Citation
Mau, T.A. (2024), "Editorial: Public leadership research trajectories: articulating a new agenda", International Journal of Public Leadership, Vol. 20 No. 1, pp. 7-14. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPL-02-2024-120
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2024, Emerald Publishing Limited
Introduction
It is with mixed emotions that I write this brief essay outlining a new editorial direction for the International Journal of Public Leadership as the incoming editor-in-chief. Assuredly, I am excited at the prospect of continuing to expand the prestige and reach of the journal, building on the vision and important achievements realized under the leadership of Dr Richard Callahan over the past six years. However, I will sorely miss his generosity of spirit and wise counsel in doing so, but I look forward to build on the current successes to increase the impact of journal on deepening the understanding of effective public leadership while sharing best practices globally.
This editorial aims to accomplish several objectives, the first of which is to reflect on the strong foundation of the journal while recognizing the contributions of those individuals who have been integral to its successes. Second, it outlines the professional background and experience that I bring to the position of editor-in-chief. Lastly, it affords me the opportunity to articulate a big, hairy, audacious goal (BHAG) (Collins and Porras, 2005) for the journal to pursue in the coming years to advance public leadership research globally across the key dimensions of a wider focus, inclusive scholarship, comparative cases and complex interactions.
A strong foundation
A number of notable achievements stand out in Professor Callahan’s (2024) farewell editorial. First, he has brought together a global network of public leadership scholars to serve on the editorial board, to act as reviewers and to contribute their public leadership research. Second, the journal has seen an increase in both the number of annual submissions and research articles that have been published. Third, through his formidable outreach efforts at conferences around the world, the journal has achieved a more international focus as it now regularly publishes public leadership research from all corners of the world – including countries like Brunei, Tanzania, Finland, Namibia, India, Vietnam, South Africa and other countries that are not known for their contributions to the public leadership literature. Fourth, significantly, the International Journal of Public Leadership was approved as an Elsevier SCOPUS-listed journal, an important interdisciplinary abstract and citation database for social science research, which affords the journal greater profile and prestige and should translate into a continuing upward trajectory in the number of manuscript submissions to the journal each year.
Each of these accomplishments is reassuring to me as the incoming editor-in-chief and provides me with a great deal of optimism about the future of the journal. Having the support of a geographically-diverse editorial board, comprising some of the most prominent global scholars in the discipline of public administration and sub-discipline of public sector leadership, provides the journal with both credibility and significant reach. I am grateful to each and every one of the members of the editorial board for their dedication and commitment to the journal thus far and I look forward to continuing to work with them and tapping into their respective networks to identify exciting, cutting-edge public leadership research from around the world.
I would also like to thank the many peer reviewers who have graciously given their time and expertise to evaluate the manuscripts that are submitted to the journal. It has become commonplace for editors of scholarly journals to lament the difficulty of finding reviewers, which has seemingly become more problematic post-COVID-19 pandemic, but in my experience, this journal has many committed reviewers who have been steadfast in fulfilling this critically important function. I recognize that the demands on their time are undoubtedly ever-increasing, but I hope that I can count on their continued support when I send out invitations to review for the journal.
Debt of gratitude
As I embark on my new role, I would like to acknowledge that I owe Richard Callahan a deep debt of gratitude for allowing me to be a part of his journey as editor-in-chief. When I first reached out to Richard in March 2018 to inquire about an opportunity to serve on the editorial board of the journal, he did not hesitate to bring me into the fold. Two years later, undoubtedly feeling the weight of leading the journal alone, he convinced Emerald, the publisher, to enlist the assistance of an associate editor and invited me to take on that role. I relished the opportunity to gain a deeper insight into and appreciation of the publication process while contributing to the advancement of public leadership research. It has been an honor and a privilege to work closely with Richard as associate editor from May 2020 to January 2022, actively pursue the mission of the journal and his specific vision (Callahan, 2018) as editor-in-chief.
