Heroes, superheroes, and policy outcomes: An alternative view of leadership of public organizations

Abstract

Public managers often have a different perspective in comparison to the elected officials with whom they serve. Yet, they are tasked with working side-by-side with these elected leaders on behalf of the public good to govern and lead state and local governments, public authorities and other bodies. This article accepts these two realities as a priori assumptions and examines how elected and appointed officials interact and the varying perspectives and expectations of these groups. Rather than spend excessive energy on a compare-and-contrast exercise of administrative and elected perspectives, this study uses ʼThe Super Friends,“ a childrenʼs cartoon from the 1970s that takes into consideration the varying powers of super heroes as a lens to view and then understand this unique administrator/elected relationship and its challenges.

Citation

Schneider, R.A. (2016), "Heroes, superheroes, and policy outcomes: An alternative view of leadership of public organizations", International Journal of Organization Theory & Behavior, Vol. 19 No. 1, pp. 60-78. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOTB-19-01-2016-B007