Non-Zero-Sum Leadership Games: Is Facilitative Leadership a Win-Win?

Abstract

According to the concept of facilitative leadership, leaders can strengthen their own leadership by strengthening the other players in the game. However, quantitative empirical evidence that such facilitative leadership processes can lead to win-win situations has been lacking. This article develops a way to detect such non-zero-sum leadership games building on an index constructed to measure political leadership in surveys. The technique is applied to a case study focusing on Regional Mayors in Denmark, and the empirical findings clearly demonstrate that, in this case, the leadership game indeed resembles a non-zero-sum pattern.

Keywords:

• mayoral leadership
• facilitative leadership
• local governments
• Denmark