Then, quite unexpectedly, Richard proposed that I share the co-editorship of the journal with him, which has been the arrangement since January 2022. That generous offer was no surprise to me. As our professional relationship and friendship developed over the past six years, I have witnessed, and personally benefitted from, his munificence on numerous occasions. To my mind, Richard personifies the ideal of a selfless and nurturing scholar. I vividly remember one of our first conversations, whereby he expounded on his desire to see the journal publish public leadership research from countries beyond Europe and North America, the predominant origin of the articles published in the journal, and to assist emerging scholars, particularly those based in countries where researchers have less well-developed networks of colleagues conducting research on public leadership and limited institutional support for their publishing efforts.
His legacy in that regard is unmistakable. In terms of his desire to foster a greater international focus for the journal, while the USA, Canada and the UK have been three of the most common countries for authorship over the past five years, submissions from Indonesia and Ghana round out the top five. More significantly, the journal has published public leadership research from more than 40 countries since 2018. His mentorship role has been equally noteworthy. Richard was always accessible and responsive to anyone who was interested in publishing their work in the journal. Moreover, while attending conferences, he frequently encouraged emerging scholars to submit their manuscripts for consideration and he often patiently guided them through several rounds of editorial revisions before they were accepted for publication.
I would like to thank Richard, firstly, for his leadership related to this journal and, secondly, for the professional development opportunities that he provided me. I have learned a great deal from him over the years and this opportunity has enabled me to grow tremendously as a scholar. It is comforting to know that even though he is stepping back from his official duties with the journal, I can continue to count on his ongoing support and advice.
Background and experience
I am a political scientist by training. Although my doctoral dissertation was a comparative study of Quebec and Scottish nationalism, I completed an MA in public policy and administration and I was hired by the University of Guelph to teach in those areas as well as in the MA (leadership) program that it had developed. For the past 25 years, I have been teaching public administration and management and public leadership to business and social science students at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Moreover, I have delivered a number of workshops over a span of several years on various aspects of public leadership to senior public servants throughout Asia for the Asian Productivity Association. Recently, I developed a five-module e-course on inclusive public leadership for that Tokyo-based organization.
My research interests and publications are primarily in the area of public (primarily administrative) leadership. I have published articles in Canadian and international journals and book chapters on a wide range of topics, including how the pursuit of a representative bureaucracy is a leadership issue, the adoption of public sector branding to enhance leadership capacity, the use of public sector leadership competency models, the Canadian model of public sector leadership, leadership in the Canadian military and scandal and corruption. My most recent publication (with Richard Callahan) has been published (OnlineFirst) in the American Review of Public Administration (“Reconceptualizing the Politics-Administration Dichotomy: Addressing the Limitations for Understanding Public Leadership in the 21st Century”).
Presently, I am serving my second year as the chair of the Public Leadership Member Community for the International Leadership Association (Maryland, USA) and I serve as one of three North American appointees to the board of management for the International Association of Schools and Institutes of Administration (IASIA), based in Brussels, Belgium. Additionally, as part of that latter organization, I was recently appointed to the International Commission on Accreditation of Public Administration (ICAPA) Steering Committee.
A new vision
In what follows, I will attempt to set out my goals for the journal as editor-in-chief. For the most part, my objective is to continue to build on the strong foundation underpinning the journal established by my immediate predecessor, Richard Callahan, and the founding editor-in-chief, Stephen Brooks. My immediate priority, therefore, is to continue to see more submissions to the journal that are within scope (too many manuscripts that are submitted either have nothing to do with leadership or the research focus is on private sector organizations, not the public sector) and to grow the number of quality publications in the journal over time. Submissions are encouraged from all regions of the world, employing a variety of qualitative and quantitative research methods and focusing on every conceivable aspect of leadership as it applies to public sector organizations or the pursuit of public value creation.
