Distributed leadership and policy success: Understanding political dyads, 2014

Annual scientific meeting of the International Society of Political Psychology (ISPP), Rome, July 4-7, 2014

Distributed leadership and policy success:

Understanding political dyads

Paul ‘t Hart (Utrecht University and Netherlands School of Public Administration) and James Walter (Monash University)

© The Authors1

Abstract Recent research in business and management fields has revealed that shared leadership—and especially the pairing of complementary skill sets in a leadership dyad—is a key characteristic of many successful enterprises. Work in political psychology on the nexus between presidents and key advisers (e.g. George and George, 1956) has also indicated such patterns. Yet the popular impression conveyed by the contemporary personalization of politics encourages a leader-centric emphasis. We need to look afresh at the psychological and group dynamics that prevail where the successful interdependence of a leadership pair within a more general constellation of distributed leadership leads to policy (and indeed political) success. This paper adopts a comparative case study approach to comparing a successful leadership dyad with one that was notoriously dysfunctional: Australian prime-minister Bob Hawke and treasurer Paul Keating (1983-1990); and Kevin Rudd, prime-minister (2007-2010 and briefly 2013) and his deputy and successor Julia Gillard (2010-2013). Based on the case analysis we indicate a road map for more sustained research on distributed leadership in government.

Introduction This paper probes a little trodden path in the study of political leadership, one that explores the role

of distributed leadership. Research on organisations suggests that in multi-member ‘leadership

configurations’ (Gronn, 2009) that are well-aligned, critical leadership functions for and within the

organisation are performed effectively, laying a robust foundation for organisational success. The

core argument is that when key office-holders with overlapping interests and complementary skills

develop mutual trust and closely coordinate their actions, they can form a ‘tandem’ that is stronger,

more effective and more resilient in exercising leadership than each of them could achieve on their

own. We explore the applicability of this finding to the world of government. Take, for example, the

leadership challenges of delivering major policy reform. Decades of policy research and politicians’

memoirs alike have made it abundantly clear that overcoming the many barriers to reform is a

daunting task. Although it may be possible to “smuggle in” reform through a series of cumulative

incremental policy adjustments (Lindblom, 1979; Thelen and Mahoney, 2009; cf Rose and Davies,

1 Not for quotation without reference to the authors: contact [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

2 ‘t Hart & Walter, Distributed Leadership and Policy Success

1994), this is a time-consuming, easily reversible and potentially drifting process (Patashnik, 2008;

Lindquist et al., 2011). Delivering radical yet robust reform requires a compelling articulation of the

need for it, a vision of an alternative future and a set of policy ideas to bring it about, a political

majority favoring its adoption, and stewardship of implementation designed to institutionalise the

changes made (Moon, 1995; Goldfinch and ‘t Hart 2003; ‘t Hart, 2011). It requires the detection and

embracing of novel policy ideas, the skills to ‘sell’ them to diverse audiences, and the wielding of

power to see them enacted. During a term of office, a single leader going at it alone more often than

not lacks the wherewithal to perform such reform work. But a team of leaders with shared goals and

complementary skills, styles and power bases might accomplish a great deal more.

What we call a political dyad is the smallest possible unit: a tandem of leaders who choose to

align their goals and tactics to achieve momentum for a range of reforms across portfolios. To

believe that a dyad can accomplish significantly more leadership work than an individual office-

holder can is no flight of fancy. Think of Nixon and Kissinger and the US opening to China (Dallek,

2007), Helmut Kohl and Hans-Dietrich Genscher and German reunification (Heumann 2012), or

David Lange and Roger Douglas and the transformation of the New Zealand economy (Goldfinch,

1998). Also, there is strong evidence from social psychology that skilful, creative and persistent

minorities can wield disproportionate and enduring influence in small to medium-sized groups

(Nemeth, 2009). In the corporate governance literature there is much research on the crucial axis

between CEO and board chair, and more generally on leadership being exercised not just by the CEO

but being a function of the roles and relations within the senior executive team, which the CEO can

partly but rarely wholly shape in their own image (Alvarez and Svejenova, 2005). And the nexus

between political office-holders and senior public servants is now also beginning to be studied in

terms of leadership dyads (Hartley and Manzie, 2014).

Drawing inspirations from these fields, we surmise that effective political dyads in the core

executive are a necessary condition for governments to achieve a successful record of reform. For

the purposes of this study we define a political dyad as a leadership couple (see Gronn, 1999): two

individuals in a collegiate body (a party executive, a cabinet, a city council, an executive committee,

a management team) who enjoy levels of authority that clearly exceed those of other members of that

body and whose collaborative relationship is seen as pivotal both by themselves, their colleagues and

outside observers to the group’s policy direction and political momentum.

We will illustrate the plausibility of the hypothesis in exploring two Australian cases: the

first, the successful Australian Labor Party reform governments of the 1980s and early 1990s led by

Bob Hawke and Paul Keating; the second, the tumultous, controversial and ultimately self-

destructive Labor governments of 2007 – 2013, led by Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard. We shall


highlight the interpersonal, group and political dynamics that fostered success in the first case, and

the political self-destruction of the government in the second. We conclude by suggesting directions

for research on the political psychology of leadership tandems.

Transformation achieved: the Hawke-Keating dyad The measure of the achievement of the Hawke government (1983-1991) in reforming the Australian

economy is widely acknowledged, as is the crucial role played by the two men at its heart: Prime

Minister Bob Hawke and Treasurer Paul Keating. Scores of books and countless articles have been

devoted to the deregulation and economic liberalization they set in train (e.g., Kelly, 1992; Kelly,

2009; Love, 2008; Megalogenis, 2012). It is recognised as an extraordinarily successful instance of

the capacity of gifted political actors to seize on a ‘critical juncture’ (Kingdon 1984), when existing

policy settings had lost both effectiveness and legitimacy, to create political and public support for

transformational change. How did they do it? What were the capacities that enabled them to shrug

off the shackles of entrenched ways of thinking and party tradition to grasp the ideas of the moment,

and to adapt them productively to Australian circumstances?

