The Leadership Quarterly 21 (2010) 308–323
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The Leadership Quarterly
j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w. e l s ev i e r. c o m / l o c a t e / l e a q u a
Exploring the link between integrated leadership and public
sector performance
Sergio Fernandez a,⁎, Yoon Jik Cho b, James L. Perry a
a
b
Indiana University, Bloomington, United States
Georgia State University, United States
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Keywords:
Public sector leadership
Integrated leadership
Shared leadership
Performance
a b s t r a c t
This study develops the concept of integrated leadership in the public sector. Integrated
leadership is conceived as the combination of five leadership roles that are performed
collectively by employees and managers at different levels of the hierarchy. The leadership
roles are task-, relations-, change-, diversity-, and integrity-oriented leadership. Using data
from the Federal Human Capital Survey and Program Assessment Rating Tool, we analyze the
relationship between integrated leadership and federal program performance. The findings
from the empirical analysis indicate that integrated leadership has a positive and sizeable effect
on the performance of federal sub-agencies. The study concludes with a discussion of the
implications of the findings and limitations of the study.
© 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
For nearly a century, scholars have labored to understand leadership and its influence on subordinates and organizations.
Despite the proliferation of leadership theories and empirical studies, scholars continue to lament our weak understanding of
leadership effectiveness (Bass, 1990; Van Wart, 2005; Yukl, 2002). The need for rigorous empirical research on leadership is
particularly acute in public administration, where little research on the topic is reported in the journals (Van Wart, 2003; notable
exceptions include Fernandez, 2005, 2008; Moynihan & Ingraham, 2004; Trottier, Van Wart, & Wang, 2008). The dearth of research
is more startling given the investments public organizations make in leadership development and the emphasis placed on
performance management and improvement, including the federal Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) and the
Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART).
Throughout most of its history, the study of leadership has been characterized by disparate clusters of theories, approaches and
models, each focusing on different pieces of the leadership puzzle, with few efforts at synthesis and integration. More recently,
however, leadership scholars have begun to develop and test integrated leadership models that synthesize existing knowledge
regarding leadership effectiveness (e.g., Fernandez, 2005; Hunt, 1991; Van Wart, 2005; Yukl, 2002). These models incorporate
leadership skills, traits, behaviors and styles along with situational and moderating variables in unified theoretical models to
explain leadership effectiveness.
The recent emergence of shared leadership theory represents another effort by leadership scholars to seek integration, but one
of a different kind. Challenging the traditional paradigm in leadership theory that favors top-down influence and views leadership
as a role performed by an individual, these scholars have argued for the need to treat leadership as a shared endeavor broadly
distributed among members of organizations, networks or communities (Crosby & Bryson, 2005; Ensley, Hmieleski, & Pearce,
2006; Hiller, Day, & Vance, 2006; Meindl, 1990; Pearce & Conger, 2003; Pearce & Sims, 2000, 2002). As Fletcher and Kaüfer (2003)
explain, “New models conceptualize leadership as a more relational process, a shared or distributed phenomenon occurring at
different levels and dependent on social interactions and networks of influence” (p. 21).
⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 812 325 0981; fax: +1 812 855 7802.
E-mail address: [email protected] (S. Fernandez).
1048-9843/$ – see front matter © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.leaqua.2010.01.009
S. Fernandez et al. / The Leadership Quarterly 21 (2010) 308–323
309
This study makes two contributions to the emerging research on integrated and shared leadership. First, the concept of integrated
leadership in the public sector is developed inductively from the leadership, generic management and public administration
literatures. Integrated leadership in the public sector, as conceived in this study, involves the integration of five leadership roles
performed collectively by team leaders, supervisors, managers, and senior executives in public organizations. Second, the
relationship between integrated leadership and performance in the public sector is explored by capitalizing on two recent
initiatives in the U.S. federal government—the Federal Human Capital Surveys and the Program Assessment Rating Tool, or PART,
scores—to understand and improve the management and performance of federal agencies. The findings from the empirical
analysis indicate that integrated leadership has a positive and sizeable effect on the performance of federal agencies. The study
concludes with a discussion of the implications of the findings and limitations of the study.
1. Management and leadership
Much has been written about the distinction between management and leadership. Mintzberg's (1972) well-known
classification of managerial roles lists “leading” employees as one of only ten roles played by managers. Bennis and Nanus (1985)
stated, “Managers are people who do things right and leaders are people who do the right thing” (p. 21). Writing in a similar vein,
Kotter (1982) asserted that management is about coping with complexity, particularly by setting goals and plans, organizing and
staffing, and solving problems and monitoring results, while leadership involves coping with organizational change by developing
a vision and strategy for change, communicating the vision, and motivating employees to attain it. Notwithstanding these
conceptual distinctions, we often find in practice that the distinction between management and leadership becomes blurred. Not
all managers are leaders, but many of them are. Mintzberg's other managerial roles such as the spokesperson and entrepreneur are
often played by leaders performing the boundary spanning role. Additionally, the Ohio State University and University of Michigan
leadership studies indicated that leadership in part entails the task-oriented behavior ascribed to managers by Kotter.
The distinction between leadership and management is blurred even further when we examine and compare the leadership
and management literatures. Much like the former, the latter focuses on how the behavior and strategies of top managers and
leaders enable employees to achieve goals at the individual, group, and/or organizational level (see Boyne, 2003). Meier and
O'Toole (2001, 2002), for example, found that managerial quality and networking efforts of public school superintendents
improved performance. Recent research on managerial strategy in the public sector (e.g., Andrews, Boyne, & Walker, 2006; Meier
et al., 2007) has found that aggressive strategies aimed at exploiting opportunities in the external environment can be as effective
as change-oriented leadership behavior when it comes to improving organizational effectiveness (Ekvall & Arvonen, 1991;
Fernandez, 2008). Various other aspects of management that have been linked to organizational effectiveness in the public sector—
including goal setting, motivating employees, and shaping organizational culture (see Brewer & Selden, 2000; Rainey & Steinbauer,
1999)—also have their counterparts in leadership behavior research (see Bass, 1990). In short, the distinction between
management and leadership remains a conceptual knot that is difficult to untangle.
2. Trends in leadership research
Several trends in the evolution of leadership research are discussed as a way to illuminate key ideas shaping our analysis of
integrated leadership in the public sector. The three trends are simultaneous growth and balkanization of leadership research;
efforts to integrate independent strands of leadership theory; and re-conceptualizing leadership as a shared or collective process.
2.1. Growth and balkanization
The earliest attempt to systematically study leadership focused on the search for personal attributes and traits of successful
leaders (see Boyatzis, 1982; McClelland, 1965, 1985; Stogdill, 1948). Failure to identify a common set of attributes and traits linked
to leadership effectiveness led researchers at Ohio State University (Fleishman, 1953; Halpin & Winer, 1957; Hemphill & Coons,
1957) and the University of Michigan (Katz, Macoby, & Morse, 1950; Katz & Katz, 1960) during the 1950s and 1960s to shift the
focus of research from leadership traits to the behavior of effective leaders. These efforts resulted in the identification of two broad
categories of leadership behavior: task-oriented and relations-oriented behavior. Numerous empirical studies produced weak and
inconsistent findings (Bass, 1990; Fisher & Edwards, 1988; Yukl, 2002), the most consistent ones being that relations-oriented and
task-oriented behavior are positively correlated with job satisfaction and performance, respectively.
