Eisenhardt, 1998)

propose the chaos and complexity theories to recommend a new

focus on the leadership literature and discourse. This current study

Received: 4 October 2018 Accepted: 13 October 2018

DOI: 10.1002/pa.1887

J Public Affairs. 2019;19:e1887.

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1887

© 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa 1of10