However, my BHAG for the International Journal of Public Leadership is to be the premier publication venue of choice for researchers around the world who are producing innovative and impactful public leadership research broadly construed. In other words, I am interested in manuscript submissions that deal with all three aspects of public leadership – political leadership, administrative or bureaucratic leadership and civic leadership (‘t Hart and Tummers, 2019). This is a lofty goal to be sure since there are a plethora of competing outlets for these studies. Scholars who are producing research on political leadership often target political science journals, while those who write about administrative leadership are frequently publishing their work in top-tier public administration journals and research on civic leadership is largely found in journals dedicated to the non-profit and voluntary sector. Ultimately, though, I envision a time when all scholars and practitioners who have produced a study on some aspect of public leadership identify this journal as their top choice for publishing their results.
Goals and priorities for the IJPL
Broadening the focus of public leadership
There is no denying that the body of public leadership research has grown significantly in the past few decades. Nearly 30 years ago, for example, Terry (1995) wrote of the paucity of administrative or bureaucratic leadership within the public administration literature. Van Wart (2003, p. 218) in his pivotal assessment of public sector leadership theory noted that administrative leadership had been neglected historically and that “… the literature on leadership with a public-sector focus is a fraction of that in the private sector” but nonetheless “it is has been substantial albeit relatively unfocused.” Since that time, the public leadership literature has expanded quite significantly, which has been documented in several insightful reviews (Van Wart, 2003, 2013; Getha-Taylor et al., 2011; Orazi et al., 2013; Vogel and Masal, 2015; Chapman et al., 2016; Crosby and Bryson, 2018; Mau, 2020a, b). These reviews have highlighted areas where researchers have started to fill important lacunae but, perhaps more importantly, they also have to identify many public leadership questions and issues that remain to be explored.
The focus of these literature reviews, however, has been on but one aspect of public leadership, namely administrative leadership or what Hartley (2018, p. 203) has suggested should be reconceptualized as “public services leadership,” that is to say, studies that focus on “… elected and appointed politicians at all governmental levels, and public officials working for government and public services,” because “public leadership may come from state, market and/or civil society” (what ‘t Hart and Tummers, 2019 classify as civic leadership). As a public administration scholar, I recognize my own bias towards administrative leadership when thinking about public leadership because that is the focus of my research and writing. This needs to change.
Although the research published in the International Journal of Public Leadership has been contributing to the evolution of all aspects – political, administrative and civic – of the public leadership literature, the vast majority of the manuscripts that are published in this journal pertain to aspects of political or administrative (public services) leadership. As such, moving forward, I would especially welcome more submissions that pertain to civic leadership (for example, Chrislip et al., 2023). This includes studies that deal with various actors and processes in the voluntary or community sector and perhaps even the private sector as long as the leadership in question is undertaken to pursue the common good or contribute to the creation of public value (Moore, 1995; Getha-Taylor et al., 2011).
Need for more overtly comparative research
When Professor Callahan (2018, pp. 2–3) set out his priorities for the journal roughly six years ago, he identified his desire to “… extend the ‘international’ focus of the journal” in order to “… intentionally develop comparisons on public leadership across nations.” If interpreted rather narrowly, that is to say research studies that are not British since the journal is housed in the UK, or non-American, since much of the leadership literature is dominated by US scholars, then a case could be made that the journal, with studies from dozens of countries, has published a great deal of comparative public leadership research in recent years. However, several scholars – at least within the area of administrative leadership – have identified the need for more comparative studies (Hartley, 2018; Van Wart, 2013; Orazi et al., 2013).
This is a definite priority during my tenure as editor-in-chief; I would like to publish more public leadership research that is overtly comparative. In other words, I would be very interested to receive more manuscript submissions where researchers are explicitly comparing manifestations of public leadership – be it political, administrative or civic – in two or more countries so that insights can be generalized beyond a single case. In the past two years, there have only been two articles in the journal that draw comparisons from two or more countries. Both of them addressed aspects of public leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic; the first examined a follower-centric perspective regarding perceptions of charismatic leadership and safety behaviors in India and Germany during the pandemic (Giebe et al., 2022), while the second article examined public health leadership in Chile, France and the USA during that crisis (Glenn et al., 2021).
