Effective local government council leadership: reassessing the facilitative model of leadership

What is it about?

In 2003, James Svara identified three key features of facilitative leadership and examined these features in the local government setting, specifically city-managers. The three key features were: the kind of attitude towards each other, interaction foster, and approach to goal setting. However, after this seminal work by Svara, only few studies have attempted to replicate or utilize the model he created. This paper attempts to utilize Svara’s facilitative leadership model to examine local government council effectiveness in Michigan. To achieve the aim of this study the 2018 Michigan Public Policy Survey (MPPS) was analyzed. Overall, this study observed that consensus building, cooperative relationships and clarity of responsibility were stronger predictors of council’s effectiveness compared to factions or partisanship. This study is an exploratory one and sets the foundation for future studies about local government councils from a facilitative leadership perspective.

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