OurColony.net

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 theparticipants. 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.