Individualization and public sector leadership

Abstract

This is a conceptual paper whose aim is to relate the development of ‘individualization’ (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 2002) to organizational leadership. It does this by examining individualization alongside the implicit assumption on which orthodox approaches to leadership are founded, namely that leadership is an individualized phenomenon. Despite the expanding literature on these topics, particularly that on leadership, these concepts have not been examined in relation to one another. This paper seeks to do this in two ways. Firstly, it highlights the increased attention given to leadership in the UK public sector, locating leadership as a continuation of public sector managerialism. Secondly, it discusses the development of the trend of individualization more broadly. The paper’s main discussion focuses on leadership as an individual activity and of the consequences of that approach. In particular, it argues that individualized leadership presents a restrictive perspective which does not allow for exploration of a broader range of leadership approaches, particularly that of distributed leadership, which have especial relevance for public sector organizations.