Exploring the link between integrated leadership-in-government and follower happiness: the case of Dubai

Abstract

This study develops a concept of integrated leadership-in-government as a global and multifaceted construct for the first time in the Dubai and wider Gulf context. Leadership-ingovernment combines eight public leadership roles articulated in recent literature, as performed by managers at all levels within the government hierarchy. The eight public leadership roles are: accountability, rule-following, political loyalty, network governance, task-orientated, relations-orientated, change-orientated and diversity-orientated leadership. Data is gathered via a survey of over 900 employees in Dubai government organisations. Findings from the empirical analysis suggest that a manager's performance of integrated leadership-in-government has a significant effect on the employee happiness, as measured through job satisfaction and self-perceived performance. Points for practitioners Leadership in government involves an integrated set of roles specific to the context of governmentmaking it different to leadership in other contexts. As perceived by employees, leadership within government organisations in Dubai is however similar to leadership within government organisations in Western democracies. Employees report that leadership in government has a positive effect on their happiness, in terms of their job satisfaction and selfperceived performance.

Developing a short scale to assess public leadership

“…As outlined above, the use of different versions of a scale without tested validity and reliability might impede scholarly progress. To the best of our knowledge, applications of the full scale are still rare (Mathias et al 2019; Schwarz and Eva 2019), which might be due to the following reasons: on the one hand, leadership scholars might follow Ospina (2017) and prefer generic leadership constructs, because such constructs allow for a broader engagement with the field of general leadership studies, including comparisons between leadership in the public sector and other fields. On the other hand, and in more practical terms, the full scale might simply be too long to comply with the needs of empirical research in the public sector.…”