First, they capitalised on a discourse then emerging internationally that was already

vigorously debated (and contested) within in the major parties. But until the advent of the Hawke

government, these ideas did not cut through; they seized upon them, and forged a common agenda

that was central to their partnership. Second, they both understood the need to work in partnership,

and not just with one another. Each developed effective policy networks with their public service

officials and personal advisers, and Hawke delegated to his ministers, instituting a practice of

distributed leadership. And third, so long as their partnership was effective Hawke and Keating

spoke with a single voice, which ensured that their authority was unquestioned. For eight years at

least, they were invincible, as a senior Keating adviser observed,

… people tend to forget that Hawke and Keating were like that [gestures two fingers

together] all the way through. They agreed on everything except one thing [leadership] until

the end … I can remember only one time when Keating disagreed with Hawke. If there was a

discussion in ERC [the Expenditure Review Committee of Cabinet, auth.] or in the cabinet

and Hawke was having trouble with the colleagues, Keating would always step in and back

him up … and Hawke always supported his treasurer except on … [the proposal for a Goods

and Services Tax] … They dominated caucus. They dominated the factions. The party

machine: they dominated that. It was, the two of them turned the country upside down and

that was because … you know … you couldn't go around them. (Author interview)

These characteristics—vision/common purpose, articulation with policy networks within a

broader leadership configuration yet with unquestioned authority and unity of voice—have all been

identified as features of effective policy dyads (Alvarez et al. 2007; Gronn 2009). Yet the crucial

precondition for their successful exploitation is functional complementarity (Alvarez et al. 2007, p.


12) in the capacities of the partners: Hawke and Keating manifested distinctive but highly

compatible skill sets. Such complementarity ensures role differentiation and ‘clarity among the

ranks’ (Alvarez et al. 2007, p. 13) about the relations between (and how to relate to) the co-leaders.

Rather than bifurcation, however, the impression conveyed is of a ‘pairing’ relationship—in which

each can achieve more fruitfully than either alone—that research has found encourages the

perception of creativity, and stimulates real creativity, in the broader group (Bion 1961: 151-52).

Hawke delivered public popularity, political authority and good government. His career as

the leader of the extra-parliamentary labour movement had taught him the value of (and his skill in)

negotiation to reach solutions with which competing interests could agree. The achievement of

compromises, where each interest gained some (but not all) of its demands, was Hawke’s specialty.

He came to the prime-ministership preaching consensus and reconciliation (Hawke 1979; Cook

1984), a stance oriented to process rather than to ideology. His critics would condemn his lack of

ideas (Anson 1991; Day 2003, Maddox 1989) but they missed the point: Hawke was creating the

forum in which political entrepreneurs who advocated policy ideas (Keating chief among them)

could flourish. In Hawke’s self-reflection:

I was a trusting, non-interventionist leader who allowed ministers their heads, not least

because they had good heads, and because experience had taught me that talented people

work best when they are respected and left alone to do their jobs. I provided leadership by

identifying the important issues, talking to my ministers about them, then keeping in touch

with them as they developed policy. (Hawke 1994: 259-251).

Hawke was by all accounts a skilful chair, able to crystallise cabinet debate to point the way ahead; a

broker able to persuade diverse interests to confer productively; an analyst able to distil the argument

in any brief; and a leader who gave productive latitude to a talented team (Kelly, 1992; Weller, 2007:

159-76). With Keating, he deployed the Accord to couple wage restraint with the delivery of social

benefits, winning co-operation from business and unions in the pursuit of reform. The so-called

Accord between the government, the trade unions and (to a lesser extent) the business community

about wage moderation, job creation and support for economic deregulation—which Keating would

take through eight iterations—was a high point, but the Hawke initiated national policy summits

aimed at the same result. They were, partly, an educative process—peak bodies came together to

talk, the media reported their exchanges as part of the story of necessary change. Such tactics

achieved gains in health, housing, community services, immigration and multiculturalism,

education—even while the main game remained the economy. Each of these depended on the

initiative of individual ministers, but the partnership with Keating was core.


What did Keating bring to the mix? His initial reluctance on being drafted into the Treasury

role was manifest in the uncertainty of his early days. He was acutely conscious of his lack of

expertise. Yet he ‘knew about power’ (Keating, 2013), and when Hawke considered bringing his

friend, Ralph Willis, back to the treasury, Keating threatened ‘massive retaliation’ (ibid.). ‘In the

end’, said Hawke, ‘Paul’s potential as a publicist tipped my hand in his direction, although with

some reluctance’ (Hawke, 1994: 158). Such reservations were swept aside by evidence of Keating’s

ability to learn: a senior treasury official, Ted Evans, commented, ‘Paul Keating is innately

intelligent … but more than being intelligent, he knew how to learn … He showed quite an

extraordinary ability: I have never seen a politician become so effective and acquire such

extraordinary learning’ (Love, 2008: 77; see also Kelly, 2009: 36).

Keating, driven by his curiosity about ideas and determination to make them work for him,

came to display an astonishing command of the economic realm. He ‘developed the capacity’, as

Hawke acknowledged, ‘to absorb the thinking, language and ideas of … [his staff] and of Treasury

officials whom he trusted. They naturally responded and became a source of strength in helping him

to become undoubtedly one of the best Treasurers in Australia’s history’ (Hawke, 1994: 159). While

Keating was well served both by his advisers and by a series of Treasury and Reserve Bank officials

with whom he worked closely, his ability to translate and adapt their advice on reform objectives into

terms that persuaded not only caucus and cabinet but also the media and opinion makers was unique.

He was ‘the party persuader’ (Love, 2008, chapter 4), wearing down a baleful caucus and a

sometimes resistant cabinet with charm, aggression, chutzpah and sheer command of detail. And he

developed the capacity, though astute media relations, to gain the acceptance of opinion makers and

to command the public agenda. So pervasive was his influence that critics were left with nowhere to

stand as he himself never tired of pointing out: ‘What I love about the Road Runner’, Keating said,

‘is he runs so fast that he burns up the road behind him; there’s no road left for the others’ (quoted in

Gittins, 2013)

Together, Hawke and Keating dominated the government. An astute observer remarked that:

Hawke and Keating became one of the most successful teams since Federation. They had a

political affinity, an efficient rapport, and complementary political skills. Hawke, unlike [his

predecessor, Liberal PM] Fraser, gave his ministers political room. Keating was dominant

within the Cabinet, Hawke within the country. Where Hawke was popular, Keating was

dangerous. Hawke preached consensus and Keating wielded the political knife. (Kelly, 1992:

28)

Despite the vaunting ambitions of both, for a lengthy period their common commitment to economic

reform kept the tensions of rivalry in check. Indeed, despite the bitterness and legacy contests that

were to follow, each testified to feelings of affection for and appreciation of the other during their

working relationship. Their success depended upon the remarkable complementarity of the attributes


each brought to the partnership. Hawke, an indifferent performer in parliament, was the one who

could operate in the ‘big tent’ (Moore, 2003) of his summits, cope with public appearances and reach

out to the people as a consummate television performer. Keating, a parliamentary performer without

peer, could win in the House, destroy opposition leaders and enthrall the press gallery opinion

leaders. Each worked well with their staff and officials to develop policy content, but it was Hawke’s

team guidance and authority in Cabinet and Caucus that kept the show on the road, while Keating’s

passion for ideas was essential to capturing the public agenda: he ‘could sell an idea better than

anybody else in the government … He could cut through to the meaning and … restate it in a useful

form faster than any politician of his generation’ (Watson, 2002: 24). Hawke’s popularity reliably

generated political capital: Keating had the bravado to spend that political capital in the service of

bold reform. Hawke made the public connections and ensured good government; Keating delivered

the ideas that defined the agenda with the political courage to act on them. It was the marriage of

Hawke’s organizational effectiveness and Keating’s willingness to entertain big risks that worked so

well.

