Political Leadership

Citation

Joyce, P. (2003), "Political Leadership", International Journal of Public Sector Management, Vol. 16 No. 3, pp. 242-243. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijpsm.2003.16.3.242.1

Howard Elcock describes his book as being eclectic in its methodology. This is evident from a quick survey of Chapters 2, 3, 4, and 5. Chapter 2 includes a discussion of the relationship between politicians and bureaucrats and features the work of Machiavelli, Max Weber, and Roberto Michels. Chapter 3 offers historical and biographical studies of famous leaders and explores the importance of background and situation in explaining leadership behaviour. In Chapter 4 there are some fleeting references to “new public management” and the “third way” (p. 65), but the chapter is mainly focused on the ideas of management gurus. Chapter 5 moves on to look at psychology's contribution to the understanding of leadership and spotlights the problem of “groupthink.”

The second part of the book contains at least two major themes: first, the history and continuing evolution of British local government, and second, leadership roles. These two themes come together in an interesting way in the final chapter,

With respect to the local government theme, there are references to the rise of the “new urban left” after 1980 and the introduction of decentralisation schemes in councils (Chapter 6), local governance and its fragmentation (Chapter 7), and research units within local authorities (Chapter 8). The early part of Chapter 9 (pp. 169‐75) describes British local government in the 1960s and 1970s. Chapter 9 also examines, and speculates on, the consequences of the three models proposed by the Blair government in 1988 for the political management of local authorities.

The other major theme in the second part of the book, the roles of political leaders, is arguably the most conceptual aspect of the study. The idea that there are three roles is briefly outlined at the beginning of Chapter 6 (see pp. 105‐6). The roles are:

1. 1.

   governing roles (managing and controlling the government organisation);

2. 2.

   governance roles (inter‐organisational relations); and

3. 3.

   allegiance roles (staying in office).

Chapters 6 and 7 address these roles in more depth.

This typology of roles seems implicit in a brief discussion of changes in local government in Chapter 9 (see pp. 175‐6). First, Howard Elcock refers to unremitting financial pressures having concentrated control of budgets among a smaller number of councillors. This is obviously a development within the governing role of political leadership. Second, he refers again to the fragmentation of local governance and suggests that this trend, in the context of an acceptance by local politicians of a responsibility for community leadership, has meant the need to develop a reticulist role. At one point he connects the reticulist role with network management. This implies a change in the governance role. Third, he notes the rise of new socialist councillors in the 1980s that subjected leaders to both more and closer scrutiny and thereby reduced the security of tenure for political leaders. This entailed, in other words, a change in the allegiance role.

The typology is explicitly used in the final chapter (see pp. 188‐93) where Howard Elcock is concerned with social democratic governments of the 2000s and the leadership of change to solve issues. “The roles that leaders seeking to achieve such changes can and should play can be explored using our threefold categorization of leadership roles” (p. 188). At one point he argues for political leadership that does not seek to control too closely:

Relatively young leaders, like Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, both of whom possess considerable charisma and energy, should be well equipped to secure the acceptance of their values throughout their government machines – However – they need to be willing to leave implementation to others and not seek to control them too closely (p. 189).

In the last chapter Howard Elcock's intention seems to be to associate a shift from management to leadership with a shift from central government control to more autonomy for local councils. He characterises managers as preoccupied with control and argues that control (including performance measurement) has to be relaxed. With the relaxation of control, he suggests, comes increased opportunity for local autonomy. I think it is useful to juxtapose this proposition with his subsequent suggestion that leadership is made more necessary because the pace of change is increasing and because “new right” leaders and “third way” leaders are seeking radical change. So, he is suggesting that whereas managers exercise control, leaders bring about change. The title of the last chapter, “Setting the course: leadership not management”, suggests that he approves of the shift to leadership. It is also possible that Howard Elcock's last chapter is a signal for the academic research community to leave behind questions defined by the concerns of managerialism and the new public management debate and to move towards questions relating to leadership and change.