The New Public Leadership Challenge

This ambitious and timely book draws together contributions from specialist academics, policy makers, practitioners and consultants in public leadership, organizational design and change, public sector management and public sector reform. The collection was inspired by debates arising from a very successful ESRC seminar series convened by the editors, and contains a mixture of theoretical, conceptual, and empirical data with the latter largely gathered from action research, participant observation, case study material and survey/interview findings.

The book is a very welcome addition to literature in this growing field of enquiry, not least as it fills a huge gap in knowledge in the UK and Europe. It will also add to global debates on public leadership in a period of fiscal austerity. Literature on public leadership is better established in the USA, with very few titles available this side of the Atlantic. I would like to congratulate both editors in producing an important volume on public leadership within a reform programme. It examines how consistently public leadership is being applied across the public sector, as well as its measurement and evaluation. These stated aims are reflected in 21, very diverse and eclectic chapters, grouped into three specific themes.

After a sound introductory chapter setting the scene for examining differences between New Public Management and New (Collaborative) Public Leadership within a reform programme, the author of chapter 2 assesses the importance of civil service leadership and offers a new framework for analysis. Chapters 3 and 4 address leadership in healthcare and education; both stress the need for professional leadership as a challenge to the Neo‐Liberal model of business leadership. Chapter 5 is not strictly speaking about leadership, but instead focused on how NPM reforms have affected public confidence and the legitimacy of policing. Perhaps the editors might have exerted a stronger steer or brief on the content? Chapter 6 examines local government reform and political leadership, demonstrating how institutional legacies negate imaginative and energetic leadership. It was difficult to see how this chapter on political leadership differed from a later chapter (to be discussed later in this review).

In chapter 7, which again was not explicitly about leadership, rather the consequences of NPM reforms on the UK Defence industry, the author draws on US and Canadian research and principal agency theory. Lord Turnbull, former UK Cabinet Secretary and Leader of the Home Civil Service provides a contribution based on long civil service experience to identify PS leadership developmental needs within a complex world of continuous reform. The distinctive context, constrained choices, and need for refection and collective approaches to problem solving are highlighted. In chapter 9, drawing on US literature, the author correctly asserts that NPL is under‐researched, by illustrating that existing research on political leadership fails to acknowledge political and economic contexts, how to manage tensions between centralised control and performance regimes, and the impact of leaders on outputs/outcomes. Chapter 10 adds to our theoretical and practical knowledge of collective/distributed leadership by using examples from criminal justice. This is followed by a refreshing review of how tame, wicked and critical problems demand specific types of leadership. Some useful figures accompany the text.

Chapter 12 is a very forward thinking chapter on whole systems leadership, and what follows in chapter 13 is based on a survey of 1,400 managers; the Public Management Index. An interesting chapter, containing numerous quotes, but the terms “leadership” and “management” are used inter‐changeably, thereby conflating and confusing both concepts. A major problem with this chapter, in view of the overall theme, is that a survey of managers' perceptions about their role, albeit with a questionnaire including some questions on leadership, offers only a limited contribution to the leadership debate. In the following chapter (14) we are offered a very insightful analysis of some empirical findings based on an adaptive leadership and public value theoretical framework. The author (academic) shadowed a senior PS leader to examine leadership within a particular context, to demonstrate theory in practice, rather than a post hoc application of theory followed by reflection on practice. This results in an illuminating new approach. Again chapter 15, though interesting, is not essentially related to leadership, instead it provides a narrative based on empirical data on NHS Mental Health managers. The findings are stories of managers coping or resisting the reform process.

The author of chapter 16 uses a specific piece of legislation in criminal justice to demonstrate a missed opportunity for public leaders. More especially, the Act in question provided an excellent way of developing shared and distributed leadership, with lukewarm (at best), or non‐existent (at worst) results. The limitations placed on local leaders are a significant element of this chapter, and I wondered why this chapter was not combined with some of the contents in chapter 10. Chapter 17 shared similarities with the earlier chapter on whole systems, but develops the notion of “systems leadership” to explain partnership working, whereas chapter 18 highlights changing delivery chains and the importance of distributed and shared learning and innovation. In chapter 19 a distinction is drawn between public and third sector leadership and chapter 20 focuses on the relevance and practical uses of existing understanding of measuring and evaluating public leadership. In the excellent concluding chapter, the main strands of each contribution are drawn together with two key questions emerging. First, “Is NPL different to NPM, which has largely been discredited?” and “How can NPL be evaluated?”. Both offer a rich seam for future research activity.

Inevitably in a collection carrying so many diverse contributions, there will be overlaps in coverage, queries on chapter ordering, and a need to assert stronger editorial control over content, structure and format. Despite some small quibbles in these respects, I do believe that this is a brave and groundbreaking book in a very under‐researched area. I look forward with relish to a second edition, as this current volume is a highly readable and valuable addition to the field.