Leadership research branched off in many directions during the latter part of the twentieth century. Among the most
prominent approaches emerging during that period were contingency theories of leadership, dyadic theories of leadership, and
charismatic and transformational leadership. Various situational and contingency theories were developed to explain how
situational variables moderate the influence of leadership attributes and behavior on performance. These contingency theories,
which have often received mixed or weak empirical support (Bass, 1990; Yukl, 2002), include Fiedler's (1967) least preferred coworker (LPC) contingency model; the path–goal theory of leadership (House, 1971); cognitive resources theory (Fiedler, 1986;
Fiedler & Garcia, 1987); the multiple linkage model (Yukl, 1989); leadership substitute theory (Kerr & Jermier, 1978), and Hersey
and Blanchard's situational leadership theory (Hersey, Blanchard, & Johnson, 2000).
Dyadic theories of leadership, including leader–member exchange (LMX) theory, have focused on the vertical relationship that
develops between a leader and a follower (Dansereau, Graen, & Haga, 1975; Graen & Cashman, 1975; Graen & Scandura, 1987;
Gerstner & Day, 1997; Schriesheim, Castro, & Cogliser, 1999). Researchers have found that high-exchange relationships
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characterized by high levels of mutual trust and reciprocity between superior and subordinate are related to higher levels of
support for the leader, enhanced mutual communication, and higher subordinate commitment and performance (Gerstner & Day,
1997; Schriesheim et al., 1999). Scholars focusing on charismatic and transformational leadership have explored the use of
charisma, emotional appeals, and symbols and culture by leaders to motivate their followers (Bass, 1985; Bass & Avolio, 1990;
Bennis & Nanus, 1985; Burns, 1978; House, 1977; Shamir, House, & Arthur, 1993). Influenced by Weber's original work on
charismatic leaders transformational leadership research has produced promising empirical findings, although progress has been
slowed by difficulty establishing causal relationships and lack of clarity about its impact in different situations (Bryman, 1993;
Yukl, 1999).
2.2. Integrated leadership theories
Advancements in leadership research have been hindered by balkanization into the clusters of theories discussed above and,
until recently, scholars made few attempts to integrate the theories. During the last decade, however, scholars have begun to
develop and test leadership models and frameworks that integrate elements from earlier approaches. Van Wart (2003) asserted
that to advance understanding of public sector leadership, scholars should begin to develop and test comprehensive leadership
models that integrate transactional and transformational elements and that account for various situational variables inherent in
the public context (p. 225). In his leadership action cycle model, leadership is treated as a linear chain of causally-related factors,
with the choice of optimal leadership style contingent on various internal and external organizational conditions (Van Wart,
2005). In addition, the effect of a particular leadership style on performance is moderated by the personal attributes and skills of a
leader. Yukl's (2002) integrative leadership framework incorporates leadership skills, traits, behaviors and styles, and situational
variables in a single theoretical model to explain the effectiveness of a leader (see also Fernandez, 2005; Hunt, 1991). Doig and
Hargrove (1990) assert that a public sector leader's skills, abilities, personality, and style interact with situational variables to
determine success. Specifically, skills and abilities have to match the task at hand and must be complemented by favorable
conditions (i.e., favorable public opinion, political support and public demand). Similarly, Ricucci (1995) found that political,
managerial and leadership skills, experience, technical expertise, managerial style and personality all contribute to leadership
effectiveness; however, to be most effective, leaders have to receive strong political support and ample resources, in addition to
being assigned to tasks that match their skills and abilities (see also Svara, 1994).
Many of the works just mentioned are important contributions to our understanding of public sector leadership, inasmuch as
they represent the first serious efforts by scholars to integrate elements of different leadership theories and approaches into a
single theoretical framework. Most of the empirical tests of these integrated models have been limited, however, by small sample
sizes and concerns about their generalizability (Fernandez, 2005). There remains the need for additional theoretical development
and empirical validation of integrated leadership models in the public sector.
2.3. Shared leadership
The emergence of the concept variously labeled shared, distributed, or dispersed leadership represents another approach by which
leadership scholars have sought integration (Crosby & Bryson, 2005; Ensley et al., 2006; Ensley, Pearson, & Pearce, 2003; Gronn, 2002;
Hiller et al., 2006; O'Toole, Galbraith, & Lawler, 2002; Pearce & Conger, 2003; Pearce & Sims, 2000, 2002; Seers, Keller, & Wilkerson,
2003). Rather than integrating variables or disparate strands of leadership theory, these scholars propose a more radical change to the
unit of analysis in leadership research (Gronn, 2002). They propose re-conceptualizing leadership as a role performed by various
organizational members operating at multiple levels of the hierarchy. Fletcher and Kaüfer (2003) argue that in contrast to the
traditional individual-level perspective on leadership, “shared leadership offers a concept of leadership practice as a group-level
phenomenon” (p. 22). They include among the key characteristics of new models of shared leadership a set of practices “enacted” by
people at all levels of the organization; an emphasis on leadership as a social process that is dynamic, collective, and multidirectional;
and a focus on relational interactions that promote mutual learning. Pearce and Conger (2003) conceive shared leadership as “broadly
distributed among a set of individuals instead of centralized in the hands of a single individual who acts in the role of a superior” (p. 1).
They note that while leadership scholars flirted with the notion of shared leadership and laid the theoretical foundation for it over the
course of several decades, it was not until the late 1990s that the concept of shared leadership came to be viewed as a legitimate
approach to understanding leadership and its consequences for organizations.
Studies point to shared leadership in teams as having a positive influence on team performance (Carson, Tesluk, & Marrone, 2007;
Ensley et al., 2003). Ensley et al. (2006) and Pearce and Sims (2002) compared vertical with shared leadership in top-management
teams and found both approaches to be effective, although the effect of shared leadership outweighed that of vertical leadership.
Shared leadership also appears to be an important antecedent of group cohesion and collective vision (Ensley et al., 2003).
3. Integrated leadership in the public sector
From the leadership and public administration literatures, we develop the concept of integrated leadership, which incorporates
five leadership roles essential for the success of leaders in the public sector: task-oriented leadership; relations-oriented
leadership; change-oriented leadership; diversity-oriented leadership; and integrity-oriented leadership. The selection of the first
three leadership roles is influenced by the Ohio State University and University of Michigan leadership studies, Yukl, Gordon, and
Taber's (2002) integrated framework, and by the work of Ekvall and Arvonen (1991) and Lindell and Rosenqvist (1992a,b), who
S. Fernandez et al. / The Leadership Quarterly 21 (2010) 308–323
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expanded upon the Ohio State leadership studies by identifying a third category of effective leadership behavior—development- or
change-oriented behavior. The other two roles are derived from contemporary public management research that attests to their
importance as theoretical constructs and as patterns of behavior associated with effective leadership. In addition to integrating
across streams of leadership theory, our integrated approach conceives the unit of analysis as the collective efforts and behaviors of
public managers operating at multiple levels of the organization and in positions granting some degree of formal authority over
subordinates. Specifically, the five roles are shared by team leaders, supervisors, managers, and senior executives in federal
agencies; they are not consolidated in the hands of a single person at the top of the hierarchy.