Eventually, the ambitions that had fuelled the achievements of both would come into conflict.

The choice, finally, said one senior Labor figure, was between ‘an egomaniac and a megalomaniac’.

Both men were narcissists, encouraged by maternal over-investment (Freud believed this produced

‘little princes’) to believe in their ‘special destiny’. Neither had early learned to accept the realistic

constraints most of us suffer: neither had learned to be small. Like all such men, they did not accept

impediments, or those who stood in their way, readily: there is ample testimony to the capacity for

nastiness each could display. Hawke’s oceanic sense of self-worth depended on public adulation;

Keating’s aspiration instead was to demonstrate his singularity by changing the world (Little, 1997).

Both men needed power to achieve their ends. Hawke, the senior, was the king: willing to foster the

crown prince, but, like all kings, believing that everything done in his name redounded to his credit.

Keating, the crown prince, was convinced of his entitlement, alert to signs of weakness in the king,

annoyed when his contributions were insufficiently recognised, enraged when his initiatives were

commandeered and increasingly frustrated by the king’s reluctance to hand over the throne, but

forced by their common cause—the prosperity of the kingdom, which he would inherit—to stay his

hand. When their common project finally encountered a problem with which the king seemed

unable to cope (the recession of 1990), his command faltered (Hawke’s popularity had declined in

the late 1980s), and his powers came into question (Hawke’s inadequate response to new Liberal

opposition leader, John Hewson’s Fightback! program), the pretender tore the king down. Keating

challenged Hawke for the leadership of the party (June 3, 1991), lost at first (66 votes to 44), and

bided his time on the backbench while Hawke, now bereft of his key tandem partner, saw his


government lose direction and momentum. Keating’s second challenge (December 19, 1991) saw

Hawke defeated by a narrow margin (56 votes to 51), completing the demolition. Thus the most

successful policy tandem of the post-war years ended. Keating battled on, winning the ‘unwinnable’

1993 election that gave Labor an unprecedented fifth term in government. But in policy terms, he

was much less successful as a solo performer in bringing his ‘big picture’ aspirations for the cultural

transformation of Australia to fruition in the term remaining to him. His government was wiped out

in a 1996 voter revolt, ushering in a lengthy period of Liberal-National Party rule under John

Howard.

Transformation de-railed: the destructive tango of Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard John Howard proved one of Australia’s longest-serving and most successful prime ministers; an

adept analyst of the public mood, and a surprisingly skillful translator of Australia’s discursive

commitment to egalitarian nationalism for conservative ends (Brett 2003, chapter 9)—dominating

national politics (and winning successive elections) for 11 years. But as hubris grew out of

continuing success, he made more contentious and unpopular decisions on a number of fronts (such

as his staunch commitment to George Bush and the war in Iraq) and finally over-reached on his core

agenda of labour market deregulation with the introduction of radical ‘Work Choices’ legislation that

the union movement was able to exploit in a fear campaign that contributed to bringing him down.

The other factor in his eventual defeat was the advent of a new ALP leader: Kevin Rudd.

The ALP, during its years in opposition, had elevated a succession of leaders and then, when

each had failed to diminish Howard’s command, dispensed with them in quick succession. Standing

on the margins as Simon Crean, Kim Beazley, Mark Latham, and Kim Beazley (again) came and

went through the revolving door were two who began to seem the hope of the future: Kevin Rudd

and Julia Gillard. Rudd, indeed, serving his own ambition, was later thought to have played a role in

generating party dissatisfaction with Kim Beazley during Beazley’s second term in the role. But it

was when Rudd and Gillard finally combined, as prospective leader and deputy – a putative tandem,

that Beazley was finally brought down.

Rudd’s attraction was that he had succeeded in projecting a public persona as a well-

informed, but endearing nerd. Intelligent, imaginative and cleverly attuned to the media, he had used

television to capture widespread attention in his own right rather than as a party activist. Gillard, in

contrast, was very much a party figure, attentive to detail, a good parliamentary performer, but little

known in the broader domain. There were however, indications of the functional complementarities

needed in a dyad—Rudd as the communicator, able to generate ideas and capture the public


imagination; Gillard as the one able to work the party and attend to administrative detail. But would

they be able to keep their rival ambitions in check in the interests of the common cause?

As a campaigner, Rudd had proved an effective foil to John Howard, refusing to be boxed in

by Howard’s agenda as earlier leaders had been. Labor’s slogan in the 2007 campaign that swept the

L-NP coalition from power was Kevin 07, a testament to the ALP’s reliance on Rudd’s popularity.

The win manifestly reinforced a conviction of personal centrality on his part. Having delivered

victory, Rudd now demanded power: he over-rode the ALP convention that ministers were elected

by the parliamentary caucus, insisting that he would choose his own cabinet. His electoral popularity

was so high (and would last well beyond the usual honeymoon period) that the party complied. Rudd

generated high hopes. But it was soon apparent that he expected to be in control, not only setting

things in train, but also in dominating and micromanaging the government’s policy-making process.

Initially many initiatives were flagged, but observers soon remarked that Rudd no sooner

started some ‘big idea’ than he moved on to something else: was he merely a ditherer? The 2008

collapse of Lehman Brothers that ushered in what Australians called the Global Financial Crisis

provided him with an early opportunity to demonstrate focus and decisiveness. The manner in which

Rudd and his inner circle managed the GFC promised the making of his government, and of his

leadership. A crisis favours small pro-active groups; licensing inner circle decision making and

truncation of consultation; giving a leader an opportunity to reframe problems (Laing and Tindall,

2009; Masters and ‘t Hart, 2012). Rudd seized the opportunity.

