Perceptions of Leadership and Management: in the Armed Forces of the United States

This study probed U.S. military officers on theirperceptions of effective leadership and managementbehaviors. Serving military members reported theleader styles they found especially useful. Thestudy's aim was to build a theory describingthose leader styles that would lead to organizationalsuccess. It was based on a series of surveysand interviews of commissioned officers representingall services and commissioned grades, conducted at ajoint service headquarters in Europe. The factoranalytical techniques of Q-Methodology were used todistill meaning from the subjective judgment of theparticipant s. Subsequent semi-structured questioninghelped to put the findings into context andtriangulated the results with qualitative data.Respondents reported that they consciously used bothtransformational and transactional leader styles.They demonstrated the application of a variety ofcognitive leadership frameworks. The officers studieddisplayed important though sometimes subtledifferences in their leader styles. As a wholethey made their focus on mission accomplishment ofparamount importance when balanced against any otherconcerns.