Leadership and resilience in Romanian public administration from county level
Leadership and resilience in Romanian public administration from county level

Summary/Abstract: The present paper presents the results of a pilot study conducted in one county council from Romania (Neamț County Council) aiming to explore the civil servants’ perception of the leadership styles practiced by the top executives (Directors/General Directors/Deputy Executive Directors/Executive Directors), as well as about their capacityof building employees’ resilience. The research methodology consists of an opinion survey that was conducted using a questionnaire designed by the author. The research startedfrom the theories of Burns (1978), Bass and Avolio (1985) about Transformational, Transactional, and Laissez-Faire leadership styles. The main objective is to investigate the potential relationship between leadership and civil servants’ resilience, considering a series of factors that could negatively influence civil servants' careers. The respondentswere asked to express their opinion regarding the attitudes and behaviors of the studied leaders in 40 situations, aiming to observe which are the most exhibited leadership behaviors. Leaders’ capacity to build civil servants' resilience was measured from four perspectives: leaders' attitudes towards personal problems, leaders' attitudes towards professional issues, leaders' attitudes concerning financial issues affecting the institution, and the attitudes concerning management changes.The research revealed that the studied leaders exhibited mostly transformational behaviors, but also transactional characteristics, to a high extent. The results also showed that the top executives had a high capacity of building employees’ resilience being perceived as supportive and understanding leaders, who helped their subordinates to overpass the problematic moments from their careers. The research will be further continued in all Romanian County Councils with the purpose of studying civil servants’ resilience as an impact factor for public institutions' resilience.

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