Task-oriented leadership involves the kinds of leadership behavior that express a concern for accomplishing the goals of the
group and that are aimed at defining and organizing the group's activities. Task-oriented behaviors include setting and
communicating goals and performance standards; planning, directing and coordinating the activities of subordinates; maintaining
clear channels of communication; monitoring compliance with procedures and goal achievement; and providing feedback. As one
expert explains, “Successful task-oriented leaders are instrumental in contributing to their groups' effectiveness by setting goals,
allocating labor, and enforcing sanctions. They initiate structure for their followers, define the roles of others, explain what to do
and why, establish well-defined patterns of organization and channels of communication, and determine the ways to accomplish
assignments” (Bass, 1990, p. 472).
Relations-oriented leadership involves leadership behavior that reflects concern for the welfare of subordinates and a desire to
foster good interpersonal relations among organizational members. Among the many relations-oriented behaviors identified by
leadership researchers are treating subordinates as equals, showing concern for their well-being, appreciating and recognizing
their work, providing them with opportunities for personal growth, and involving them in the decision-making process. Relationsoriented behavior overlaps with participative leadership to the extent that both aim to give subordinates influence over important
decisions made in the organization (Likert, 1967; Vroom & Yetton, 1973). Participative leadership, however, appears to be only
one component—namely, the employee empowerment component—of a broader set of relations-oriented behaviors aimed at
promoting the well-being of workers. Relations-oriented behavior fosters a harmonious and emotionally supportive work
environment that contributes to higher levels of employee job satisfaction and motivation, two variables that have been linked to
higher performance. Relations-oriented leadership also contributes to performance by creating open channels of communication,
increasing personal responsibility among subordinates, and contributing to subordinate commitment to the leader and the
organization.
The third leadership role, change-oriented leadership, represents leadership behavior that “is primarily concerned with
improving strategic decisions; adapting to change in the environment; increasing flexibility and innovation; making major
changes in processes, products, or services; and gaining commitment to the changes” (Yukl, 2002, p. 65). The literature suggests
that change-oriented behavior affects organizational performance in at least three fundamental ways. Leaders who engage in
change-oriented behavior can increase performance by making their organizations more adaptive and responsive to the external
environment (Ekvall & Arvonen, 1991). Change-oriented leaders may be more effective at identifying the most promising strategic
initiatives for their organizations. Finally, change-oriented behavior can encourage employees to search for creative solutions to
problems facing the organization. Change-oriented leadership appears to have much in common with transformational leadership
(Bass, 1985; Bass & Avolio, 1990), both with their emphasis on fostering change in the lives of employees and their organizations.
They seem to depart to some degree, however, in the extent to which they rely on instrumental means for achieving change, with
transformational leadership placing greater emphasis on emotional appeals and manipulation of symbols and culture to motivate
subordinates and less emphasis on extrinsic rewards.
In the public sector, managing organizational change has become a critical contingency (Fernandez & Rainey, 2006; Light,
1998). Public managers have come under increasing pressure to find more efficient and effective methods of delivering
services and implementing managerial reforms adopted by elected officials. Ekvall and Arvonen (1991) found that changeoriented leadership was positively correlated with the leader's level of competence or effectiveness (see also Lindell &
Rosenqvist, 1992a,b). This type of leadership behavior has also been linked to improved performance in public organizations
(Fernandez, 2008).
Diversity-oriented leadership is the fourth role that makes up integrated leadership. As research about the diversityperformance linkage suggests, the relationships between diversity and performance are complex and cannot be conceived simply
as “diversity equals better performance” (Richard, Barnett, Dwyer, & Chadwick, 2004). Diversity-performance research, which is
focused primarily on business settings, has been hard pressed to identify positive relationships, particularly related to racial and
demographic diversity (Horwitz & Horwitz, 2007; Kochan et al., 2003; Webber & Donahue, 2001). In one of the few public sector
studies, Pitts (2005) found significant but inconsistent relationships for managers and teachers between diversity and
representation across different performance indicators in Texas public schools. Despite the dearth of public sector research,
leaders in public settings who appreciate and understand diversity are likely to reap several advantages from it. One way in which
leadership sensitive to diversity can generate performance benefits is by increasing the quality of decisions. Organizations and
groups that can tap diverse workforces and constituencies are likely to reap dividends in terms of ideas generated, quality of the
assessment of options, and decision acceptance. McLeod, Lobel, and Cox (1996) found in a controlled experimental brainstorming
study, for instance, that the ideas produced by ethnically diverse groups were judged to be of higher quality than the ideas
produced by homogeneous groups. Integrative leaders who are attentive to diversity also create potential for enhancing value for
the organization through the human capital represented by the skills, experience and knowledge of diverse stakeholders (Barney
& Wright, 1998). The centrality of diversity in Richard Florida's (2002) analysis of competitive advantages of communities reflects
the logic of the value creation dimension of diversity.
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The final leadership role is integrity-oriented leadership. The institutionalized and politicized environments in which public
managers operate impose strong demands for legality, fairness, and equitable treatment of employees and service recipients
(Rainey, 2003). The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has identified integrity as one of the five fundamental
competencies prerequisite for entry to the Senior Executive Service (SES) (OPM, 2006). Federal managers also identified integrity
as the most important competence among the 26 specific competences required for the SES (National Academy of Public
Administration, 2003). Research on organizational justice provides theoretical support for the positive effect of integrity on
performance. Since Adams' (1965) equity theory, many scholars have emphasized the importance of fairness within organizations
as a factor enhancing employee motivation. A meta-analysis reveals that fair practices within organizations determine the quality
of individuals' life within organizations as well as organizational performance (Colquitt, Conlon, Wesson, Porter, & Ng, 2001).
There has been virtually no research, however, on the effect of integrity-oriented leadership on performance in the public sector.
4. Methodology
This study tests the hypothesis that integrated leadership has a positive effect on organizational performance in the public
sector. Below are descriptions of the variables, data and methods used to test this hypothesis. The unit of analysis is the U.S. federal
sub-agency.
4.1. Dependent variable
The dependent variable, PART results, is the federal sub-agency's Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) score on the “Results”
component of the overall PART score for 2006–2007.1 PART was established by the Bush Administration in 2002, with
responsibility for its implementation assigned to the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB). OMB assigns PART scores at
the program level, a different unit of analysis than the federal sub-agency.2 In any given year, multiple programs within a single
sub-agency may be evaluated and rated by OMB. This required us to develop a methodology for aggregating program PART results
scores to calculate a sub-agency's score. Because programs vary greatly in terms of their budgets and social impact, simply
averaging the scores of the programs belonging to a sub-agency to derive its PART results score does not seem fitting. Instead, for
each sub-agency, we weighed its various programs' PART scores by the corresponding program budget and then summed the
weighted program scores to come up with the sub-agency score.
Although some scholars have raised concerns about whether PART scores are sufficiently accurate, consistent, and objective
(Radin, 2006), this measure of organizational performance offers several advantages to researchers. First, PART scores can be used
to compare performance across the entire range of federal agencies. Second, as external measures of performance based at least in
part on observable behavior and information gathered from archival data, PART scores should be less subjective than perceptual
measures based on survey responses from internal participants. Even external and “objective” measures of performance like these,
however, introduce some degree of subjectivity and should be interpreted with care (see Walker & Boyne, 2006). Finally, the use of
PART scores helps minimize common source bias, since the independent variable is measured using a different source of data.
