Supervisory Leadership at the Frontlines: Street-Level Discretion, Supervisor Influence, and Street-Level Bureaucrats’ Attitude Towards Clients

Abstract

Steering street-level bureaucrats is utterly complex due to their discretion and professional status which grant them relative autonomy from supervisory directives. Drawing from transformational leadership theory, this article explores the opportunities these work conditions provide for supervisory leadership at the frontlines. Looking at street-level bureaucrats’ attitude towards clients, we analyze how the frontline supervisor affects this core perception that protrudes the human judgments street-level bureaucrats are required to pass in their use of their discretion. Using a survey dataset of 971 street-level bureaucrats and their 203 frontline supervisors, this study shows that frontline supervisors function as an attitudinal role model to street-level bureaucrats. Moreover, their supportive leadership behaviors are crucial to them upholding a positive attitude towards clients. Supportive leadership does not unequivocally strengthen the supervisor’s position as an attitudinal referent, though. These findings challenge pessimistic assessments of the potential for supervisory leadership at the frontlines. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Street-Level Bureaucrats’ Attitude toward Clients: A Study of Work Group Influence in the Dutch and Belgian Tax Administration

“…A holographic nature, however, does not imply that institutional forces are exempt from affecting street-level attitudes. For instance, Keulemans and Groeneveld (2019) found that frontline supervisors function as attitudinal role models to street-level tax bureaucrats. Consequently, a holographic nature does not direct attention away from institutional explanations of street-level attitudes.…”

“…Street-level bureaucrats exercise wide discretion that opens up avenues for their personal preferences to protrude their work (e.g., Keulemans & Groeneveld, 2019;Lipsky, 2010;Maynard-Moody & Musheno, 2003;Zacka, 2017). Their attitude toward clients is a critical personal disposition that facilitates client-processing requirements and serves as a coping response to the strenuous job demands street-level bureaucrats face (Baviskar & Winter, 2017;Kallio, Blomberg, & Kroll, 2013;Lipsky, 2010).…”

“…Bureaucrats' gender and education have been linked to street-level bureaucrats' client-attitude and outcomes of organizational socialization (e.g., Kallio et al, 2013;Keulemans & Groeneveld, 2019;Oberfield, 2019). Level of education was inquired by having respondents indicate their highest completed level of education, which was recoded into low to mid-high education and high education due to a small portion of low educated street-level bureaucrats in the samples (14 and 0%, respectively).…”

“…Building on a sample of Dutch and Belgian street-level tax administrators, this study examines how the work group affects a core attitude that informs street-level bureaucrats' judgments and subsequent actions: their attitude toward clients (Baviskar & Winter, 2017;Keulemans & Groeneveld, 2019;Keulemans & Van de Walle, 2018;Lipsky, 2010;Oberfield, 2014). Drawing from theories on work group socialization, we explore the association between the client-attitudes held by one's work group colleagues and the individual bureaucrat.…”

Leading frontline enforcers: how supervisors’ leadership style impacts inspectors’ enforcement style

“…Empirical studies have shown several situational and organizational characteristics that influence enforcement style of street-level bureaucrats like the disclosure of performance information (De Boer, Eshuis, and Klijn 2018), social pressures (Lo et al, 2009) the influence of peers (Maynard-Moody 2003;Raaphorst 2018) and hierarchical forms of control (Loyens 2013). There is, however, little research addressing how leadership style of their direct supervisor influence enforcement style (see Keulemans and Groeneveld 2019;Gassner and Gofen 2018 for notable exceptions). This is surprising because supervisors are important in the work of inspectors because they hold inspectors to account (Thomann, Hupe, and Sager 2017) and are tasked with steering the daily work of inspectors (Loyens 2013).…”