Effective local government council leadership: reassessing the facilitative model of leadership

Abstract

PurposeThis paper utilizes Svara's facilitative leadership model to examine local government council/board effectiveness in Michigan, United States.Design/methodology/approachThis study performs a binary logistic regression to assess the influence of four independent variables–consensus building, cooperative relationship, clarity of responsibility and existence of factions/partisanship on five measures of council/board effectiveness (long-term goal setting, administrative, financial, addressing citizen expectations and overall performance), while controlling for other variables.FindingsOverall, the findings of this study have serious theoretical and practical implications. Specifically, the findings revealed that cooperative relationships, clarity of responsibility, discussion of public issues and partnership influence council/board effectiveness. The findings further support Svara's (2003) model on facilitative leadership and the model's usefulness in understanding local government leadership, i.e. council/board leadership effectiveness.Research limitations/implicationsFirst, survey data contains desirability bias which can affect the results presented in this study. Second, the data does not include socio-demographic variables of the respondents.Originality/valueThe study is original because it utilizes a data set that is not commonly used in understanding local government council/board effectiveness. Furthermore, the study also shows the usefulness of Svara's facilitative leadership in local government.