Strategic Leadership and Good Governance in the Public Sector: A Case of County Governments in Kenya

The study sought to examine the influence of strategic leadership on good governance in Kenya's county governments, focusing on how strategic leadership dimensions—visioning, strategy formulation, implementation, evaluation, and ethical leadership—drive compliance with governance principles. Persistent governance challenges, such as corruption and resource mismanagement, have undermined devolution's potential, necessitating a leadership approach to embed ethics and accountability. Guided by Authentic Leadership Theory and Strategic Leadership Theory, the study employed a positivist research philosophy and a cross-sectional research design. Data for this study were collected through structured questionnaires administered to a representative sample of employees from eight counties, selected using stratified random sampling. The findings revealed a significant positive relationship between strategic leadership and good governance, with strategic leadership explaining 69.2% of the variation in governance outcomes. Among the key factors, leader character and strategic visioning demonstrated the strongest impact, underscoring the critical role of ethical leadership and visionary planning in fostering transparency and accountability. The study concluded that strategic leadership is essential for embedding ethical practices as routine behaviors and for building resilient and transparent governance systems. It recommended prioritizing the development of strategic leadership, aligning public sector reforms with leadership objectives, and instituting robust accountability structures to ensure sustainable governance and ethical compliance in county governments. Keywords: Strategic leadership, good governance, county governments, ethical practices, compliance with ethics, public sector reforms, transparency, accountability, leadership development, Kenya, strategic visioning, strategy formulation, strategy implementation, strategy evaluation, leader character.