What Councillors Expect of Facilitative Mayors: The Desired Leadership Competencies in Job Advertisements for the Dutch Mayoralty and How They Are Affected by Municipal Size

Abstract

Job vacancy texts for the Dutch mayoralty provide original evidence about what councillors expect of facilitative mayors. In this article, we conduct an automated content analysis of 231 advertisements and use focus groups to interpret our results. We find that the desired qualities of mayoral candidates include showing morally appropriate behaviour, acting as a liaison within local government and beyond, as well as vigour, empathy, and communicative skill. Further, we find that municipal size does affect the desirability of leadership competencies, but also that its impact is limited. This finding suggests that desired local leadership qualities may be less context-dependent than previously assumed.

Pour une formation des élus municipaux en matière d’environnement : observations et repères

“…Enfin, la formation des mairesses et des maires exige une attention particulière : les compétences requises diffèrent de celles des conseillères et conseillers (Karsten, 2019). Entre autres, comme l'ont montré Mévellec et Tremblay (2016), ils n'ont certainement pas les mêmes motivations, notamment si l'on aborde la formation au regard des questions d'identité et de genre (p. 66).…”

‘Moral Person’ or ‘Ethical Leader’? A Longitudinal Quantitative Analysis of Councilors’ Integrity Requirements for Dutch Mayors (2008–2019)

“…Both aspects of ethical leadership can be expected to be of great importance to the Dutch mayoralty since mayors are strongly expected to behave with integrity and also find "being a moral person" of utmost relevance to being an officeholder themselves. In addition, mayors are confronted with strong moral manager expectations, not only by the law (Cohen, 2018;Karsten, 2019aKarsten, , 2019b.…”

“…At the start of the selection procedure, the council collectively writes a text that describes the "job requirements to be met by the person to be appointed as mayor" (Section 61, paragraph 2 Municipalities Act). These job descriptions have the same function as a job vacancy text in other professions but also play a formal role in the evaluation of the performance of mayors once they are in office (Karsten, 2019b). This is why they are a valuable source of information about the integrity requirements placed on Dutch mayors.…”

“…It is punishable by law to divulge any information about the specifics of the selection process. This inaccessibility of further information is all the more reason why descriptions are a valuable source when analyzing the mayoralty because they offer a unique insight into what, if anything, is expected from officeholders in terms of ethical leadership (Den Hartog, Caley, & Dewe, 2007;Karsten, 2019aKarsten, , 2019b. And, research into vacancy texts has become an established research strategy in this field (Bee & Hie, 2015;Harper, 2012;Jørgensen & Rutgers, 2014;Tan & Laswad, 2018).…”

Not Biting the Hand That Feeds You: How Perverted Accountability Affects the Ethical Leadership of Dutch Mayors

“…In practice, after having publicly announced a vacancy, a council will nominate a favored candidate for formal approval by the Minister of the Interior (Karsten, 2019). Hence, in practice, the municipal council has the deciding vote in the selection of a new mayor.…”