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This article explores how leadership practices have the potential to improve decisions and outcomes in social work. Through a literature review, the article identifies social work managers' use of adaptive, administrative and enabling leadership functions and how such functions can aid social workers' performance. The findings indicate that enabling leadership practices are the most prevalent in aiding social workers' performance. In addition, an increasing amount of administrative practices may limit managers' ability to balance the three leadership functions properly, reducing the positive effect of leadership on outcomes. The article concludes with identifying key knowledge gaps to be considered for future research on leadership in social work.

Interviews with 41 employees and managers in the Norwegian public welfare services identify characteristics and behaviors experienced as leadership. The study identifies how management behaviors such as deciding, controlling, and structuring the work create arenas for leadership and how these arenas vary with the standardization of work tasks. The findings connect employees leadership experiences to their need for management, and thus challenge the assumption that management tasks are a hindrance to leadership in the public welfare sector.

Despite comprehensive theoretical discussions on the nuances of autonomy, research tends to treat autonomy as a unidimensional concept. In contrast, this study of Norwegian welfare professionals presents empirical support for the multidimensional nature of autonomy, drawing on cross-sectional survey data from three datasets spanning six years. The findings show significant differences between welfare professionals' experiences of professional and personal autonomy. An analysis of the relationship between professionals' experience of performance demands and these two types of autonomy challenges the notion that increasing performance demands limits professional autonomy.