Military organizations are bureaucratic, hierarchical (Alvinius 2013) and meritocratic (Castilla and Benard 2010) in their design, which includes not only inherit challenges but also opportunities for the organizational members. Military organizations have survived for hundreds of years and therefore it is assumed that their design makes the organization functional, alive and proper (Andrzejewski 1954). It is seldom that one associates military organizations with dysfunctional organizational aspects, which is the focus of this study. However, military organizations have been challenged by numerous societal changing processes such as globalization, professionalization and social and technical acceleration (Holmberg and Hallenberg 2017; Rosa 2013). These processes may have caused changes in perceptions of time (due to social acceleration). Changes in norms, values, policies, strategies and practices have affected the military organizations at several levels, from the individual to the international political level (Holmberg and Hallenberg 2017; Moskos et al. 2000; Tresch and Leuprecht 2010). Potential challenges to organizations in general and the armed forces in particular may be experienced as negative aspects of organizational structure. There is a lack of knowledge regarding how these societal challenges affect military organizations and how military leaders cope with them.
A potentially important factor when it comes to organizational management of demanding challenges imposed by the political level is leadership at the strategic level. Leaders play an important role in creating organizational tasks, roles and visions, and consequently, leadership positions are crucial for developing organizational life, both functional and dysfunctional (Burton 2002; Caldwell and Canuto-Carranco 2010; Fors Brandebo 2015; Harvey et al. 2006). Alongside influence through the traditional chain of command, a higher level of leadership has been found to have an impact on lower levels through behavioral and emotional contagion processes (Johnson 2008) and through image influences of favorable or unfavorable role model (Larsson et al. 2005).
At the individual level, a leader’s handling of organizational demands can be understood as a special case of coping (Lazarus 1999). Generally speaking, coping serves two main functions: the management of the actual source of stress (problem-focused coping) and the regulation of stressful emotions (emotion-focused coping; Lazarus and Folkman 1984). Both coping processes coexist, but managers tend to focus on problem-focused form of coping (Larsson et al. 1988). Since problem-focused coping efforts by definition focus on problems in a given situation, they tend to be more dependent on contextual conditions than the more generic kinds of emotion-focused coping.
No reasonably recent study (last two decades) was found that focused on problem-focused coping strategies used by military leaders at the strategic level. Given the strong societal demands imposed by the societal level on the military organization and the potentially great importance the strategic leaders place on the problem-focused coping, this was surprising. This gap was a point of departure in the present study. However, in order to avoid a decontextualized individual psychological approach, we also strived to situate the strategic-level leaders’ problem-focused coping efforts to a multidisciplinary organizational theoretical framework (explicated in the following).
Thus, the aims of this study were to (1) gain a deeper understanding of coping strategies used by the military leaders at the strategic level to manage everyday organizational demands and (2) relate these strategies to multidisciplinary models of organizational challenges.
Researchers on dysfunctional organizational aspects have explored the issue using different interdisciplinary approaches. The following part frames and links organizational, psychological, business administration/financial and sociological views on the dark sides of the organizational behavior. A brief introduction and summary of previous research on the concepts of organizational narcissism (ON), organizational anorexia (OA) and organizational greed (OG) are given in the following, which are used as a framework in the following analysis of our own empirical data.
According to Grant and McGhee (2013), ON occurs in a number of industrial businesses and other private sectors where it has even been blamed for the collapse of organizations. Analyses using ON are usually focused on individuals’ behavior, mostly managers and leaders, which contributes to unhealthy, egocentric organizational culture (Grant and McGhee 2013). When such a phenomenon is revealed by the media or by a whistleblower, there are often major consequences for human well-being, creativity, skills loss and ultimately the organization’s survival (Rosenblatt and Sheaffer 2001).
Difficulties dealing with narcissism in organizations are often due to employees at all levels who become “blind” to unethical behavior and begin to “mimic” the normed behavior of others, thus perpetuating the unhealthy culture (Gini 1997; Jackall 1988). Some researchers have identified particular aspects of ON (Brown 1997; Tobacyk and Mitchell 1987). The first of these criteria includes
Anorexic organizations are fraught with restrictions. They are operationalized in several definitions that make up theoretically derived indicators for further empirical analysis. These include reorganization, redeployment, health and safety risks due to cutting of resources and stress-related consequences.
The Swedish Armed Forces is one of the largest authorities in Sweden and is headed by a Supreme Commander. This authority is subject to the Swedish parliament and the Swedish government. The central command of the Swedish Armed Forces is located in the headquarters (HQ), which also houses the supervising missions of the Operative Unit in Sweden and abroad. The HQ is the highest level of command in the Swedish Armed Forces. Its predominant task is to command operations, and it is also involved in matters such as military strategy, the development of the Swedish Armed Forces and in acting as a channel of communication with the government. Army, naval and airborne units, as well as schools and centers, train the various units, which are then deployed nationally or internationally.
