Maria Fors Brandebo

Leadership: is bad stronger than good?

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to investigate if the thesis “bad is stronger than good” also holds true for a number of leadership issues, more specifically: trust in the immediate leader, e ...

Trust in a military context: What contributes to trust in superior and subordinate leaders?

The aim was to explore which components military personnel in peacekeeping operations perceive as contributing to trust in their superior and subordinate leaders during international or national operations or exercises. Data were collected among 591 military officers and cadets from Norway and Sweden using a questionnaire with open-ended questions. Two superior categories emerged: Individual-Related Characteristics and Communication- and Relationship-Related Characteristics. The former is made up of the higher-level categories Personal attributes and Experience and competence. The latter is derived from the higher-level categories Consideration and inspiration and Effective communication. In turn, all higher-level categories are underpinned by a number of subcategories (13 altogether). When comparing trust in superior leaders with trust in subordinate leaders, the results show that trust in superiors is characterised to a greater extent by Communication- and Relationship-related characteristics and also by Experience and professional knowledge. Trust in subordinate leaders is characterised to a greater extent by Personal attributes and Management competence.

Swedish military officers through other nations’ eyes: Experiences related to leadership theory, stereotypes, identity and military contextual history

PurposeGlobalisation of working life means that many organisations are manned by people from different countries. A potentially critical factor is how members from various nations are looked upon b ...

The Impact of Constructive and Destructive Leadership on Soldier’s Job Satisfaction

The aim of this study was to investigate whether constructive or destructive leadership behaviors are the best predictors of soldiers’ experienced meaningfulness of work and general job satisfaction. Data were collected among 300 employed soldiers using a questionnaire. The questionnaire contained questions about the immediate leader’s constructive and destructive leadership, meaningfulness of work and general job satisfaction. The results show that the constructive leadership factor inspiration and motivation was the best predictor of both experienced meaningfulness of work and general job satisfaction. None of the destructive leadership factors gave a significant contribution to the models although both the passive and active forms of destructive leadership showed a weak to moderate significant, negative correlation with experienced meaningfulness of work and general job satisfaction.