Transformational leadership in the public sector. A pilot study using MLQ to evaluate leadership style in Cluj county local authorities

Abstract

Leadership has been a major topic of research for social scientist, in the last century. The number of approaches in studying this phenomenon is truly outstanding. However no integrative theory to include all essential elements has been developed yet. In the last three decades, especially after the NPM movement,leadership has attracted substantial attention as an essential factor for organizational performance in the public sector. The present study builds on this through a pilot study aimed at evaluating leadership behavior using the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ5X) (Bass, Avolio, 1995). The main purpose was to examine types of leadership behavior present in local public administration, in both decentralized and deconcentrated institutions by using a twin perspective: auto evaluation and peer evaluation. We wanted to find out whether transformational leadership is present in public organizations and if there are any significant differences based on two variables: type of institution and evaluator (selfevaluation vs. peer evaluation). The article is structured in three main parts. The first one discusses the concept of leadership in general, the ambiguity of the term, and the problems with in empirically studying this phenomenon. In the second part we analyze the Transformational Leadership theory proposed by Bass (1985) and then argue for the use of transformational leadership in the public sector. Lastly we propose a model for evaluating leadership in the public sector using MLQ. Preliminary data from a pilot study show above average transformational behaviors but also possible influence of the type of organization (decentralized vs. deconcentrated) on leadership behavior.