Inspired by the guidelines for generating theory on an empirical basis (Grounded Theory) as developed by Glaser and Strauss (1967), the selection of informants was carried out with the aim of gathering the greatest possible variety of experiences. Two military contacts at the Swedish Defence University were asked to suggest interviewees, including both men and women with a variety of experience in the Swedish Armed Forces. Such a selection may be described as a convenience sample because it is not random and instead utilizes chosen contacts to make the selection of informants (Essaiasson et al. 2007; Morse 2007).
The empirical material is based on 23 interviews, two of which were performed with women. The main reason for only two female informants is because of the imbalance in the number of women in senior positions in the Swedish Armed Forces. The organization is still traditionally male dominated (Alvinius et al. 2016a). The informants had a wide experience of a number of leadership positions, as well as participation in international operations. They had ranks as colonels or brigadier generals, and they represented army and naval units, the HQ and the Swedish Defence University. The informants’ ages varied from 47 to 61 years. In all, 10 individuals came from the army and 13 informants had a naval background. Airborne units were not represented in this study.
The data collection approach was inductive and explorative. The interviews conducted for this study adhered to an interview guide consisting of open-ended questions, followed-up with individually tailored questions such as “tell me more”, “in what way” and “can you give me an example”. The themes chosen were as follows: (1) background questions focused on personal information, education and national and international staff experience; (2) present staff work in terms of (a) experience of various aspects of stress at work and challenging situations, (b) experience of ways to handle the stress and demanding situations, (c) experience of leadership, communication and ways to influence the decision-making process; (3) work life/private life balance and (4) the image of the HQ as perceived by the units.
The individual interviews were held by the authors in the spring and summer of 2014 and in the spring of 2015 at the informants’ place of employment. Three interviews were conducted over the telephone, and three interviews took place at the Swedish Defence University. The reason for three of the interviews being conducted over the telephone was because of the hectic work situation of one informant and the long geographical distance in two cases. The interviews lasted for ~45 to 90 minutes, and all were recorded with the interviewees’ consent. All interviews were conducted and later analyzed by the authors.
All interviews were recorded and transcribed in full. The first phase of the data analysis was inductive. It consisted of four steps, the first of which was known as open coding, which involved identifying units of meaning or codes in each individual interview (Glaser and Strauss 1967; Glaser 2011). These could, for example, include special lines of thought, feelings or actions related to the interview’s sphere of enquiry. An example of a code is given as follows:
This quote was coded as “advisors that influence the chief of staff”. The second step in the analysis consisted of evaluating and categorizing the codes according to similarity in the content. From the abovementioned example, the code was then sorted into the category “influencing factors”, which in the third step was sorted into the overarching category “using informal strategies”. The fourth and final step involved a comparison between overarching categories, categories and codes, generating a core variable “leader’s coping strategies” consisting of five identified strategies: (1) repair work, (2) catching up, (3) reproducing, (4) using informal strategies and (5) managing loyalties.
The second phase of the analysis was theory driven. The five inductively generated coping strategies mentioned earlier were related to the framework provided by the concepts on ON, OA and OG in order to identify their expressions in the military context.
According to the data analysis, the informants are experiencing organizational challenges due to the societal and political superstructure with a perceived imbalance between assigned tasks and resources. These challenges lead to negative intraorganizational characteristics such as ON, OA and OG. These, in turn, create a need for leaders at the strategic level to cope with these demands. The inductive analysis resulted in an identification of five such coping strategies, which, together, form the core variable
The core variable Leader’s coping strategies is built up of five categories presented in the following. They are (1) repair work, (2) catching up, (3) reproducing, (4) using informal strategies and (5) managing loyalties. Within each of these coping strategies, the analysis has yielded outcomes that we have interpreted as being relevant to handle each of the three organizational challenges ON, OA and OG.
ON is characterized by aspects where individuals in leadership positions put their own needs first. However, awareness of these needs makes informants reflect on them. Narcissism in the organizational setting can be handled through the leader doing his/her best to have similar levels of requirements on him/herself as they do on their followers: OA is characterized by deficiencies of various types of resources, both material and personnel related. The consequences of OA, austerity and pressure are dealt with by methods developed for solving tasks in the shortest possible time frame, in an attempt to reduce the workload to a more manageable level. OG is characterized by excessive internal organizational demands on the individual by the organization, sense of belonging and loyalty and demands on availability and commitment. These demands were often perceived by the informants as steadily increasing over time. An example is demands on constant availability, which is gained at the price of an individual’s freedom. OG is managed through a leader’s increased awareness that all staff are not able to deliver or be constantly available all the time for the sake of the organization. ON is dealt with through “catching up” in several different ways. One way reported was leaders readily admitting mistakes when it was necessary to communicate accurate information rather than a positively skewed version. OA is also dealt with through being aware of all the additional tasks that are assigned to staff at the political level. In the following, an informant describes the stress that is caused when several tasks arrive on top of each other, often redundant, and how he/she tries to handle it: With the help of “catching up” strategies, OG can be dealt with by using several temporary solutions, such as having a pool of readily available personnel who can fill in when the organization needs it, often with a short notice: ON is reproduced due to the lack of contact and understanding between the military units and HQ. This in turn leads to the presence of preconceived notions between the organizational levels. OA is reproduced by leaders who are aware of the need to make tough decisions regarding cutbacks: OG is reproduced through the different strategies from HQ in order for the military units to follow decisions that they have made, including maintaining high demands on personnel: ON regarding an overfocus inwards is handled best through communication in the group using open discussion: OA and downsizing are also managed in both formal and informal ways: OG is managed by establishing/setting up formal and informal processes in order to ease the demands of certain work tasks: ON and loyalties are managed through civil courage, being honest and being loyal toward the task: OA and cutbacks place demands on the individual to pay their own travel costs to and from work: OG and balancing loyalties are often described as the need to have a balance between work and private life:
The aims of this study were to (1) gain a deeper understanding of coping strategies used by the military leaders at the strategic level to manage everyday organizational demands and (2) relate these strategies to multidisciplinary models of organizational challenges.
