Features of Leadership in the Public Sector

The following paper is dedicated to understanding and describing differences between public and commercial organizations in different aspects of leadership. The paper consists of 2 parts: theoretical description of approaches to leadership definitions and leadership styles. The second half of the paper is an empirical study conducted among 37 managers from both public and commercial organizations. The relevance of the presented study is determined by low level of comparative empirical studies focusing on leadership in both public and commercial organizations. Whilst huge body of work focuses on studying leadership in commercial and public firms, little knowledge base is available on the same topics for public organizations. Moreover, comparative studies are less common. Methods proposed in the study account not just for the leadership styles, but consequences of leadership and relationships with subordinates as well. This approach was motivated by the fact that whilst no common approach to “leadership” definition exists, most of the scholars put emphasis on leader’s ability to work with other people and the achievement of organizational goals. The results of the following paper allow to conclude that a statistically significant difference exists between leadership styles of managers from public and private sectors. The author further debates that these differences are a result of different organizational environments and recruiting approaches in both sectors.