4.2. Independent variable
The independent variable is integrated leadership. To construct a measure of this construct, survey items from the 2006 Federal
Human Capital Survey (FHCS) were used that asked employees and managers to report on the behavior of and attitudes towards
superiors at multiple levels of the organizational hierarchy, including low level supervisors and team leaders, managers, and senior
executives. These survey items represent organizational members' perceptions of leadership distributed across their organizations
without reference to a solo or focused leader (Gronn, 2002).
Multiple ordinal survey items were used to measure the five leadership roles described above as making up the construct of
integrated leadership (see Appendix A). A higher-order confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed to assess the
discriminant and convergent validity of this five-dimensional definition of integrated leadership. As seen in Fig. 1, each of the
survey items loaded strongly and in the anticipated direction on the corresponding factor (i.e., leadership role) (p < 0.001). Those
five factors, in turn, have strong positive correlations with a higher-order factor representing the underlying construct of
integrated leadership (p < 0.001). These results suggest that there are five distinct dimensions to integrated leadership, thus
demonstrating discriminant validity.3 Additionally, the strong correlations between each of the five dimensions and the higherorder factor offer evidence of convergent validity.
1
The overall PART score for a federal program is made up of four weighted components: “Program Purpose and Design” (20%); “Planning” (10%);
“Management” (20%); and “Results” (50%) (OMB, 2007). OMB officials evaluate each component of the PART and assign a rating ranging from 0 to 100. Only the
“Results” component of PART is used in this study since it directly pertains to performance, while the other components capture aspects of management or
leadership, the main predictor in the multivariate analysis.
2
The term sub-agency refers to two kinds of organizations: a bureau, embedded in a cabinet-level department or large independent agency, or a smaller
independent agency.
3
Scales to measure the five leadership roles were created from the five groupings of survey items shown in Appendix A. The Cronbach's alphas for these scales
range from 0.76 (change-oriented leadership) to 0.86 (task- and relations-oriented leadership), indicating moderate to strong levels of internal reliability.
S. Fernandez et al. / The Leadership Quarterly 21 (2010) 308–323
313
Fig. 1. Higher-order confirmatory factor analysis.
The statistics for several goodness-of-fit indices support a five-dimensional model of integrated leadership. The statistics for
the comparative fit index (CFI), which is minimally affected by sample size, was 0.91, indicating a good fit for the five factor model
(Fan, Thompson, & Wang, 1999). The normed fit index (NFI) statistic of 0.91 and the root mean square error of approximation
(RMSEA) of 0.09 both point to an acceptable fit for the five-factor model (Schumacker & Lomax, 2004). Complex models are more
likely to generate better fit statistics than parsimonious ones. It is recommended, therefore, that models be subjected to goodnessof-fit measures that penalize for lack of parsimony. The model with a five-dimensional structure has parsimony ratio (PRATIO) and
parsimony normed fit index (PNFI) statistics of 0.71 and 0.66, both of which are indicative of a reasonably parsimonious fit.4
In contrast to this evidence favoring a five-dimensional model of integrated leadership, the CFA results reject a model with a
one-factor structure (i.e., a one-dimensional model). The CFI and NFI statistics for a one-dimensional model fail to reach the 0.90
cutoff point; both are 0.85. And the RMSEA statistic (0.11) is above the conventional cutoff for an adequate model fit (Schumacker
& Lomax, 2004). In addition, a comparison of the five-dimensional and one-dimensional models based on their Akaike information
criterion (AIC) statistics favors the former over the latter. The AIC statistic for the five-dimensional model (211,170.558) is
considerably lower than the AIC statistic for the one-factor model (422,210.921), indicating a significantly better model fit
(Burnham & Anderson, 2004).
Since the focus of the analysis is on the effect of integrated leadership on performance (and not on the effects of the separate
leadership roles), a summated rating scale was created for each survey respondent based on all the survey items used to measure
the leadership roles. The unweighted sub-agency average on this respondent-level scale serves as the measure of integrated
leadership (Cronbach's alpha = 0.95). The scale was standardized to make interpretation of the results straightforward.
4.3. Control variables
The analysis includes control variables for politicization, organizational complexity, and sub-agency type and budget. To
control for the level of politicization in the sub-agency, the model includes the variable percentage of political appointees in a subagency.5 A more politicized environment can place conflicting demands on an organization's members, compelling them to
perform effectively, but also remaining politically responsive to the President, Congress, and other political institutions. Trade-offs
between effectiveness and political responsiveness in order to balance these competing expectations may result in lower
performance (Moe, 1985). Lewis's (2008) recent analysis, based on the same sources of data used in this study, provides
compelling evidence of the negative effect of politicization on federal agency performance.
A common approach to measuring organizational complexity involves the amount of heterogeneity among occupational
categories in organizations. To measure such heterogeneity, a Blau index used in research on ethnic diversity (Pitts, 2005) in
4
The chi square test results reject the five-factor model (p < 0.01). Large sample sizes like the one used in this CFA (n = 221,479) are much more likely to result
in Type II errors. Garson (2009) suggests, therefore, discounting the chi square results if other fit statistics support the model.
5
Five types of political appointments were considered: permanent non-career senior executive service (SES); non-permanent non-career SES; non-permanent
Schedule C; permanent executive; and non-permanent executive. Data on these different types of political appointments were gathered from OPM's FedScope
database.
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S. Fernandez et al. / The Leadership Quarterly 21 (2010) 308–323
Table 1
Descriptive statistics.
Variable
Obs.
Mean
Std. Dev.
Min
Max
PART results
Integrated leadership
Percent political appointees
Organizational complexity
Independent agency (coded 1)
Budget
97
97
97
97
97
97
54.16
− 0.04
0.78
0.54
0.25
10,917
21.83
0.21
1.95
0.16
0.43
54,594
5.50
− 0.59
0
0.04
0
4
94.70
0.43
16.36
0.79
1
499,457
organizations was constructed using OPM data on the number of sub-agency employees in the following six categories:
professional, administrative, technical, clerical, other white collar, and blue collar. Because six categories are used, the range of the
index is from zero (perfect homogeneity) to 0.833 (same number of employees for all six categories). Higher values are indicative
of greater organizational complexity. A dummy variable for whether the sub-agency is an independent agency versus a bureau in a
cabinet agency (independent agency coded “1”) is also included in the model. Finally, the model controls for the amount of
resources available to these agencies, measured as the sub-agency's budget in 2006, in millions of dollars. Financial, human, and
informational resources are expected to have a positive effect on organizational performance (O'Toole & Meier, 1999; Rainey,
2003; Rainey & Steinbauer, 1999). The budget variable is, therefore, expected to be positively correlated with the dependent
variable.
4.4. Data and statistical methods
The primary sources of data were the Office of Personnel Management's 2006 Federal Human Capital Survey (FHCS) and Office
of Management and Budget's (OMB) 2006 and 2007 PART results scores. The 2006 FHCS was administered to 390,657 federal
employees in sixty major federal agencies, with 221,479 completing the survey (57% response rate). The construct of integrated
leadership represents the sharing of the leadership role among organizational members working at all levels of the hierarchy.
