Examining the impacts of public sector leadership on employee behaviors and well-being

Since December 2019, the coronavirus pandemic has caused chaos and challenges in public organizations throughout the globe (O’Flynn, 2020). First, this pandemic has shaken countries and decreased the level of trust between governments and citizens when the accuracy of public health information has become doubtful (Fletcher et al., 2020). Second, there are ongoing changes to work design and decreasing work motivation among public employees that have affected the performance of public organizations. Also, we have seen good, bad, and ugly leadership behaviors in coping with this global health crisis. For instance, many citizens and public servants questioned the ethical behaviors of the former US President when running his second presidency campaign (Lipton et al., 2021). In Australia, the Prime Minister has been criticized for his personal and leadership behaviors during the COVID-19 lockdown (Karp, 2021). Also, UK citizens and public servants have raised concerns about the decision-making and the transparency of government procurement processes during the pandemic (Parker, 2021). By contrast, New Zealand’s Prime Minister took prompt actions, reached out compassionately, and developed effective strategies in responding to the COVID pandemic (Matthews, 2020). These contrary behaviors highlighted the need to reconsideration the role of public leadership during the pandemic to improve public trust and motivate public servants (O’Flynn, 2020). contrary Public organizations have continuously undergone many changes to the nature of work (such as job cuts, new work arrangements, and increased workload) and new ways of public service delivery (Christensen & Lægreid 2011, Hansen & Ferlie, 2016). During this period of ongoing and continuous organizational change, we have observed levels of conflicting values and goal ambiguity which affected the attitudes and behaviors of public servants (Battaglio & Condrey, 2009; Gould- Williams et al., 2014; Steen & Schott, 2019). Public servants have been expected to work more innovatively and effectively in response to the pandemic (Schuster et al., 2020). These challenging and stressful circumstances have required public servants to embrace sweeping and substantial changes to their work (Steen & Schott, 2019). We have seen reports of public servants experiencing more work strain, burnout, demotivation, and sickness during the pandemic (Schuster et al., 2020). Discrimination, mistreatment, or misbehaviors between colleagues have occurred substantially during the outbreaks when employees have worked remotely (Hickok, 2021; Liu, 2020). These contemporary issues have pressurized public leaders to re-think how to embrace effective leadership behaviors in supporting and motivating their subordinates in an ethical manner (O’Flynn, 2020; Schuster et al., 2020). Although previous studies have examined different leadership behaviors in the public administration area (see for a review, Crosby & Bryson, 2018), there remains an opportunity to expand the research on the ways positive employee behaviors safeguard the well-being of public servants (O’Flynn, 2020; Steen & Schott, 2019). This symposium, therefore, focuses on the extent to which leaders from different countries enact their leadership behaviors during the pandemic to resolve the contemporary workplace challenges faced by public organizations to enhance the work and well-being of public servants. This symposium comprises four papers, therein, expand our knowledge of when and how public leaders contribute to positive behaviors and the well-being of public servants in coping with the emerging issues in public administration. The four papers contain diverse contexts to explore the bright and dark sides of leadership, the work environment of public administration, behaviors, and the well-being of the public servants. Specifically, the four papers provide a holistic understanding of the different views of leadership in diverse public sector contexts (including developed and transitional economies). Finally, we contribute to the public and general management literature by extending our knowledge of workplace configurations in motivating employees to work better in the ongoing complex and uncertain environment. We expect this symposium to be effectively exploratory and empirical as per the AOM 2021 call for papers, broadening the literature on management and organizational studies by identifying and incorporating practices and policies that stimulate and sustain positive and healthy workplaces for a better future of work.