Purpose This paper examines how community leadership is exercised, legitimised and renewed in FELDA Selasih, a Federal Land Development Authority (FELDA) settler scheme in Peninsular Malaysia. It asks three questions: (1) How do grassroots leaders in a state-built settlement construct legitimacy in the absence of strong formal authority? (2) How do women leaders negotiate gendered expectations of public leadership? and (3) How do leaders respond to the disengagement of second-generation settlers from community institutions? Design/methodology/approach The study adopts a qualitative single-case design based on two group interviews conducted in January 2025 with the leadership of three community organisations: Gerakan Persatuan Wanita (GPW, the women’s movement), Jawatankuasa Kemajuan dan Keselamatan Rancangan (JKKR, the scheme development and safety committee) and Majlis Belia FELDA Malaysia (MBFM, the FELDA youth council). Transcripts were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. Findings Four themes are developed: (1) legitimacy work: leadership authority is earned relationally through trust-building rather than conferred by office; (2) gendered leadership: women leaders face a double bind of authority and acceptability that they manage through patience, courage and socially-embedded assertiveness; (3) generational renewal: leaders re-engage youth through selective incentives and economic opportunity rather than appeals to obligation; and (4) a thin resource ecology that is compensated through inter-organisational collaboration and mutual-aid institutions. Across these themes, the analysis identifies a permanent mobilisation problem: community leadership must repeatedly secure attention, participation and resources for collective and adaptive work. Originality/value The paper extends public leadership scholarship beyond public office into the under-researched setting of state-sponsored land-settlement communities. It offers one of the first leadership-focused accounts of FELDA’s community organisations.
Purpose This study aims to examine how organizational constraints and systemic contradictions shape the enactment of leadership competencies in public sector organizations. Drawing primarily on contradiction theory and complemented by systems theory and competency-based leadership perspectives, it reconceptualizes leadership development as a dynamic, context-embedded and tension-driven process in which competencies are selectively activated, reshaped and reconfigured rather than linearly applied. Design/methodology/approach This study adopts a qualitative evidence synthesis (QES) of 208 secondary sources (2000–2025), using Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses-adapted selection procedures. Data were analyzed through interpretive thematic synthesis guided by contradiction theory and an E1–E6 framework. Open, axial and selective coding were applied. Quantitative findings were used only descriptively, without statistical re-analysis. Findings The synthesis indicates that while leadership development programs emphasize competencies such as innovation, strategic thinking and problem-solving, their enactment is systematically conditioned by bureaucratic, hierarchical and regulatory constraints. Rather than merely restricting leadership behavior, these constraints structure how competencies are interpreted and enacted in practice. Leaders respond through adaptive strategies, including incremental innovation and coalition-building, which enable performance stabilization within persistent systemic contradictions. Apparent weak quantitative relationships are interpreted as evidence of contextual and relational leadership dynamics rather than methodological failure. Practical implications Leadership development should extend beyond competency acquisition to strengthen leaders’ capacity to interpret and navigate systemic contradictions through adaptive judgment in constrained governance environments Originality/value This study advances leadership theory by demonstrating that contradictions function as both structural and interpretive mechanisms shaping leadership enactment, reframing effectiveness as an emergent, context-conditioned outcome rather than a direct output of competencies.
Purpose The study aims to explore how women leaders navigate, adapt to and challenge institutional constraints to promote inclusion in policymaking processes, guided by Feminist Institutionalism and informed by African-centred institutional perspectives. Design/methodology/approach Using a qualitative grounded theory and narrative inquiry approach, the study draws on in-depth interviews with 18 women leaders from public institutions across four Nigerian regions. Findings Three key themes emerged: gendered rules and institutional culture, women's strategies and adaptation in leadership and shifts toward inclusive policymaking. The study introduces the idea of “quiet institutional change” as a slow, quiet transformation driven by women's everyday actions rather than loud policy reforms. Women influence policymaking not through confrontation, but by building relationships, mentoring others and reframing discussions about inclusion. Over time, these small but steady acts begin to shift gendered norms and decision-making spaces. Originality/value This study contributes originality by integrating Feminist Institutionalism with African institutional theory to explain women's leadership in Nigeria's dual governance system. It introduces the quiet institutional change framework, showing how change occurs through relational, everyday practices rather than formal reforms alone. By incorporating Ekeh's “two publics” and Ubuntu leadership, it advances theory through relational institutional agency, highlighting culturally grounded ways women reshape institutions.
