ABSTRACT
Tapping into the literature on public leadership, innovation, and entrepreneurship, and deriving from theories on public network governance, this chapter moves beyond individuals. It makes an attempt to improve the existing understanding of public sector leadership for disasters within a parliamentary context. In the domains of crisis and disaster management, the exploration of the leadership of political (or elected) actors has been a continuing one, in terms of understanding their leadership styles, issues of accountability, and legitimacy failure during crises. However, the actions of bureaucrats (or appointed actors) in the same areas have not been scrutinised adequately. This chapter is based on recent discourses within the public sector leadership schools that emphasises the need for cross-fertilisation between the theories of public policy and the concepts of public management. This overlap has been the key in comprehending the role of public sector managers, bureaucrats, and agents in areas of networking, managerial quality, and performance evaluation.