He was well-served by a powerful public servant, Treasury Secretary Ken Henry, who

advised a substantial cash injection (Taylor and Uren, 2010, chapter 5). Stimulus packages, targeted

on getting spending money into peoples’ hands and on infrastructure development, were rapidly

developed. These strategies were decided outside Cabinet, in frantic staff work and on the run

meetings over weekends. Apart from Henry, Rudd consulted only a small leadership group: the

Strategic Priorities and Budget Committee. It appeared that dithering was past: Rudd acted with

resolve, putting his customary second-guessing and caution aside to take a necessary gamble (Marr,

2010: 79-80). The economic effectiveness of the GFC stimulus response was significant. Decisive

action gave the government a veneer of purpose: it was now framed as a dynamic agent of change

(Laing and Tindall, 2009).

But the narrative of success quickly leached away. There were implementation problems born

of decision-making speed (a disastrous home insulation scheme with inadequate accreditation checks

on contractor/installers leading to several deaths; a chaotic schools building program). Given the

scale of programs, these were problems at the margins, but they gave the opposition material for


devastating attacks on the government’s competence. And the centralization that had served so well

in the GFC crisis was not well adapted to the general conduct of governance.

The underlying point is that Rudd established a centralizing pattern, with a well-documented

reliance on a few intimates, an advisory group of young loyalists subject to his moods and attentive

to his demands, treatment of public servants as underlings, a decision style that excluded all but the

Deputy Prime Minister, Treasurer and Finance Minister (along with the Secretary of PM & C, and

the Secretary of the Treasury, as occasion demanded), and a tendency for a relatively closed inner

circle to dictate not just crisis management processes, but also more general policy determination

(for example, his ill-advised abandonment of an Emissions Trading Scheme by which he had set

great store; or his controversial and contentious attempt to introduce a ‘super profits’ tax on resource

industries).

Rudd’s high handedness and failure to consult meant that he was disliked by his peers,

accentuating his over-reliance on the few young, clever men in his office—whose loyalty was

unquestioned, but whose political judgment, tempered by responsiveness to Rudd’s imperious

demands, was less certain. All the indicators of a self-referring, leader-centered in-group that would

under-rate the imperatives of reality testing and of advice from others were in place. The assumption

that all that mattered occurred within the bubble of the prime minister’s office came to govern every

decision. Eventually, extended accounts of Rudd’s dysfunctional characteristics gained wide

currency (e.g., Marr, 2010). Members of caucus resented the way the wisdom of experienced

parliamentarians had been dispensed with; its own exclusion from debate, and the imperiousness of

Rudd’s office. Despite tight discipline, there came to be serious questioning about the failure of

cabinet process (Dobell, 2009; Taylor, 2010; Tingle, 2010). Meanwhile, Gillard’s star continued to

rise. Where Rudd was imperious, she was likeable; where he was unpredictable and chaotic in his

management of process, she was dependable and orderly; where he deferred making clear policy

decisions, within her own portfolio, she made them. As a member of the ‘Gang of Four’ that ran

economic and social policy, Gillard experienced his erratic style at close range, and it slowly but

surely eroded her loyalty to the arrangement she had made with Rudd back in 2007. Meanwhile, the

public service came to loathe Rudd and respect Gillard; and the Labour caucus was not far behind.

In June 2010, following a precipitous fall in the government’s standing in opinion polls, with

an election due before the year’s end, long ignored MPs in his own party saw the opportunity to act

on their resentment. Rudd was no longer protected by electoral popularity; indeed, his stocks were so

low, they argued, that his continued leadership of the party would lead to the government’s defeat.

At the urging of certain faction leaders, and after some prevarication, Gillard informed Rudd that she

would challenge for the leadership. The tandem, never properly realized, was now completely


defunct. Whether Gillard was an active catalyst or a reluctant recruit is yet unclear, but rapidly, and

beneath the media’s radar, matters came to a head.When it became clear that he could not gain the

numbers to win, Rudd resigned. Remarkably, Rudd was thus forced to relinquish the prime

ministership without having completed his first term.

Gillard’s ascension came about in unusual circumstances, and this would dog her leadership.

Notwithstanding Rudd’s fall from public favour his longer term popularity had not been forgotten,

which made his sudden overthrow all the more perplexing. His shortcomings had not become

apparent to the general public. Gillard—at least to most—was relatively unknown at the time of the

leadership coup (Williams, 2010). Rudd, in short, retained some residual leadership capital on which

he would draw in destabilizing Gillard’s administration.

Once in charge, Gillard opted for an early election. After an unedifying campaign, the Labor

government lost its majority (Simms & Wanna, 2012). The result was a hung parliament in which

neither Labor nor the Liberal-National Coalition could command a majority in its own right. After

weeks of negotiation, Gillard managed to sustain a Labor government only with the conditional

support of Green and Independent MPs. A parliament had been installed in which nothing could be

achieved except through negotiation. She would prove skilled at this, but it was not a capacity that

won public esteem.

Gillard’s leadership generated radically different assessments. The views of most who

worked closely with and for her directly contradict the overwhelmingly sceptical and hostile press

coverage and her public unpopularity. Combining toughness with warmth and attentiveness, she was

liked and admired by many colleagues and, notably, by her staff. Organisationally adept, she could

manage crushing workloads. Indeed, it is said that as acting PM, in the course of Rudd’s many trips

during his first term, bureaucrats and staffers would rush to have her sign off on the many items he

had failed to complete in the PMO: arriving at the office, she would call out, ‘bring out your dead!’

Only she could have negotiated and sustained the minority government: it is inconceivable

that Rudd could have matched her in that, and the 2010 alternative, L-NP coalition leader Tony

Abbott, squandered the opportunity. In many ways she was to be the obverse of her predecessor.

Rudd traded in inspiration and moral challenges; she delivered legislation. Rudd thrived on media

attention and grand claims; Gillard, clever and talented in dealing with the piecemeal, was an

effective parliamentary performer, quick on her feet when dealing with discrete issues, but less able

in conveying the big picture. Her gift was not in communicating at large or in impressing the crowd,

but in working one-to-one or with small groups.

It was this ability that allowed Gillard’s to be a government of achievement against the odds.

It avoided parliamentary deadlock. In the face of a rancorous, disruptive Opposition and withering


personal and public attacks such as have faced very few leaders, Gillard remained resilient: her

refusal to flinch or concede ground was courageous. She did what was needed to keep the Greens

and cross-bench supporters on side, but every matter of substance had to be negotiated. Legislation

was passed. Success in the carriage of an extensive, reforming legislative agenda should have been

accounted a major achievement (see Kent, 2013; Johnson, 2013), but some of these initiatives were

already so compromised by concessions locked in under Rudd, or agreed to later to mollify the fierce

resistance of powerful interests, as to be severely limited in their effects.