Theory compels us, therefore, to use data from all respondents to the 2006 FHCS, including—from lowest to highest on the
hierarchy—non-supervisors, team leaders, supervisors, managers, and executives. Aggregating multiple informant surveys in this
way raises questions regarding the representativeness and comparability of the data (Enticott, Boyne, & Walker, 2009). The
methodology used by OPM to collect the 2006 FHCS should, however, assuage such concerns. OPM drew statistically valid samples
for agencies and sub-agencies in order to generate results representative of both individual sub-agencies and the overall federal
workforce. These samples were typically larger than 1500 employees,6 and they were stratified by the five hierarchical levels listed
above. Supervisors, managers, and executives are somewhat over-represented due to the stratified sampling technique used.
However, this should help to correct for the bias that often occurs from having a disproportionate share of lower level respondents
to such surveys (see Enticott et al., 2009, p. 233).
Sub-agency employment and budget data were obtained from OPM and OMB, respectively. Merging the different data sources
results in a sample of 97 federal government sub-agencies. Ordinal least squares (OLS) regression is used to test the model. The
descriptive statistics for all the variables are shown in Table 1. The dependent variable PART results has a roughly normal
distribution, with a mean slightly above 54 and a standard deviation of about 22. Integrated leadership, measured using a
standardized summated rating scale, exhibits an adequate amount of variance for undertaking the statistical analysis. The mean
percent of political appointees was around 1%, a figure in line with the overall percent for the federal bureaucracy, although a
handful of sub-agencies had around 10% or more political appointees in the workforce. Also noteworthy is that the sample of subagencies used in the study consists mostly of sub-agencies within cabinet-level departments; only 25% of the sub-agencies belong
to independent federal agencies.
5. Results
We begin by examining sub-agency scores on the integrated leadership and PART results variables (see Tables 2 and 3). The
ordering of sub-agencies by their scores on the variable integrated leadership reveals some interesting patterns. Among the
observations with higher leadership scores are a sizeable number of sub-agencies within the Department of Defense, Department
of Justice, and the Environmental Protection Agency. All eight Department of Defense sub-agencies in the sample have scores
above the median integrated leadership score, and three of the top fifteen leadership scores belong to Department of Justice subagencies. Five out of the six Environmental Protection Agency's sub-agencies in the sample are at or above the median integrated
leadership score. Interestingly, the Internal Revenue Service and Social Security Administration, two agencies that have undergone
significant organizational change in response to harsh public criticism, rank among the top ten sub-agencies in leadership. A
concentration of sub-agencies within the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Agriculture, and Department of Health
6
Many of the smallest sub-agencies had all employees surveyed.
S. Fernandez et al. / The Leadership Quarterly 21 (2010) 308–323
315
Table 2
Federal sub-agency rankings by standardized integrated leadership scores.
Source: 2006 Federal Human Capital Survey, U.S. Office of Personnel Management.
Sub-agency
Cabinet department or independent agency
Leadership
U.S. Visit Office
Internal Revenue Service
Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Social Security Administration
Federal Highway Administration
Executive Office U.S. Attorneys and U.S. Attorneys' Office
Department of State
National Science Foundation
Public Buildings Service
Millennium Challenge Corporation
United States Secret Service
Federal Trade Commission
Civil Division
National Oceanic And Atmospheric Administration
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives
U.S. Air Force
Defense Contract Audit Agency
Financial Management Service
Corporation for National and Community Service
United States Coast Guard
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service
U.S. Army
National Institutes of Health
Natural Resources Conservation Service
Federal Bureau of Investigations
Agricultural Research Service
Defense Commissary Agency
U.S. Navy
Army Corps of Engineers
Office of the Secretary
Environmental Protection Agency — Office of Water
U.S. Marine Corps
Bureau of the Census
Federal Acquisition Service
Securities and Exchange Commission
National Credit Union Administration
Occupational Safety and Health Administration
Federal Aviation Administration
National Aeronautical Space Administration — Headquarters
Administration on Aging
Defense Contract Management Agency
Federal Housing Finance Board
Environmental Protection Agency — Office for Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances
Employment Standards Administration
Forest Service
Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation
Environmental Protection Agency — Office of Research and Development
Environmental Protection Agency — Region 3
Environmental Protection Agency — Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response
Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation and Enforcement
Combined Research, Education, and Economic Services
Departmental Offices
Veterans Benefits Administration
U.S. Geological Survey
Office of Personnel Management
Health Resources and Services Administration
Bureau of Prisons/Federal Prison System
Minerals Management Service
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Railroad Retirement Board
National Nuclear Security Administration
Employment and Training Administration
Headquarters and Field
Executive Office for Immigration Review
Food and Nutrition Service
U.S. Marshals Service
Environmental Protection Agency — Office of Air and Radiation
Department of Homeland Security
Department of Treasury
Independent Agency
Independent Agency
Department of Transportation
Department of Justice
Department of State
Independent Agency
General Service Administration
Independent Agency
Department of Homeland Security
Independent Agency
Department of Justice
Department of Commerce
Department of Justice
Department of Defense
Department of Defense
Department of Treasury
Independent Agency
Department of Homeland Security
Department of Agriculture
Department of Defense
Department of Health and Human Services
Department of Agriculture
Department of Justice
Department of Agriculture
Department of Defense
Department of Defense
Independent Agency
Department of Health and Human Services
Independent Agency
Department of Defense
Department of Commerce
General Service Administration
Independent Agency
Independent Agency
Department of Labor
Department of Transportation
Independent Agency
Department of Health and Human Services
Department of Defense
Independent Agency
Independent Agency
Department of Labor
Department of Agriculture
Independent Agency
Independent Agency
Independent Agency
Independent Agency
Department of Interior
Department of Agriculture
Department of Treasury
Department of Veterans Affairs
Department of Interior
Independent Agency
Department of Health and Human Services
Department of Justice
Department of Interior
Department of Interior
Independent Agency
Department of Energy
Department of Labor
Department of Energy
Department of Justice
Department of Agriculture
Department of Justice
Independent Agency
0.43
0.35
0.31
0.30
0.29
0.28
0.27
0.26
0.26
0.24
0.23
0.20
0.20
0.17
0.17
0.15
0.15
0.14
0.13
0.13
0.13
0.11
0.11
0.11
0.09
0.08
0.08
0.08
0.08
0.07
0.07
0.07
0.07
0.06
0.05
0.05
0.05
0.04
0.04
0.04
0.04
0.04
0.03
0.03
0.02
0.02
0.02
0.01 a
0.01 a
− 0.01
− 0.02
− 0.02
− 0.02
− 0.02
− 0.03
− 0.05
− 0.07
− 0.07
− 0.08
− 0.09
− 0.09
− 0.09
− 0.09
− 0.10
− 0.11
− 0.11
− 0.13
(continued on next page)
316
S. Fernandez et al. / The Leadership Quarterly 21 (2010) 308–323
Table 2 (continued)
Sub-agency
Cabinet department or independent agency
Leadership
International Trade Administration
Consumer Product Safety Commission
Agricultural Marketing Service
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
Administration for Children and Families
Department of Housing and Urban Development
Foreign Agricultural Service
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Office of Justice Programs
Bureau of Reclamation
Bureau of Land Management
Bureau of Customs and Border Protection
Farm Service Agency
Combined Rural Development Services
National Park Service
Small Business Administration
Indian Health Service
Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services
Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Federal Emergency Management Agency
Bureau of Indian Affairs
Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration
Bureau of Engraving and Printing
Transportation Security Administration
Office of the Under Secretary for Science and Technology
Broadcasting Board of Governors
Office of Postsecondary Education
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
Commission on Civil Rights
Department of Commerce
Independent Agency
Department of Agriculture
Independent Agency
Department of Health and Human Services
Department of Health and Human Services
Department of Housing and Urban Development
Department of Agriculture
Department of Health and Human Services
Department of Justice
Department of Interior
Department of Interior
Department of Homeland Security
Department of Agriculture
Department of Agriculture
Department of Interior
Independent Agency
Department of Health and Human Services
Department of Education
Department of Homeland Security
Department of Homeland Security
Department of Interior
Department of Agriculture
Department of Treasury
Department of Homeland Security
Department of Homeland Security
Independent Agency
Department of Education
Department of Health and Human Services
Independent Agency
− 0.13
− 0.14
− 0.14
− 0.14
− 0.15
− 0.15
− 0.15
− 0.19
− 0.20
− 0.21
− 0.21
− 0.22
− 0.22
− 0.22
− 0.22
− 0.23
− 0.28
− 0.29
− 0.30
− 0.32
− 0.36
− 0.38
− 0.40
− 0.41
− 0.43
− 0.49
− 0.51
− 0.52
− 0.54
− 0.59
a
Signifies median score.
