Deviating from the course: How presentational strategies and leadership investments affect leader credibility and collaborative engagement

Abstract

When changing course, public managers often risk losing credibility in the eyes of their employees. A key question, therefore, is how a manager’s presentational strategy regarding a change in initiatives influences employees’ judgments of the manager’s credibility, especially when substantial investments were made in the prior initiative. We develop a typology of presentational strategies to probe how public managers can navigate such situations. In a preregistered and scenario-based survey experiment, we expose 499 occupational therapists employed in Danish municipalities to video-vignettes that manipulate a manager’s presentational strategy and investment in a leadership initiative. Taking responsibility for the decision increases loss of credibility and engagement compared to the control group. Blaming politicians retains credibility and engagement in cases of low initial commitment but less so for high commitment. These findings show that the way in which decisions are presented matters for credibility and engagement when managers change leadership initiatives.