Also, by seeking to appear decisive when it came to apparently intractable issues, Gillard was

prone to serial misjudgements. Chief among them was her attempt to evade the complications

stemming from Rudd’s vacillation and then abandonment of the Emissions Trading Scheme by

stating, prior to the 2010 election that ‘there will be no carbon tax in a government that I lead’. After

the election, having to deal with the Greens, she had to backtrack: she could only sustain cross-bench

support by guaranteeing to legislate for carbon pricing—now to designated a Clean Energy Future

Package (CEF). She compounded the problem by conceding that this might be deemed a ‘carbon

tax’. Opposition leader, Tony Abbott, would ever after brandish this ‘lie’ as his most effective

weapon in attacking her. It was not her only mistake. For example, a tentative proposal for a citizens’

assembly on climate change during the 2010 campaign was ridiculed as policy on the run. Then, in

trying to outflank the Opposition’s attack on her failure to ‘stop the boats’ (of asylum seekers

reaching Australia in unprecedented numbers, after Rudd had relaxed key planks of the deterrence-

oriented policies of the Howard government), she first announced the possibility of a regional

processing centre in East Timor without having secured agreement from that government, and later

sought to establish a ‘people swap’ agreement with Malaysia that was struck down by the High

Court—neither plan apparently having been diligently attentive to necessary detail. On such issues, it

appeared that she had retreated into the inner circle that develops around most leaders, and failed to

ensure basic reality checks.

In short, the Rudd mode had not been entirely shaken off, said one senior official:

… the Gillard Office has repeated many of the mistakes [of] the Rudd Office …

[they] just would run their own line and do it privately … when what they should have been

worried about is how do they marshal professional advice and combine it with political

advice so the Prime Minister can make a well-informed decision. Because Julia’s a great

reader … she really does attend to the papers and is incredibly well-informed. You’d never

fault her for how she runs the Government. She’s perfect. Other than when, on a big issue,

she decides to go off and do it herself because she wants to do the deal, or do it herself with a

couple of close advisors. (Author interview)

It is that last qualification that is crucial, since it is the wish to ‘do it herself’ or to work with ‘a

couple of close advisers’ that characterized those repeated misjudgments that dogged Gillard.


Gillard had to engineer agreements, which militated against appearing decisive. Yet she was

capable of delivering effective government. A pragmatist, she did not deal effectively in big pictures.

Once astute, articulate and quick on her feet, her earnest attempt to adopt the repertoire of public

leadership diminished those skills and failed to capture her strengths. The talents that enabled her

achievement in this unusual parliament did not register in the public eye.

And so it was that Gillard in turn came to be usurped (Williams, 2013). In part she sowed the

seed by a misguided decision to announce the 2013 election date nearly eight months in advance,

arguing that this would clarify matters, giving business certainty in planning the year, and apparently

believing it would destabilise the machinations of Rudd and his supporters. It had the opposite effect.

It provided an incentive for voters to make up their minds: polling support for Labor continued

steadily to deteriorate. It gave the Opposition a sure schedule for planning its campaign, and allowed

Abbott a staged increase in his devastating attacks. And it delivered to Rudd’s backers, who had

never ceased to push back, a timetable in which action must be taken if they were to prevail: they set

about persuading increasingly anxious colleagues that only Rudd (whose public popularity as

preferred prime minister was now twice that of Gillard and well ahead of Abbott) could stem the

disaster ahead.

Gillard, always with significant caucus support, had defeated Rudd in 2010, and twice more

stared down his attempts to recapture the office, in a formal caucus challenge (February 2012) in

which she prevailed decisively (71-31), and again when she offered an opportunity following an

abortive attempt by senior party figure Simon Crean to force the issue, which Rudd declined (March

2013). But at last the caucus despaired. On the fourth occasion, June 26, 2013, in the last sitting

week of Parliament, Gillard recognised that the situation had become untenable—it was said a

petition calling for a leadership vote was in circulation—and she announced a caucus meeting that

evening in which leadership positions would be spilled. If she lost, she said, she would not contest

the forthcoming election, and she had elicited the same promise from Rudd. This time Rudd defeated

her 57-45 in the Party room. He was back in time to fight the 2013 election, but to no avail: an initial

spike in the polls dissipated once the campaign was underway, and Labor lost the election (though

some argued, losing fewer seats than it would have done had Gillard remained in office) (Strangio &

Walter 2014).

Discussion

It is germane to note that the Hawke/Keating governments and the Rudd/Gillard governments each

faced circumstances that, in their view, demanded reconsideration of prevailing practice; reform

rather than business as usual. Each was alert to the emerging ideas of their times about the


imperatives of political and economic restructuring, but one dyad seized these and adapted them to

generate enduring social and political change; the other set to with a will but in a manner that not

only forestalled its best intentions, but also paved the way for the return of a Coalition government

whose promise to restore ‘business as usual’ entailed the purposeful unravelling of everything the

Labor government had set out to achieve.

It is apparent, too, that the chief component in success or failure was less the enormity of the

challenge than the nature of leadership. The circumstances were such that, in each case, no one

individual could manage the complexity of both articulating purpose and delivering good

government while managing the teams that could deal with the myriad of problems to be addressed.

It could only be done through distributed leadership, at the heart of which, we argue, was a dyad

within which functional complementarity (or the lack of it) was integral to the outcome. Was it,

however, simply happenstance, the chance occurrence of attributes and traits that gelled in one

instance and proved dysfunctional in another? Can we identify core elements that assist in better

identifying the mix of individual proclivities and group dynamics that predict the successful dyad?

Drawing from the narrative above, we can map the set of elements that assist in reflecting on these

questions.


Table 1: The Hawke-Keating dyad.

Domains Hawke Keating Complementarity Public performance of leadership

Effective media performer; prefers the public stage; connects with people at large; indifferent parliamentary performer.

Superb parliamentary performer; given to the theatre of conflict; captures opinion leaders, and the politically engaged but sometimes indifferent on the public stage.

Highly complementary: Hawke reaches the public; connects with people without baffling them; Keating captures the opinion leaders

Vision/ideas Relies on large generalisations (e.g., consensus); discursive; weak on values and party ‘tradition’; not given to big ideas

Searching for big ideas—which will remake the world; fast learner; precise and articulate; an impressive ability to ‘make meaning’; the party persuader.

