Leadership can clarify, prioritize and motivate employees to work towards achieving the organizational goals. Nevertheless, the task of leadership can often be challenging. Leader credibility is challenged by the fact that leaders work under the pressure of competing demands. On one hand, they must be loyal to their superiors, and on the other, they need to honour the agreements they make with their employees. For public leaders specifically, these competing demands are enhanced by the fact that they operate in a politically led hierarchy with numerous stakeholders as well as inconsistent and potentially incompatible demands for public service delivery. At the same time, employees often have strong values and professional norms. We know that credibility is perceived by both leaders and their employees as one of the most essential characteristics of a good leader. But how does a leader’s credibility affect their chances of successfully fulfilling their managerial responsibilities? This we currently know little about.
The main aim of the project is to obtain knowledge on the impact of leader credibility for leadership in public organisations.
On a theoretical level, the project contributes by defining and conceptualising the concept of leader credibility as well as theorising the mechanisms through which credibility may influence the success of leadership. The project draws on insights from existing research in leadership, institutions, and psychology.
The project employs a research design combining survey experiments and longitudinal studies of public organisations across sectors and countries. In summary, some of the central research questions of the project are:
The project was conducted by PhD student Mads Pieter van Luttervelt, who can be contacted at mpl@ps.au.dk. Professor Lotte Bøgh Andersen was main supervisor, and Professor Simon Calmar Andersen was co-supervisor.
