Norwegian Defence University College

Balanced leadership behavior in the

Professor Dr. Captain (Rt) Ole Boe

IAMPS 07 MAY 2019

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Authors

Psychologist Sara Kasia Austad Sunnaas Rehabilitation Hospital, Nesoddtangen,

Commander Senior Grade, Dr. Rino Bandlitz Johansen Institute for Leadership and Operations, Norwegian Defence University College, , Norway

Associate Professor, Dr. Psychologist Henning Bang Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

Professor Dr. Captain (Rt) Ole Boe, USN School of Business, Department of Business, Strategy and Political Sciences, University of South-Eastern Norway, Drammen, Norway

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22.05.2019 Veileder 1 Krigsskolen

Norwegian Defence University College 2013 3 Norwegian Defence University College Leadership in the Norwegian Armed Forces

Guidelines for how to execute leadership in the Norwegian Armed Forces (NAF) are given in the Norwegian Chief of Defence Policy on Leadership in the NAF (Norwegian Defence Staff, 2012).

Two necessary conditions are stated in this policy regarding mission-based leadership: Organizational conditions and individual conditions.

Balanced leadership behavior (BLB) describes the individual conditions and gives an operationalized description of desired leadership behavior in each leader.

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Balanced leadership behavior

BLB consists of three subcategories, role model, mission focus and development orientation, and effective leadership behavior consists of one`s abilities to balance these three categories in a good way.

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BLB: Role model

• A good role model will show good attitudes as well as display ethical judgement.

• A good role model will have the ability to inspire and motivate subordinates through good and clear communication, clarify demands and expectations, stimulate belief in the future and involve employees in decisions.

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BLB: Mission focus

• Behavior related to mission focus will contribute to that employees and other resources will be used effectively and with credibility so that one succeed with the mission (Yukl, 2012).

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BLB: Development orientation

• The leader will reveal a will and ability to learn and to develop as a leader.

• The leader will among other things identify threats and opportunities, encourage creative thinkng, and facilitate collective learning (Norwegian Defence Staff, 2012, p. 13).

• Development orientation leadership correlate with Yukl´s (2012) descriptions of Change-oriented leadership.

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The main objective of the study

• To what degree is BLB actually expressed in the NAF, and is this perceived differently in the Army, the Air Force, and in the Navy?

• 4 hypotheses

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Method

Since 2007, the NAF issues a yearly employee survey (FMU).

In 2016, focus was on how employees evaluated their closest leader on leadership and culture for continuous improvement.

Each employee of the NAF was thus given the opportunity to evaluate their closest leader on several aspects related to leadership.

The survey was completed through the software Confirmit.

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BLB questions in the FMU survey

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Participants

Participants n %

Army 2851 30,9

Air Force 1511 16,4

Navy 1170 12,7

Sample 5523 59,8

Total population 9239 63,0

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Results: Statistical analyses

• One-way analyses of variance (ANOVAs) and post-hoc- analyses, Tukey ́s Honestly Significant Different test (Tukey ́s HSD), were used to investigate differences between the three branches.

• Branches: Army, Air Force, and Navy.

• Effect sizes (Cohen ś d) were calculated due to the large number of participants.

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Results: Reliability

Scale and subscales Questions Cronbach´s alpha

BLB 12 .80 Role model 4 .79 Mission focus 4 .87 Development orientation 4 .88

• Values should be over .70 to be satisfactory (Cronbach & Meehl, 1955).

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Results: ANOVAs

Scale ranging from 1 (totally disagree) to 7 (totally agree).

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Hypothesis 1 BLB

• Army employees would to a greater extent perceive that the leader exhibit BLB compared to Air Force and Navy employees.

• Hypothesis 1 received support as Army employees perceived that the leader exhibited more BLB as compared to Air Force and Navy employees.

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Hypothesis 2 Role model

• Army and Navy employees would to a greater extent perceive that the leader acts as a role model compared to Air Force employees.

• Hypothesis 2 was not supported as Army employees perceived that the leader acted more as a role model compared to Navy employees but not compared to Air Force employees.

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Hypothesis 3 Mission focus

• Air Force employees would to a greater extent perceive that the leader reveals a mission focus compared to Army and Navy employees.

• Hypothesis 3 was not supported as Army employees perceived that the leader revealed more mission focus compared to Air Force and Navy employees.

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Hypothesis 4 Development orientation

• Army employees would to a greater extent perceive that the leader shows a development orientation compared with Air Force and Navy employees.

• Hypothesis 4 did not receive support since the Navy employees perceived to a greater extent that the leader showed a development orientation compared to Army and Air Force employees

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Conclusions

• Employees in the Army experienced the highest degree of BLB, and in two of the three subcategories: role model and mission focus.

• Employees of the Air Force experienced the lowest degree of BLB.

• Employees of the Navy experienced the highest degree of development orientation, while employees of the Air Force experienced this to the lowest degree.

• More professionalism in the Army, less leadership education in the Air Force.

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Conclusions

A high degree of individualism in the Air Force may contribute to less willingness of effort and engagement with regard to community tasks.

However, the effect sizes were very small and indicated that there were no real differences between the three branches.

Thank you for your attention

[email protected]

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