Whilst the concept of ‘leaderism’ might at first glance seem to address some of the challenges of NPM raised here, as O’Reilly and Read (2010) note, it is really an extension and hybridisation of NPM that still operates from the same basic ideologies driven through a neoliberal agenda. Thus in many respects their analysis and labelling of these approaches to management as ‘leaderism’ resonate with Drechsler’s earlier claim that we are merely seeing the imperial bureaucrat recast as the entrepreneurial bureaucrat.
Third, NPM has also shaped the models of corporate governance and accountability introduced into public services. Munro and Mouristen (1996) state that governance should be viewed and understood as a broad concept, one that extends beyond formal structures and as encapsulating notions of how individuals interact and, in so-doing, how they form and reproduce their individual and collective identities. Roberts (1991; 1996; 2001), in exploring leadership and identity formation in relation to governance structures, distinguishes between ‘individualising’ and ‘socialising’ forms of accountability and suggests that the former can be destructive in privileging notions of the self and failing to recognise the interdependent nature of organisational contexts. Roberts clearly articulates the effect that this can have on leader-member relations.
‘Individualizing effects, which are associated with the operation of market mechanisms and formal hierarchical accountability, involve the production and reproduction of a sense of self as singular and solitary with only an external and instrumental relationship to others. In contrast, socializing forms of accountability, associated with face-to-face accountability between people of relatively equal power, constitute a sense of the interdependence of self and other, both instrumental and moral.’ (2001: 1547)
Much UK public sector governance has its ideological roots in agency theory (Ross, 1973; Mitnick, 1973), with a resulting emphasis on principal-agent relationships. This tends to perpetuate further the notion that strong individualistic leadership qualities or traits equates with successful leadership in public service contexts (Roberts, 2001). In contradistinction, Perrow (1986) points to the cooperative potentials of agency whilst Donaldson and Davis (1991), who argue for a stewardship governance model, and Powell’s (1996) discussion of trust offer alternative conceptions of governance as a relational and socialising process.
Individualising trends in public sector governance are manifest, combined with leaderism, in the creation of new roles and bodies within the public services. Thus, the UK has newly created elected commissioners of police forces or school and hospital boards released from what advocates of NPM see as the shackles and burdens of local authority accountability.
In sum, NPM promotes and encourages approaches to management and leadership that reinforce individualism and self-interest as key characteristics of successful managers. Bach and Bordogna note that the result is ‘an assumption that all individuals are self-interested and seek to maximise their own utility’ (2014: 2282). Despite attempts to temper this through approaches such as ‘leaderism’, the dominant neoliberal ideology that underpins NPM still perpetuates the context in which the three main criticisms considered above continue to flourish and thus ultimately lead to a de-democratisation of local governance, management and leadership.