There is no great mystery why so much of the public leadership scholarship focuses on a single case study or jurisdiction: it is much easier to research and write about one political actor or leadership process than it is to be equally knowledgeable about multiple cases. However, we will ultimately be limited in our understanding of the successes and limitations of public leadership if scholars continue to eschew studies that involve structured comparative analyses. Therefore, I challenge public leadership scholars to employ the comparative method in their future research projects.
Public leadership and diversity (equity and inclusion)
Diversity, equity and inclusion are significant processes in all organizations today. This is especially true in the public sector, which has long had an interest in pursuing a representative bureaucracy (Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD) and Public Governance and Territorial Development Directorate, 2009; Kennedy, 2014; Mau, 2020a, b), but that has been couched mostly in terms of enhanced gender and ethnic representation in the ranks of the public service. The challenge that public services now face is to extend the concept of representativeness to account for other forms of diversity, in particular, individuals who identify as non-binary (enhanced gender diversity), those who are LGBTQ2S+ (sexual diversity), older workers who choose not to retire when eligible and remain in the public service (age diversity) and differences in the way that the brain works resulting in people having different ways of perceiving and responding to the world (neurodiversity). Efforts must also continue apace to more fully integrate Indigenous peoples into the various public services (Althaus and O’Faircheallaigh, 2022).
Some scholars have started to write about the concept of inclusive public leadership (Ashikali and Groeneveld, 2015; Ashikali et al., 2021; Ashikali, 2023), but this is an emerging area of inquiry for public leadership research; as such, I would encourage scholars working on various facets of inclusive leadership to submit their work to the journal. Moreover, another area that is ripe for scholarly research is intersectionality. While it is important to know, among other things, whether women or people of color lead or are perceived differently than men or Caucasians in public sector organizations, it is even more critical to begin to understand how public officials’ leadership is impacted by their many social markers of identity. As Breslin et al. (2017, p. 161) noted, “By emphasizing multiple and simultaneous dimensions of social inequality—most commonly gender, race, class, and sexuality—intersectionality reveals the unique experiences of individuals who occupy multiple marginalized social categories.”
Individual versus collaborative public leadership
As I noted elsewhere (Mau, 2020a, b), there have been a number of public leadership scholars who have made the case that the work of public sector employees is increasingly shared or distributed, which necessitates new forms of shared, collaborative or integrative leadership (Crosby and Bryson, 2005, 2014; Morse, 2010; Ospina, 2017). This is certainly true in the post-bureaucratic world with the concomitant shift from government to governance. However, I would echo Hartley’s (2018, p. 208) recent criticism:
While leadership across networks and across partnerships is widely mentioned in the public leadership field, the number of studies which go beyond rhetoric into why, how or with what success such distributed leadership occurs is relatively sparse. There is a real need for more hard-headed and critical research in this field, rather than the recirculation of often normative constructions of distributed leadership.
As such, there remains a compelling need for more studies to investigate how leadership is shared between a multitude of actors in the public sector (Callahan and Mau, 2023). A related question pertains to how accountability can be maintained when leadership is shared among a number of individuals. Who is ultimately accountable in instances of shared or distributed leadership? The literature is relatively silent on this issue.
Furthermore, it is worth noting that in focusing on the ways that public leadership has been changing to recognize that public servants are no longer working in isolation within their public sector organizations to pursue the common good, it has become commonplace to suggest that the so-called individual, “heroic” leader has become anachronistic. The argument is over-stated. Individual leaders still matter, particularly with respect to senior administrative officials leading downward (‘t Hart and Tummers, 2019) within their public sector organizations.
Conclusion
It is an exciting time to be a researcher interested in public leadership. There is now greater recognition and acceptance of the fact that public leadership is practiced by individuals other than those in the political class. This has resulted in a significant growth in the public leadership literature in the past few decades. However, many important gaps in our knowledge and understanding of the theory and practice of public leadership remain. There is a great need to deepen our understanding of effective public leadership and connect those lessons learned to the practice of public leadership. In this essay, I have attempted to highlight some of the research foci that should be explored – hopefully on the pages of this journal – but by no means is this list exhaustive. There is much yet to learn about public leadership and it is my hope that the International Journal of Public Leadership will be leading the way to enlightenment in that regard.
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