Highly complementary: Hawke connects with the public; allows Keating to articulate the reform path.

Administrative preference/performance

An authoritative chairman; trusting subordinates to get on with the job, but able to draw threads together; good relations with advisers and the bureaucracy; skilful in achieving consensus outcomes.

Forceful, but relies on his staff and on public servants who gain his trust; not given to routine or minutiae; will try to crash through impediments rather than negotiate deals.

Complementary as long as Hawke maintains control/exercises authority; as leader, Keating is somewhat neglectful of administrative necessities.

Managing relationships

Aggressive when challenged; but generally assumes superiority (Hawke as ‘king’); authority is sustained as long as his tie with the public remains assured; while authority is recognised, a skilful manager/administrator.

Generates intense loyalties among those with whom he works, capable of great charm, but generally aggressive and given to confrontation; cuts the ground from under dissidents and opponents; famously ruthless in pursuing objectives.

Complementary, so long as Keating’s efforts are directed to party and policy opponents, while Hawke ensures administrative efficiency: eventually a source of tension

Risks/risk management

Joins Keating in the great gamble of reform, but keen to maintain public adulation so attempts to manage risk and to hoard political capital.

Bold, convinced of his course; willing to risk all in its pursuit—a risk taker: ‘Hawke generated the political capital; I spent it!’ Ends up denouncing Hawke as ‘old jelly-back’.

Highly complementary: Hawke’s generation of political ‘capital’ funds the reform venture; Keating’s boldness and ‘meaning making’ ensures its focus and momentum.

Group dynamics

Hawke runs a good cabinet by allowing talented participants to get on with their work; manifestly a good team builder; for the most part establishes unquestioned authority

Captures support of those close to processes by drawing people into the reform adventure; close-knit policy teams; less effective as a manager and sometimes neglectful/inattentive when running cabinet himself.

Complementary as long as the dyad sustained: Hawke delivering good government while Keating generates policy.

Ambition Boundless ambition; narcissism fuelled by being the centre of attention and public adulation.

Boundless ambition; ‘above’ the world the rest of us inhabit, contemptuous of small things; self-referential.

Always in tension—implicit rivalry from the first, but held in check so long as Hawke’s authority (and political capital) sustained the reform project.


Table 2: The Rudd-Gillard dyad.

Domains Rudd Gillard Complementarity Public performance of leadership

Skilful media performer; prefers the public stage; connects with people at large; attentive to image and to media logic; with some exceptions, an indifferent parliamentary performer.

A good debater at close quarters and a feisty parliamentary performer, but wooden and ineffective in broader public engagement; unable to engage as ‘communicator in chief’; fails in this aspect of leadership performance.

Potential complementarity, with Rudd able to make the public connections, while Gillard is able to win over key allies and to persuade within party forums

Vision/ideas Incessant pursuit of new ideas; engages imaginatively with big issues (climate change, response to the GFC), but dogged by inattention to implementation, inability to translate into action—ideas themselves expected to change behaviour?

Has a few straightforward agendas, but does not craft a message, relying instead on reform policy objectives as self-evident, and adopting a pragmatic approach to their implementation. Aims (like Hawke) to strike consensus deals, but it results in her seeming willing to abandon principles.

Potential complementarity: Rudd as the ideas man; Gillard able to negotiate pragmatic agreements and deliver the consequent policy.

Administrative preference/performance

Unrealistic self-regard (smartest man in the room); obsessively controlling; reliant on a small inner circle; impatient with (and suspicious of) many with whom he had to work; centralization of processes leading to administrative log-jams; elements of ‘groupthink.

A very good manager; able to handle enormous workloads efficiently; admired by those who worked with her; attentive to advice; but facing internal party destabilization adopts some dysfunctional ‘inner circle’ modes, impeding consistent reality testing and inducing some notable fiascos.

Potential complementarity—had Rudd had a realistic appreciation of his limits, an ability to co-operate, and a recognition that he could be the catalyst of reform directions while Gillard delivered good government.

Managing relationships

Imaginative and intelligent, he fostered disciples in his inner circle; but his instrumental attitudes to allies and underlings (he used people and moved on), unconcealed disdain for ‘fools’ who disagreed, inattention to the feelings of his party caucus, and low levels of emotional intelligence created significant problems. No sense of humour.

Perceptive and warm, with high a high measure of emotional intelligence, she was able to negotiate effectively in sustaining a minority government and thus to keep a legislative program moving even in highly adverse circumstances. A lively sense of humour.

This disparity was never bridged.

Risks/risk management

Rudd set big goals and made grandiose claims, but then dithered over their implementation and when the battle became too hard, simply walked away: a failure of courage.

Gillard was a pragmatist, and cautious about risk, yet she proved to be the closer on initiatives that Rudd had initiated but failed to carry though, and effectively used parliament to promote a reform agenda. When battles reached their most heated, she was both courageous and resilient.

Potential complementarity—had Rudd’s aspirations been tempered by Gillard’s pragmatism and reinforced by her dogged application to the tasks of implementation and risk management.

Group dynamics

Fostered groupthink in the inner circle, and provoked resentment, dissidence and fragmentation in the Party caucus

In the main, ran Cabinet and the caucus well, maintaining consistent support in both, but with lapses provoked by withdrawal to an inner circle in the face of consistent destabilisation from Rudd supporters.

This disparity was loosely held in check initially, until growing restiveness within the party provided the opportunity for Gillard to challenge.

Ambition Boundless ambition; highly ego-defensive—paralysed by serious threat and vengeful in defeat.

Fiercely ambitious, but with some ability to recognise limits; accepts defeat with grace and humour.

Rivalry held in check only as long as Gillard was willing to serve as loyal deputy.


We can read across these tables to identify psychological dynamics at three levels: the manifestation

of individual traits; the way these play out within the dyad (particularly in relation to

interdependence/complementarity and authority); and the broader effects on the group dynamics of

the core executive.