and Human Services score low on leadership. Three Department of Homeland Security sub-agencies are among the ten lowest
integrated leadership scores (although three others are among the top twenty integrated leadership scores). Eight out of eleven
Department of Agriculture sub-agencies and six of nine Department of Health and Human Services sub-agencies in the sample
have scores below the median integrated leadership score.
Telling patterns can also be discerned from the ordering of sub-agencies in the sample by PART results scores. Some of the subagencies that scored low on leadership also have low PART results scores. For instance, six out of eight Department of Homeland
Security sub-agencies have PART results scores below the median for that variable. Six of eleven Department of Agriculture subagencies have PART results scores below the median, with three of these sub-agencies among the bottom ten PART results scores.
Among sub-agencies scoring high on performance, four out of six Environmental Protection Agency sub-agencies and five out of
eight Department of Defense sub-agencies have PART results scores at or above the median. Surprisingly, seven out of nine
Department of Health and Human Services sub-agencies have scores above the median PART results score, even though most subagencies in this department scored below the median on leadership. Also, although Department of Justice sub-agencies in the
sample tend to score high on leadership, sub-agencies in this department are more evenly distributed on their PART results scores.
The discussion now turns to the OLS regression analysis. The R-square for the model is 0.15 (F-value = 3.24). This indicates a
moderate level of predictive power for the model, given that the model is based in part on individual-level survey data that tends
to yield low R-squares. The low VIF statistics fail to indicate high levels of multicollinearity in the model. A scatterplot of the
relationship between the dependent and independent variable (not shown) reveals an approximate linear relationship with only
one extreme outlier. Since excluding this observation fails to alter the results in a meaningful way, it was included in the final
analysis.
The coefficient for the variable integrated leadership is 20.68 (p < 0.05 level) (see Table 4). As expected, leadership involving the
sharing of five leadership roles within and across levels of the hierarchy is positively correlated with PART results. The integrative
leadership variable has the second highest standardized coefficient in the model, making it one of the strongest predictors of
performance.
Moving beyond the issue of statistical significance, how much of a substantive effect does integrated leadership have on
organizational performance? Scholars have engaged in a lively debate over how much management and leadership really matters
when it comes to predicting and improving organizational performance. Some contend that the impact of leadership on
performance is close to nil (Lieberson & O'Connor, 1972; Salancik & Pfeffer, 1977). Population ecologists, in particular, have
downplayed the role of management and leadership, arguing that organizations have a limited capacity to change, due to
structural inertia, and therefore are generally unable to adapt to their environment (Hannan & Freeman, 1984). Organizations
either “fit” their environment and survive or are “selected against” and die. Kaufman (1981) concluded that federal executives
have minimal effect on policies and programs because of the multitude of pressures and controls placed on them by political
S. Fernandez et al. / The Leadership Quarterly 21 (2010) 308–323
317
Table 3
Federal sub-agency rankings by PART results scores.
Sources: 2006 Federal Human Capital Survey, OPM, and Program Assessment Rating Tool, OMB.
Sub-agency
Cabinet department or independent agency
PART score
Public Buildings Service
Health Resources and Services Administration
United States Secret Service
Bureau of Engraving and Printing
Railroad Retirement Board
Federal Trade Commission
Bureau of Prisons/Federal Prison System
Securities and Exchange Commission
National Science Foundation
Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Broadcasting Board of Governors
National Credit Union Administration
Combined Research, Education, and Economic Services
National Institutes of Health
Environmental Protection Agency — Office for Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances
Indian Health Service
Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation and Enforcement
Consumer Product Safety Commission
Administration On Aging
Social Security Administration
Defense Contract Audit Agency
Defense Contract Management Agency
Administration for Children and Families
National Nuclear Security Administration
Agricultural Research Service
U.S. Geological Survey
Environmental Protection Agency — Region 3
Financial Management Service
Bureau of the Census
Executive Office for Immigration Review
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
Defense Commissary Agency
Environmental Protection Agency — Office of Air and Radiation
Food and Nutrition Service
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Combined Rural Development Services
U.S. Marshals Service
Minerals Management Service
Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation
Executive Office U.S. Attorneys and U.S. Attorneys' Office
U.S. Navy
Civil Division
Small Business Administration
Environmental Protection Agency — Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response
NASA — Headquarters
Federal Aviation Administration
Natural Resources Conservation Service
U.S. Army
Departmental Offices
Department of State
National Oceanic And Atmospheric Administration
U.S. Marine Corps
Federal Highway Administration
U.S. Visit
National Park Service
Employment Standards Administration
Office of Justice Programs
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives
Department of Housing and Urban Development
Federal Bureau of Investigations
United States Coast Guard
Bureau of Customs and Border Protection
Bureau of Reclamation
DOE Headquarters and Field
Farm Service Agency
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service
Environmental Protection Agency — Office of Water
General Service Administration
Department of Health and Human Services
Department of Homeland Security
Department of Treasury
Independent Agency
Independent Agency
Department of Justice
Independent Agency
Independent Agency
Independent Agency
Independent Agency
Independent Agency
Department of Agriculture
Department of Health and Human Services
Independent Agency
Department of Health and Human Services
Department of Interior
Independent Agency
Department of Health and Human Services
Social Security Administration
Department of Defense
Department of Defense
Department of Health and Human Services
Department of Energy
Department of Agriculture
Department of Interior
Independent Agency
Department of Treasury
Department of Commerce
Department of Justice
Department of Health and Human Services
Department of Defense
Independent Agency
Department of Agriculture
Department of Health and Human Services
Department of Agriculture
Department of Justice
Department of Interior
Independent Agency
Department of Justice
Department of Defense
Department of Justice
Small Business Administration
Independent Agency
Independent Agency
Department of Transportation
Department of Agriculture
Department of Defense
Department of Treasury
Department of State
Department of Commerce
Department of Defense
Department of Transportation
Department of Homeland Security
Department of Interior
Department of Labor
Department of Justice
Department of Justice
Department of Housing and Urban Development
Department of Justice
Department of Homeland Security
Department of Homeland Security
Department of Interior
Department of Energy
Department of Agriculture
Department of Agriculture
Independent Agency
94.69
92.60
86.80
86.80
86.80
86.60
