Leadership in Public Administration: Which way to go?

Abstract

Whether performance in public administration is improving or not, it is not governments only concern, too much emphasis on performance distracts attention from organizational capacity and underlying government values. Thus caution should be exercised on sources of legitimacy based on authority used during recruitment of personnel. Different systems of authority attract different personnel who will perform or not. This paper discuses three sources of legitimacy for domination based on authority and their limitations: the charismatic authority, traditional authority and legal rationality.