In a study of Australia’s first eleven prime ministers, Whitington (1972: 9) noted poignantly

that ‘[l]eadership calls for strength, determination, a willingness to face odds, a confidence in one’s

ability to overcome them, a ruthless disregard for the welfare of others, partly because of a genuine

desire to do good but mainly because of an ambition for the glory accruing from being a protector

and a saviour’. He demonstrated how the inability to tame the personal hunger for power, control and

adulation undid many of the predecessors of the four later prime ministers discussed in this paper. Of

those four, Rudd fits that mould completely. Of the others, Hawke and Keating were certainly at risk

of doing so: we remarked earlier on their narcissism, drawing on Little’s (1997) illuminating

comparison of Hawke’s vanity and sense of ‘limitless’ fusion with the whole world beside Keating’s

proud conviction that he could ‘walk through fire’ (Keating, 2013) to remake the world as it should

be. These were men who had not learned the limits within which most of us function. Significantly,

however, they did not draw upon the same sources for their narcissistic supplies—Hawke was

dependent on public adulation; Keating on the esteem of high flyers and the capitulation of opinion

makers in response to his vision—here they were not competing on the same ground. While

impatient of constraint and aggressive when challenged, each of them had a sense of self assurance

that allowed for effective working relationships when rivalry was not an issue, developing good

relationships with high level public servants, and admiration and loyalty among their private office

staff, all of which supported their transformational policy work.

Rudd’s grandiosity, an assertion of superiority and a claim on big ideas and moral purpose,

was equally marked, but his was an ego-defensive style—a neurotic denial of limits (Shapiro 1965)

rather than an assurance that they did not apply to him. In that sense he fits Lasswell’s (1930, 1948)

pioneering interpretation of the ‘political personality’ as typically ego-defensive. There has been

much development in theory since Lasswell’s formulations, especially in relation to varieties of non-

defensive narcissism (as Little’s analysis of Hawke and Keating shows). But no-one since has given

as compelling an account of how intellectualisation, the commitment to ideas so important to Rudd,

elevates the bearer above the quotidian world and serves not only as an escape from dealing with

people, but also as a means of forestalling threatening emotions (with a consequent diminution of

emotional intelligence). (Lasswell 1948: 92-4; Davies 1980: 100-120; Greenstein 2009)

A poverty of affect, however, leads to treating work relations as instrumental; the febrile

assertion of superiority makes for uneasy relations with peers or potential peers (Rudd remained a


loner, close only to the young lieutenants in his office); high ability and talent in others is distrusted

(as a source of threat to one’s own standing); and the implicit fear of failing in some grand

endeavour inhibits the courage needed for bold ventures (Rudd faltered at every substantial hurdle—

most importantly failing to call a double dissolution election on the issue of the CPRS—and was

observed to freeze, quite unable to function, during one intense policy negotiation and had to be

taken aside, see Chubb 2014, p. 99).

Gillard, undoubtedly intensely ambitious, and possessed of a self-esteem that gave her

courage under fire, is nonetheless not in the same power-hungry and narcissistic realm as Hawke,

Keating or Rudd. In working relationships it was evident that Gillard had a sense of humour and a

high level of emotional intelligence (Greenstein 2009), with the ability to read others and devise

ways to achieve consensus. Remarkably, Gillard also fits neatly into Harold Lasswell’s pioneering

delineation of political types: she was the archetypal administrator (Lasswell 1930: 127-52; Davies

1980: 51-99). The administrator prefers to work directly with others, she is transactional and task

oriented, given to imposing order on unstructured situations. More closely tied to individuals and

free of the compulsion to ‘get a rise out of’ large numbers of people, she is uninterested in

abstractions, never having needed them to deal with emotional problems. But this lack of interest

may diminish the capacity to capture the rhetorical flights now demanded by public leadership. With

little need to personalize professional interactions (family and friendship circles meet those needs),

the administrator can avoid overinvestment in workplace relations—affectively adjusted, but

flexible. Gillard came from a close knit, emotionally supportive family, but one that encouraged

ambition and high ideals. Clever, but inordinately shy, she would not easily find the avenue for

realizing ambition, or for meeting her family’s ideals, in public performance. But the sense of her

family’s investment might well have engendered the deep reserves of self-belief that both drove her

ambition, and provided the extraordinary resilience she was able to maintain in the face of an

unusually conflicted period in government.

The Hawke-Keating dyad worked not only because their functional abilities were

complementary, but also because for a good period of their working relationship they recognised that

this was so and acknowledged that each needed the other, facilitating interdependence. The fact that

they drew assurance for their narcissism from different sources gave them a certain latitude:

impatient as he may have been about Hawke’s grandstanding it did not dent Keating’s sense of his

own gifts; irritated as he may have been about Keating’s sense of mission, it did not impinge on

Hawke’s sense of his special bond with the people or his authority. Long schooled in party and

political realities (in ways that neither Rudd nor Gillard were) each of them had political judgement,

an appreciation of the institutional context in which they operated, and the capacity to capitalise on


strengths (Hawke as a deft chairman, consensus builder and televisual communicator; Keating as

parliamentary performer, policy perfectionist and party/opinion persuader). Together, they

commanded public debate and hence reinforced their authority in policy development and in

government.

And then there was the Kirribilli agreement: a secret pact reached in 1988 in which it was

agreed that Hawke would hand over to Keating after the 1990 election. It was a way of containing

Keating’s ambition as Hawke’s performance began to come under question, and a formalisation of

the implicit relationship that had prevailed from the outset—Keating as heir apparent, with only the

question of timing to be resolved. And it was a pact on which Hawke eventually reneged, on the

grounds that Keating betrayed his confidence and was not fit to be prime minister.

Compare, then, the Rudd-Gillard dyad. The alliance with Gillard was necessary to Rudd’s

ascent. There, too, was at least an implicit understanding that her role as deputy entailed a sort of

shared leadership, and that in return for loyalty she would eventually succeed Rudd. As we have

seen, there was also at least the potential for functional complementarity: their different skill sets, if

combined, would have made for a formidable duo. And indeed, for some time Gillard was a member

of the ‘gang of four’ party leaders who worked most closely with Rudd. But Rudd, reluctant to admit

any chinks in his armour, could not acknowledge his limitations and thus see how Gillard’s abilities

could compensate for those lacks. Always in ego-defence mode, he was incapable of sharing. His

inability to accept anyone else as an equal, his insistence on ultimate control, his arrogantly

instrumental dealings with others, and yet his wavering at moments when decision was vital made

him impossible to work with. By all accounts, Gillard gave him loyalty—until the moment when the

disquiet of Labor faction leaders and the growing resentment of the caucus provided an opportunity

for her to step in to rescue, as she put it, ‘a government that had lost its way’.