86.60
85.69
82.39
81.33
80.28
80.20
80.01
80.00
80.00
78.16
78.04
77.79
75.00
74.33
73.60
73.60
72.29
68.20
68.11
66.80
66.80
66.80
66.75
66.75
66.75
66.60
66.50
64.64
64.52
64.17
63.59
61.70
60.20
60.00
60.00
60.00
59.79
59.11
58.69
58.50
57.75
56.99
56.88 a
55.37
55.30
53.66
53.42
53.40
53.40
53.23
53.20
53.20
52.71
49.47
49.17
48.26
47.40
47.16
46.48
44.59
43.30
(continued on next page)
318
S. Fernandez et al. / The Leadership Quarterly 21 (2010) 308–323
Table 3 (continued)
Sub-agency
Cabinet department or independent agency
PART score
Environmental Protection Agency — Office of Research and Development
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
U.S. Air Force
Forest Service
Transportation Security Administration
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
Veterans Benefits Administration
Federal Acquisition Service
Federal Emergency Management Agency
International Trade Administration
Millennium Challenge Corporation
Bureau of Land Management
Internal Revenue Service
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
Employment and Training Administration
Occupational Safety and Health Administration
Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Bureau of Indian Affairs
Corporation for National and Community Service
Office of Postsecondary Education
Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services
Office of Personnel Management
Foreign Agricultural Service
Army Corps of Engineers
Office of the Under Secretary for Science and Technology
Agricultural Marketing Service
Office of the Secretary
Federal Housing Finance Board
Commission on Civil Rights
Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration
Independent Agency
Department of Interior
Department of the Air Force
Department of Agriculture
Department of Homeland Security
Independent Agency
Department of Veterans Affairs
General Service Administration
Department of Homeland Security
Department of Commerce
Independent Agency
Department of Interior
Department of Treasury
Department of Health and Human Services
Department of Labor
Department of Labor
Department of Homeland Security
Department of Interior
Independent Agency
Department of Education
Department of Education
Independent Agency
Department of Agriculture
Army Corps of Engineers
Department of Homeland Security
Department of Agriculture
Department of Health and Human Services
Independent Agency
Independent Agency
Department of Agriculture
43.14
42.54
41.71
41.67
40.72
40.20
40.00
39.94
37.10
36.58
33.20
33.20
33.09
33.00
29.26
26.40
26.40
24.06
23.63
22.98
21.08
20.07
20.00
16.69
16.13
14.19
11.53
8.25
8.25
5.50
a
Signifies median score.
overseers (see also Lynn, 1981; Warwick, 1975). Scholars on the other side of the debate point to a substantial body of research
showing that leadership behavior has a positive influence on organizational and subordinate performance (see Bass, 1990; Van
Wart, 2005; Yukl, 2002). In short, the more fitting question seems to be not whether leadership matters, but rather, to what extent
does it matter?
Since integrated leadership is measured using a standardized summated rating scale, its coefficient indicates that an increase of
one standard deviation results in approximately a 21 point increase in the sub-agency PART results score, which ranges from 0 to
100. Compared to recent public sector studies, this appears to be a sizeable substantive effect. For example, Meier and O'Toole
(2002) found that the maximum effect of managerial quality on educational performance, measured in terms of student
performance on standardized tests, was about a 5 point increase on a 0–100 point indicator. Fernandez (2005), using the same 0–
100 point indicator, estimated that the combined effects of leadership behavior (including managing the internal operations and
the external environment and promoting change and innovation) was less than a 5 point increase in performance.
To further explore the size effect of leadership on performance, we also used an approach frequently used by leadership
scholars. This approach involves estimating the percent of the variance in organizational performance (measured typically in
terms of financial performance) that is accounted for by measures of leadership. Empirical studies adopting this approach have
provided a wide range of size effects, from nearly no portion of the variance in performance accounted for by leadership (Lieberson
& O'Connor, 1972) to anywhere from 5 to 20% of the variance in performance (Thomas, 1988; Waldman, Ramirez, House, &
Puranam, 2001; see also Fernandez, 2008; Pfeffer & Salancik, 1978). We used hierarchical regression to estimate the percent of the
Table 4
OLS regression results (Dependent variable = PART results).
Variable
Integrated leadership
Percent political appointees
Organizational complexity
Independent agency
Budget
F-value
R-square
N
*p < 0.10, **p < 0.05, ***p < 0.01.
Coef.
20.68**
− 2.98***
2.41
8.26
− 0.00
3.24
0.15
Stand. Coef.
0.20
− 0.27
0.02
0.16
− 0.03
97
VIF
1.12
1.15
1.03
1.13
1.07
S. Fernandez et al. / The Leadership Quarterly 21 (2010) 308–323
319
variance in PART results accounted for by the integrated leadership variable. The R-square for a regression model with all of the
control variables minus integrated leadership is 0.11. Adding the integrated leadership variable to the model raises the R-square to
0.15. The sharing of the five leadership roles among organizational members throughout the hierarchy accounts, therefore, for
about 4% (0.15–0.11) of the variance in PART results. Using this second approach, integrated leadership appears to have a much
more modest effect on performance.
The results for the control variables also appear in Table 4. The variable percent of political appointees, a measure of
politicization, has a coefficient of −2.98 (p < 0.01). This variable has the largest standardized coefficient in the model. Higher
levels of politicization in a sub-agency appear to raise the demand for political responsiveness, an expectation of public
organizations that often conflicts with competence criteria such as efficiency and effectiveness. Also, as Lewis (2008) discovered,
political appointees in senior executive positions have less experience in working for their bureaus and shorter tenures in their
current leadership positions compared to careerists in similar positions, two factors that appear to explain the negative impact of
politicization on performance.
The dummy variable independent agency has a coefficient with a value of 8.26 that fails to achieve statistical significance.
Independent sub-agencies have slightly higher numbers of political appointees than their counterparts in cabinet-level
departments. However, this does not appear to influence their performance. The coefficient for structural complexity fails to
achieve statistical significance. The challenges of having to coordinate the work of a more heterogeneous workforce appear to have
no influence on performance. The variable budget also fails to achieve statistical significance, indicating that sub-agencies with
greater budgetary resources perform about as well as those with smaller budgets, controlling for other variables.
6. Conclusion
The present study sought to synthesize leadership and public administration research to develop and measure the concept of
integrated leadership in the public sector. Integrated leadership is conceived of as the combined efforts of organizational members
across multiple levels of the hierarchy to perform five leadership roles: task-, relations-, change-, diversity-, and integrity-oriented
leadership. The findings show that integrated leadership in the public sector matters when it comes to improving organizational
performance. Integrated leadership is positively correlated with performance in the federal government as measured using PART
results scores. Moreover, the size of leadership's effect on performance is meaningful, but the estimate of size is sensitive to the
method used to compute it.
