Styles of Local Political Leadership in Poland Revisited: Mayors from a 15-Year Perspective

Increasingly, various researchers and institutions acknowledge that local leadership can be a key determinant in the place-based development. The importance is also given to how this leadership is being expressed. In the time of local governance, where power is becoming diffused and financially narrowed, leaders feel pressure to rule in cooperation with other actors. This is not without significance for the leadership styles they represent in exercising power. In our paper we refer to Peter John classification, in which he distinguishes among visionary, city-boss, caretaker and consensus facilitator styles of local political leadership. As we know from results of the PLUS international research project (2002-2004), in 2003, Polish cities belonged to the group of cities that most accepted the visionary style among all European cities. In our paper we try to track whether the leadership styles of Polish local mayors as perceived by the local community have changed since 2003, in the face of different conditions of the functioning of the authorities. We also trace a gap between perceived and preferred styles of leadership in 2003 and 2018. The 2018 empirical data collection has been arranged within a frame of the COSHMO research project (Horizon 2020). In both 2003 and 2018 study we rely on very similar methodology, which makes possible to compare the results. The study shows a shift in the preferences of the local community towards participation in the management and implementation of local policies between 2003 and 2018. Importantly, local authorities seem to keep up with the change of this preference with only a slight delay. Today, support for a style based on broad consultations far outweighs this support in 2003. Acceptance for the mobilization of external resources has also increased. Nowadays, Polish mayors are more cooperative and show a more conciliatory style of local leadership and the gap between preferred and perceived styles of leadership seem to have narrowed down during the last dozen years or so. Results of the PLUS project suggest that the convergence of perceived and preferred styles of leadership may contribute to the success of local policy-making.