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ABSTRACT. This article argues that public agencies are continually changing and subject to reform. This is when reform is defined as any formal effort to apply new or innovative management techniques or policies to a public organization with the intent of making it more effective in producing expected outputs. An irony emerges that for all the good intentions behind voluminous reform efforts, most fail to achieve expected results. This article strives to explain why this occurs based on an outmoded concept of leadership prevalent in most public bureaucracies. The authors argue that alternative leadership models that develop the credibility of public managers offer much greater promise as tools for making reform succeed. This article explains the rationale and theory behind leadership credibility and also reports empirical findings that support the efficacy of this leadership approach.
INTRODUCTION
The constant pressure to develop new techniques, structures, policies, and technologies that ostensibly facilitate organizational adaption and effectiveness has been and remains a vexing puzzle for public administrators from time immemorial. If we assume that the great majority of professional public administrators take the public interest to heart, and are motivated to serve the public good (Gabris & Simo, 1995; Perry & Wise 1990), then the intent behind most government reforms appears tethered to genuinely positive public interest objectives. While some might quibble over the wisdom of competing reform strategies (Golembiewski, 1995a; Goodsell, 1994) the notion that change is good, cleansing, and even necessary as an antidote to stodgy bureaucracy (Osborne & Gaebler, 1992) seems to be a widely accepted wisdom. Nonetheless, many governmental attempts to reform fall flat or lead to counterproductive, antithetical outcomes (Thayer, 1984; 1986; Golembiewski, 1995b).
The reasons for why governmental reform efforts fail can range almost ad infinitum from lack of funding to dwindling political support. But for every example for why something does not work, there is usually an example of something that does work, even under conditions of financial austerity and or political stress. Thus, patterns of success and or failure associated with public sector reform may draw upon deeper, more complex characteristics associated with organizational behavior and structure. In other words, by developing a better understanding how individuals interact with and are affected by recurrent patterns of organizational behavior and...