Leaderships in Urban Contexts of Diversity and Innovation: The Porto Maravilha Case

Abstract

This article investigates the role and ways of action of leaderships in urban contexts characterized by urban revitalization processes (RJ/Brazil). Adopting as its theoretical basis the bibliographical review of the literature on leadership and public area requalification processes, as well as research conducted by Jacobs (2011) on diversity and innovation, the present research may be characterized as qualitative in nature (case study). Results indicate that the Porto Maravilha project has transposed business concepts to public administration. Today, the keynote lies in the attraction of new enterprises and in the construction of urban revitalization projects for the city’s makeover. With regard to the leadership, although public leadership has apparently adopted management instruments for decentralizing management and for public participation, these measures were not enough to achieve an effectively shared leadership that would reflect the multiple interests of different actors (as the theory of relational leadership presupposes). Thus, a set of contradictions and dilemmas for the leaders is apparent, among them: how to build an effectively-shared leadership, as every urban transformation project depends on the negotiation and complex interaction between different social actors?

Keywords

• shared leadership; local powers; urban revitalization; innovation in cities.