This study analyses and reviews the literature on public leadership with a novel combination of bibliometric methods. We detect four generic approaches to public leadership (i.e. a functionalist, a behavioural, a biographical and a reformist approach) which differ with regard to their philosophy of science (i.e. objective vs subjective) and level of analysis (i.e. micro-level vs multi-level). From our findings, we derive four directions for future research which involve shifting the focus from the aspect of 'leadership' to the element of 'public', from simplicity to complexity, from universalism to cultural relativism and from public leadership to public followership.
Purpose
– Although an increasingly complex work environment requires shared forms of leadership in the police, there is little empirical evidence on how to facilitate shared leadership in the police. The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of transformational leaders in supporting shared leadership.
Design/methodology/approach
– The study is based on an online survey in a German state police (3,000 invited participants, a 39 percent response rate). The empirical analysis relies on a structural equation modeling (SEM) approach.
Findings
– The study findings reveal that transformational leaders exert a direct, positive influence on shared leadership and have an indirect, positive influence through their capacity to clarify organizational goals and create job satisfaction for followers.
Originality/value
– This large-scale study is the first to examine antecedents of shared leadership in the police. The results expand on the literature on transformational leadership by highlighting transformational leaders’ role as “SuperLeaders” in supporting shared leadership.
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