The authority or dysfunction of the dyad in turn influences relationships within the broader

group and group dynamics. The fact that the Hawke and Keating governments survived for an

unprecedented 13 years is testimony to the effectiveness of Labor’s core executive regime in that

period. Expert survey studies rate Hawke as one of Australia’s most successful prime ministers not

just for longevity, but for transformative achievement, based on a well-managed core executive

(Strangio 2013). The authority of the dyad was essential to this. The dyad was also integral to

transformation of the Labor message, from Keynesian oriented social democracy towards market

liberalism, but via the Accord retaining a significant ameliorative aspect. The dyad’s role in this

process might be understood as a manifestation of ‘minority influence’—taking on Labor tradition

and indeed the scepticism of colleagues in government—to provoke cognitive work, originality and

novel solutions (cf. Nemeth 1985; Triandis et al. 1965). The ‘pairing’ of Hawke and Keating might


also be regarded as a stimulus for creativity, in the light of Bion’s elaboration of such conjunctions in

groups engaged in transformational enterprise (Bion, 1961; Little, 1985: 87-91). It was this that

facilitated a break-through in economic and governmental reform. It was Hawke’s genius, however,

to balance the authority of the dyad with a genuine distribution of leadership, giving his ministry

latitude to do their jobs without undue interference. And it was this role diffusion, and willingness to

trust others, that also facilitated reasonably robust ‘reality checks’: the concurrence of the dyad was

essential for policy success, but ministers often identified their colleague Mick Young as the policy

realist—if he said it would not fly, you had lost the battle. Hawke (and to a lesser extent Keating)

willingly accepted this type of devil’s advocate assessment and pulled back.

In contrast, the failure of the dyad in Rudd’s first term became incrementally apparent in the

failure of the core executive process. Relations with his ministers broke down. The paucity of cabinet

deliberation came to public attention (Tingle, 2010). The PMO tried to take up the slack, issuing

demands and interfering in ministerial functions (Dobell, 2009). Party elders, such as John Faulkner,

who might have provided a reality test for Rudd analogous to Mick Young for Hawke, were

marginalised. Experienced public servants, including the Secretary of the Department of Prime

Minister and Cabinet, had their access to the prime minister obstructed (Moran, 2012). The residual

inner circle, peopled now by the young advisers in the PMO, served mainly as ‘yes men’ to a

domineering and demanding task master and failed sufficiently to appreciate the growing backlash in

the party—‘group think’ was in play (‘t Hart et al. 1997)—and so Rudd was ambushed.

But the conditions of Gillard’s take over ensured that she, too, would fail. Wayne Swann, her

deputy and treasurer, was competent, but had no more capacity to capture public attention or to

swing opinion than did she. She led an impressive cohort of supportive female ministers

(Goldsworthy, 2013), but lacked a complementary figure who—with the skills she lacked—could

complete the dyad. While more given to consensus deliberation and delegation than Rudd, trusting of

her bureaucracy and generally popular in caucus, she could not rely on a unified party. Rudd had not

gone, he and his supporters were clearly active in destabilizing the government (Walsh, 2013), and

as a result she, too, was prone to withdraw to a protective inner circle, itself given to groupthink,

which, as we have noted, generated significant policy fiascos. Her preference (and talent) was to

work with others; forced to play the authoritative leader more or less solo, she faltered. Rudd’s

supporters, and the Murdoch press (Walsh, 2013), seized on this vulnerability, destroying her

credibility.

Conclusion

Clearly, what makes a dyad effective is the complementarity of its members. Idealism and

pragmatism, risk-taking and caution, advocacy and consensus-building, policy grunt and political


salesmanship: the pairing and balancing of these desirable but opposed qualities of reform leadership

was achieved in the Hawke-Keating case in ways that individual policymakers are rarely able

achieve . This made it a formidable political entity that was able to mobilize and discipline ministers,

back benchers and party barons, utilize and capitalize on bureaucratic expertise, craft favorable

publicity, and persuade or cajole veto players into coming on board with proposed reforms.

Secondly, it worked because—and only as long as—its members put policy achievement

before personal power, and thus understood, respected and utilized their interdependency. Both

Hawke and Keating had a clear sense that each needed the other to make the progress they desired.

Rooted both in psychological needs and political pragmatism, each member of the dyad understood

that working together was essential to impose direction and order on Cabinet and party as well as to

signal resolve to and clinch deals with wider constituencies. Except perhaps for the period preceding

the 2007 election, Rudd proved incapable of this kind of understanding, let alone acting upon it;

Gillard for her part did make a genuine effort to play the loyal lieutenant role, but in the face of so

much personal dysfunction she became convinced she could do a better job—only to forget that she

too lacked the full leadership competencies or capital to lead the government on her own. She thus

never sought to pair up with a Keating-like senior associate who could compensate for her own lack

of policy salesmanship on the public stage and propensity for snap (and bad) political judgments at

the backstage of policy decision making.

Thirdly, leadership couples have the edge on other configurations of shared leadership

because they are parsimonious. The transaction costs and relational risk of keeping them going are

much lower than those of larger teams at the top of politics or business, which often harbour so much

internal conflict that they can only thrive with a truly gifted and appropriately Machiavellian leader

at the top, as did Lincoln’s ‘team of rivals’ (Kearns Goodwin, 2012) and Roosevelt’s ‘brains trust’

whose members competed fiercely with one another yet all maintained positive relations with FDR

himself, who thus became the proverbial spider in the web (Rosen, 1977). That said, Hawke too was

something of a spider, with a capacity to manage distributed leadership across the core executive that

Keating could not emulate.

As the Rudd-Gillard case shows, dyads are not readily achievable and are hence not a reliable

panacea. Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, potentially an effective political tandem, missed their

political moment as neither part of the couple truly embraced the sense of interdependency: Rudd’s

narcissism was so big as to make him believe he could do it all by himself, and Gillard failed to

realize that her own talents needed to be supplemented by skills like Rudd’s. When she toppled him

for the top job, her lack of critical leadership qualities such as public communication proficiency


became painfully apparent, while her administrative efficiency and deal-making ability were lost to

view.

Future research should explore the role of distributed, shared, collaborative leadership in the

making and reform of public policy much more closely than hitherto. To do so, it needs to find ways

to examine the structure, strength and dynamics of informal power structures, such as dyads, at the

heart of government. These are much talked about in the popular press, but decades of comparative

study of ‘core executives’ have yielded little progress in penetrating where and how leadership in

public policy decision making is really exercised. Taking the recent turn towards shared and

distributed notions of leadership in public policy studies more seriously is a necessary theoretical

step forward (Gronn, 2009; Van Wart, 2013). Drawing from this well, we suggest that

complementarity, interdependency and parsimony are three key dimensions that can be used to

describe and analyze the make-up and modus operandi of leadership configurations. We now need

more controlled comparative research designs to test our and related hypotheses about the nexus

between leadership teams and reform achievements.

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Documents

Distributed leadership and policy success: Understanding political dyads, 2014