Leadership and motivation: a qualitative study of transformational leadership and public service motivation

Abstract

Transformational leaders work to clarify a vision, share it with their employees and sustain it in the long run, and this is expected to result in increased employee public service motivation (PSM), that is, orientation towards doing good for others and society. Based on 48 in-depth interviews with 16 childcare leaders and 32 of their employees combined with 16 days of observation in these childcare centers, this article investigates the association between transformational leadership and PSM. When the leaders clarify, share and maintain an organizational vision, their employee are more motivated to do good for society and other, and this motivation tends to be less paternalistic and slightly more society oriented. This implies that it is relevant to ask not only whether transformational leadership increases PSM, but also how it affects the type of PSM.

Public Service Motivation Research: Lessons for Practice

“…Another mechanism through which transformational leadership works involves sharing the organization's vision (Andersen et al ). In a small‐scale qualitative study, Andersen et al () concluded that employees should not only understand the organization's vision but also experience that the vision is shared and maintained across the organization and that their jobs contribute to society.…”

Harnessing Sustainable Motivation: A Grounded Theory Exploration of Public Service Motivation in Local Governments of the State of Oregon, United States

“…One of the criticisms is that the PSM theory and measurement tool gives us little information about what motivates public sector employees and what actually causes motivation to ebb and flow in the careers of public sector employees [21]. Although few studies use unconventional research designs, such as experimental design by Bellé [17], longitudinal data by Vogel and Kroll [32], and a qualitative study by Andersen et al [77], a large amount of PSM scholarship is based on quantitative survey research design (p. 712) [23]. The survey research design, although widely used in various situations, is not good at drawing out more nuanced insights than other alternative ways of exploration which may be more suitable.…”

Does Perceived Societal Impact Moderate the Effect of Transformational Leadership on Value Congruence? Evidence from a Field Experiment

“…However, it is not immediately clear that the broader social contributions of the same activities are equally vivid. Hence, even in the context of public service, perceptions of the societal impact of one's job can vary (Andersen et al ). This is important for the relationship between transformational leadership and value congruence because employees will only be able to identify with important aspects of the vision if they can establish a credible link between the vision and the contribution of their own job.…”

“…Yet it is not immediately clear that employees working at the front lines clearly see how their work activities impact society at large. For instance, preschool teachers are certainly very attentive to the needs and well‐being of the children (Andersen et al ), but it is less obvious that the societal contributions of their work activities are equally vivid. Perceived societal impact refers to individuals' belief that they can contribute to the welfare of other people and society at large through their job (Bellé ).…”