In terms of substantive effect on the PART results score, a one standard deviation increase in integrated leadership results in
almost a 21 point increase in the dependent variable. This would appear to be a sizeable effect and one that far exceeds previous
estimates reported in the public management literature (Fernandez, 2005; Meier & O'Toole, 2002) using the same estimation
method. Adopting another approach more commonly used by leadership researchers, we find that integrated leadership accounts
for about 4% of the variance in performance, an impact of smaller size. Although modest, a leadership effect of this latter size is not
trivial, especially in light of the scale of federal operations. Public management scholars should be mindful of how using different
approaches to estimating size effects can produce divergent results. The approach taken by leadership scholars that involves
estimating the percent of the variance in performance accounted for by leadership variables offers the advantage of allowing
researchers to compare size effects across studies using different measures of performance. This advantage might prove to be a
critical one in the public sector, where we find a dearth of performance measures available for comparing different types of public
organizations.
While the advent of shared leadership as a legitimate approach to the study of leadership is a recent phenomenon, organization
theorists for several decades have demonstrated the salient role played by leaders at multiple organizational levels. Small groups
research has shown that leadership at low levels of the hierarchy is a key determinant of work team effectiveness (Guzzo &
Dickson, 1996; Kerr & Tindale, 2004). Other researchers have found that middle managers serve a critical role in organizations as
architects and champions for organizational change (Dutton, Ashford, O'Neill, & Lawrence, 2001). This study of shared leadership
in the federal bureaucracy should encourage public management scholars to adopt a broader view of leadership, one that
recognizes the contributions to organizational effectiveness made by leaders at multiple levels. The continued treatment of
leadership as a role played by a top executive runs the risk of failing to capture the full range of leadership behavior and efforts
underway in public organizations. With this point in mind, we caution the reader about the study's limited ability to accurately
capture leadership behavior at all levels of the federal sub-agencies in our sample. The majority of survey items used to measure
integrated leadership referred to the behavior of team leaders, supervisors and managers; only a few asked directly about
employees' perceptions of the agency's senior leadership. The findings might very well underestimate the contributions of senior
executives to organizational performance.
Other limitations to this study warrant discussion. While there are five leadership roles embedded in the concept of integrated
leadership, it is important to note that the data prevented direct measurement and analysis of collaborative leadership, a
leadership role that is becoming increasingly important in the governance arena. Collaborative management and leadership
entails a variety of inter-organizational activities, including shaping policy issues and public priorities; mobilizing resources;
facilitating coordination and mutual adjustment; resolving conflict; building trust; and measuring performance (Agranoff &
McGuire, 2003; Bingham & O'Leary, 2008; Thomson & Perry, 2006). Networked arrangements in which multiple actors are
involved in co-producing a public service without any one of them being in charge places a premium on this type of leadership
(Crosby & Bryson, 2005). Although the integrated leadership construct taps into dimensions such as diversity- and integrity-
320
S. Fernandez et al. / The Leadership Quarterly 21 (2010) 308–323
oriented leadership that are relevant for collaborative leadership, additional data gathering and analysis is needed to explore the
relationship between collaborative leadership and the five leadership roles examined in this study.
The approach taken to defining and measuring integrated leadership might also raise questions regarding convergent and
discriminant validity. As the results of the higher-order confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) indicate, the five-dimensional model of
integrated leadership exhibits a better fit with the data than a one-dimensional model. All five leadership roles are positively
correlated with one underlying construct, which we label integrated leadership, and yet, they are sufficiently different to suggest
they capture distinct dimensions of leadership. However, most of the goodness-of-fit measures in the higher-order CFA are near
the borderline between good and poor model fit, indicating room for improvement. In particular, there is reason to believe that a
six-dimensional model of integrative leadership that includes a leadership style aimed at managing collaboratively across
organizational boundaries would offer a better model fit than our five-dimensional model of integrated leadership. Moreover, the
five dimensions representing different leadership roles exhibit fairly high bivariate correlations, ranging from r = 0.61 (changeand diversity-oriented leadership) to r = 0.77 (task- and relations-oriented leadership). These correlations suggest the need for
additional research on the discriminant validity of the integrated leadership construct and more general issues of appropriate
model specifications for the construct (Jarvis, MacKenzie, & Podsakoff, 2003). In fact, we believe future research about integrated
and shared leadership should place a high priority on measurement issues because of the centrality of measurement for further
development of shared and integrated leadership research.
The findings are strengthened by the fact that the dependent and independent variables are measured using different data
sources, helping to minimize common source bias. Another thorny methodological issue that arises in this study is simultaneity
bias. Attribution theory of leadership posits that followers make positive attributions of leaders for a variety of reasons, including
when the organization performs well (Awamleh & Gardner, 1999; Lord & Maher, 1991). This raises the specter of a simultaneous
relationship between leadership and performance when using employee attitudes to measure leadership behavior and traits: good
leadership improves performance, but higher levels of performance cause followers to make positive attributions of leaders. We
tried to minimize simultaneity bias by using independent and dependent variables measured at different points in time. That is,
roughly half of the PART results scores were assigned by OMB in 2007, while the data used to measure integrated leadership was
collected by OPM in 2006. Had the data been available to derive all the PART results scores in 2007, we would have concluded more
confidently that the relationship between integrated leadership and PART results was a causal one rather than a mere statistical
correlation. As such, the results should be interpreted with some caution.
Finally, the data sources and the sample of organizations on which the empirical analysis is based suggest that the findings are
generalizable across the federal bureaucracy. Whether or not a leadership style that incorporates the same five roles has a positive
influence on performance in smaller state and local agencies, and what the size of such an effect might be, are empirical questions
that remain to be answered.
Appendix A. 2006 Federal Human Capital Survey items used to construct integrated leadership measure
Source: 2006 Federal Human Capital Survey, U.S. Office of Personnel Management.
Task-oriented leadership role
I1. Managers communicate the goals and priorities of the organization.
I2. I know how my work relates to the agency's goals and priorities.
I3. Managers promote communication among different work units (for example, about projects, goals, and needed resources).
I4. Managers review and evaluate the organization's progress toward meeting its goals and objectives.
I5. Supervisors/team leaders provide employees with constructive suggestions to improve their job performance.
Relations-oriented leadership role
I6. I am given a real opportunity to improve my skills in my organization.
I7. Supervisors/team leaders in my work unit provide employees with the opportunities to demonstrate their leadership skills.
I8. Employees have a feeling of personal empowerment with respect to work processes.
I9. Supervisors/team leaders in my work unit support employee development.
Change-oriented leadership role
I10. I feel encouraged to come up with new and better ways of doing things.
I11. Creativity and innovation are rewarded.
Diversity-oriented leadership role
I12. Supervisors/team leaders in my work unit are committed to a workforce representative of all segments of society.
I13. Managers/supervisors/team leaders work well with employees of different backgrounds.
Integrity-oriented leadership role
I14. My organization's leaders maintain high standards of honesty and integrity.
I15. Prohibited Personnel Practices (for example, illegally discriminating for or against any employee/applicant, obstructing a person's right to compete for
employment, knowingly violating veterans' preference requirements) are not tolerated.
I16. I can disclose a suspected violation of any law, rule or regulation without fear of reprisal.
Response Categories: All survey items have responses ranging either from 1 = Strongly Disagree to 5 = Strongly Agree or 1 = Very Dissatisfied to 5 = Very Satisfied
S. Fernandez et al. / The Leadership Quarterly 21 (2010) 308–323
321
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