Purpose This study explores how artificial intelligence (AI) enhances leadership effectiveness in Ghana's public sector. It examines public sector leaders' knowledge of AI, the key areas where AI is currently applied in public sector leadership practices, the challenges faced in its adoption, and strategies to improve its use to enhance leadership effectiveness. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative research design was employed, utilizing purposive sampling to select 14 public sector leaders from seven ministries in Ghana. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and analyzed using thematic analysis. Findings The findings reveal that while public leaders possess basic knowledge of AI, there are significant gaps in their technical expertise. AI is primarily applied in communication, decision-making, policy formulation, and public service delivery. However, challenges such as limited knowledge, resistance to change, data privacy, and concerns about ethical issues hinder effective adoption of AI. Leaders expressed a need for structured training, governance frameworks, and better collaboration with AI experts to improve leadership effectiveness. Research limitations/implications The study highlights the potential of AI to improve leadership effectiveness in the public sector. It stresses the need for better training, fostering innovation, and promoting collaboration to enhance AI adoption and its benefits in leadership. Originality/value This research contributes to the emerging literature on AI within public sectors, offering unique insights into the barriers and opportunities for AI integration in leadership effectiveness within public administration, particularly in developing countries like Ghana.
Purpose Women constitute half of the world's working-age population and forty per cent of the global workforce. However, this has not coincided well with their leadership positions in society, particularly in the public domain. They continue to be underrepresented and often become subject to discrimination and stereotypes when performing public roles. Following an intersectional perspective, this study seeks to understand the impacts of gender and class on female leadership, an understudied area, and the different strategies adopted by these leaders to overcome those challenges. Design/methodology/approach To gain deeper insights into the phenomena and understand the subjective experiences of women leaders, phenomenology was applied as a strategy of inquiry. Information was gathered from a total of 21 members based on snowball sampling. To understand the positionality, subjectivity, and the experiences of women leaders, in-depth interviews were conducted for 2 h with each DDC member. The questions were asked about the socio-political background of respondents, gender norms and expectations, economic constraints, and institutional and structural barriers. The interviews were noted on the transcripts and later translated into English by the researcher. This was followed by a phenomenological reflection on the data to grasp the essence of the experiences of respondents. After this, significant statements were located, and meaning units and core themes were developed to describe what the informants had experienced in these contexts. Findings The study highlights various structural and cultural challenges that influenced their roles and decision-making processes. The gender norms and expectations, the low socio-economic background, and the security concerns unleashed several practical difficulties, cultural stereotypes, and regressive discourses that impacted the daily experiences of women leaders. The analysis also showed that women representatives have resorted to multiple ways to negotiate their public role. In particular, the roles of senior party colleagues, women's clubs, soft politics, and community ties and networks have been instrumental in facilitating their role performance. Research limitations/implications The study focused on women from lower socioeconomic classes and did not address other categories of women, such as those with political experience from middle-class or upper-class backgrounds. Future research could provide a more comprehensive and comparative understanding of female leaders by considering these differences. Practical implications Given the prevalence of gendered norms and practices in local politics, orientation programs can be implemented to educate local leaders on developing an unbiased and welcoming attitude toward women. Additionally, to create a more comfortable and secure environment for these leaders, women security guards should be integrated into the system to ensure their safety. Strengthening local government through the establishment of a full three-tier panchayati raj system can be critical in promoting inclusive representation and participation. For this to happen, the local panchayati bodies should be duly empowered with financial and executive authority, and elections should be held regularly to ensure their continued operation. Originality/value The originality of this research lies in providing new empirical insights into the role and identity of women's leadership in the public domain. By advancing a critical analysis of various "vectors of oppressions", gender, class, and conflict that influence female leadership, it contributes to the public leadership scholarship informed by an intersectional perspective. Moreover, it remains attuned to the complexity of leadership phenomena by emphasizing structural, cultural, and personal dimensions that shape women's leadership.
