Leader Behavior in a Police Command Bureaucracy: A Closer Look at the Quasi-Military Model

John M. Jermier · Leslie J. Berkes

193 citations0/0 files storedAdministrative Science Quarterly

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Job Satisfaction and Organizational Behavior Employee Performance and Management Policing Practices and Perceptions

Abstract

March l1979,volume 24 Relationships among instrumental, supportive, and participative leader behaviors, task variability and task interdependence, and job satisfaction and organizational commitment were examined in a police command bureaucracy. One hundred fifty-eight police officers were surveyed during normal working hours using a short questionnaire. The general pattern of results contradicts conventional wisdom about effective supervisory behavior among police commanders. The quasi-military model (characterized by impersonal, highly directive, authoritarian leadership, and routinized tasks) received little support from any subgrouping analysis using subordinates' job satisfaction and organizational commitment as criteria. Instead, leader participativeness and task variability emerged as the most significant predictors of subordinate outcomes. Expanded hypotheses derived from an important situational leadership theory, House's Path Goal Theory, were also tested. Generally, earlier research was supported, confirming the importance of task demands as determinants of leadership effectiveness. Context was further investigated by contrasting temporallybased task, organizational, and subcultural factors. The implications of this study for understanding the work behavior and social role of urban policemen are discussed.

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References

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