The five coping strategies found among high-level military commanders for handling organizational demands show resemblances to previous research on how leaders in organizations such as the military, the police and the rescue services handle day-to-day stressors (in contrast to operational stressors; e.g., Larsson et al. 2016, 1988).
Despite these similarities, the identified strategies are somewhat different and unique for this organizational setting and thus constitute a new finding. However, it should be noted that the conceptual boundaries between the five problem-focused coping strategies are weak and there are overlaps between them. It should also be noted that our interpretation of the degree to which an aspect of a given coping strategy can be seen as an indicator of ON, OA and OG varies in conceptual prototypicality. Our claims are based on interpretations of the informants’ self-reports rather than an objective comparison of the data with an organization’s theoretical checklist. As such, the present methodological approach is in line with previous organizational research according to Bryman and Bell (2015). Thus, the coping strategies and their suggested organizational theoretical framework need to be further studied.
Another new aspect in this case is that it was possible to connect individual leaders’ coping strategies to each of the organizational phenomena such as narcissism, anorexia and greed. In this respect, the connection between the individual and organizational levels is more specific than that addressed in previous organization-oriented writings on task-oriented military leadership (Greenleaf and Spears 2002; Larsson et al. 2005; Soeters 2000; Weibull 2003). It is also more contextually situated than in previous individual-oriented research on problem-focused coping (Larsson et al. 2016; Lazarus and Folkman 1984).
According to the data analysis, we can conclude that the way the informants coped with organizational challenges can be understood in two ways. These leaders not only try to cope themselves but also aim to help the coping of others, i.e., their subordinates. This could be described as a kind of organizational-level coping rather than individual-level coping, since it has a wider base of interest in an organization and is related to the tasks and role expectations set for leaders in general.
According to the suggested model, societal and political pressure creates an imbalance between assigned tasks and resources, which in turn leads to negative intraorganizational characteristics. Societal changes such as globalization (Forster 2006; Holmberg and Hallenberg 2017) and social acceleration (Rosa 2013) have affected all organizations in general and military organizations in particular. It is reasonable to expect that military organizations deal with societal challenges differently because of their special position in society (Holmberg and Hallenberg 2017) and that they develop elements of negative organizational behavior such as narcissism, anorexia or greed (Alvinius et al. 2016b). This phenomenon has been addressed by Moskos et al. (2000) in the early 2000s. Researchers recognized that postmodern military organizations’ exclusivity has been questioned. According to Holmberg (2015), military organizations are going through a process of normalization that includes transformation in accordance to civilian organizations and societies at large. Civilian norms, such as gender equality, rights of homosexuals, parental leave and economic management, are just a few changes that have been incorporated within military organizations. We believe that all organizations have characteristics such as narcissism, anorexia and greed to some extent, but military organizations are experiencing them as consequences of societal demands. Thus, the coping strategies of leaders at the strategic level may be different in other kinds of organizations than the ones identified in this study.
Methodologically, it should be mentioned that this investigation is a case study and as such does not permit generalizations. However, this was not the goal of this qualitative study. In the general terms of Glaser and Strauss (1967), “Partial testing of theory, when necessary, is left to more rigorous approaches (sometimes qualitative but usually quantitative). These come later in the scientific enterprise” (p. 103). It should be emphasized that the concepts derived from the data may be of a sensitizing, rather than a definitive, character to use the words of Blumer (1954). It should also be noted that the study relies on self-reported data only. It may be inaccurate, and a broader range of data would have been desirable. Although the interview data are based on a limited number of informants, this form of information is important as it contributes to our understanding of the leadership challenges and the relationship between problems that may arise with negative organizational aspects in a military context.
We have one main suggestion for future research. The generalizability of the present findings needs to be evaluated, both the leadership coping strategies and the suggested organization theory framing them.
Regarding practical implications, the model may be practical when it comes to selection, retention and leadership development of high-level military officers. Knowledge of how military leaders associate with the organization could be useful for interventions aimed at developing talent and enhancing employee performance as well as counteracting turnover intentions. For the organization, working with core values might be fruitful for developing mentoring programs (reducing the feeling of loneliness) and considering how to foster emotional bonds between the individual and the organization.