The New Public Management has championed a vision of public managers as the entrepreneurs of a new, leaner, and increasingly privatized government, emulating not only the practices but also the values of business. Proponents of the New Public Management have developed their arguments largely through contrasts with the old public administration. In this comparison, the New Public Management will, of course, always win. We argue here that the better contrast is with what we call the “New Public Service,” a movement built on work in democratic citizenship, community and civil society, and organizational humanism and discourse theory. We suggest seven principles of the New Public Service, most notably that the primary role of the public servant is to help citizens articulate and meet their shared interests rather than to attempt to control or steer society.

Th e New Public Service describes a set of norms and practices that emphasize democracy and citizenship as the basis for public administration theory and practice. Th is article revisits some of the core arguments of the New Public Service and examines how they have been practiced and studied over the past 15 years. Th e authors conclude that neither the principles of the New Public Service nor those of the New Public Management have become a dominant paradigm, but the New Public Service, and ideas and practices consistent with its ideals, have become increasingly evident in public administration scholarship and practice.

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Transformational leaders are typically seen as visionaries and catalysts of organizational change. Although organizational change is important, the transformational leadership model is vitally important and relevant to the public sector in ways that are not accounted for in this model. This article builds on and extends existing literature by identifying the key normative elements of a public sector transformational leadership model. Specifically, it focuses on why transformational leadership in the public sector should explicitly address democratic norms and the role of citizens and citizenship in both formulating and realizing shared goals.