EFFECTIVE CHANGE LEADERSHIP BEHAVIORS IN STRATEGIC AND
TACTICAL SITUATIONS
Master thesis, MscBA, specialization Change Management University of Groningen, Faculty of Management and Organization
Second draft March 11, 2014 GERT SCHAAIJ Student number: 1622684 Wibenaheerd 228 9736 PP Groningen Tel.: +31 (0)6 13 34 45 29 e-mail: g.schaaij@student.rug.nl Supervisor/ university Dr. U. Y. Eseryel
Second advisor/ university Dr. C. Reezigt
Supervisor/ field of study B. Terlouw
Title: Effective strategic and tactical change leadership behaviors Abbreviated title: Leadership behavior in strategy and tactics
Abstract
INTRODUCTION
Literature on change very often start with quotes on failure percentages of change efforts to emphasize how difficult it is to change (e.g. Kotter, 2007; Vilkinas & Ladyshewsky, 2011; Oreg & Berson, 2011; Soumyaja, Kamalanabhan & Bhattacharyya, 2011; Argyris, 1973; Brown, 2012; De Smet, Lavoie & Hioe, 2012; Higgs & Rowland, 2005, 2010, 2011; Lyons, Swindler & Offner, 2009; Jones, Jimmieson & Griffiths, 2005; Armenakis, Harris & Mossholder, 1993). By providing certain steps or insights, these percentages can be brought down, such is the general implication. This study also tries to help leaders to get insight in the dynamics of change and how they can behave in order to go through change processes more successfully.
Much research has been done in this area, and a lot of factors have arisen that need to be considered in order to successfully implement changes. Change leadership behavior has been indicated over and over as one of these factors. It is often indicated as a pivotal factor in success or failure of a change effort (Lyons et al., 2009; Armenakis et al., 1993; Cocklin & Wilkinson, 2011; Kotter, 2007; Smet et al., 2012; Oreg & Berson, 2011; Greenberg & Sweeney, 2011; Van Hove, 2012; Doherty & Wells, 1997; Kets De Vries, Vrignaud, Agrawal & Florent-Treacy, 2010; Argyris, 1973; Zaleznik 2004; Yukl, Gordon & Taber, 2002; Brown, 2012; Higgs & Rowland, 2005; Larsson & Vinberg, 2012). Weick & Quinn (1999) take a more aggregated view and note the shifted role of leadership in change. They point to a new era in change literature, where change is seen as a continuous process. Therefore new leadership abilities are necessary such as sensemaking, dialogue and recognizing adaptive emergent change (Weick & Quinn,1999). Yukl et al. (2002) combine these two approaches, on the one hand seeing the changed landscape of modern organizations and the need for continuous change and on the other hand developing a list of practical leadership behaviors. There has not been extensive research about the practical implications of Yukl et al’s (2002) theory.
aim of this research is to provide such a causal model acuminated on the behaviors of leaders that are successful in respectively strategic and tactical situations. Strategic decisions are situations in which top management develops and sustains a competitive advantage and superior performance so that the mission is fulfilled (Herazo, Lizarralde & Paquin, 2012). Strategic decisions incorporate organizational learning, which results in best practices that become part of the strategy. Harrington & Ottenbacher (2009) say that although ‘strategy’ or ‘strategic’ is difficult to define, a common demeanor is that it involves the long-term direction of an organization. Furthermore, strategic management is concerned with getting the organization aligned with its environment and capitalize on that. Strategic thinking therefore, has always the element of change in it, maneuvering the organization to a place in the market where it performs best (Mintzberg, 1989). However important, strategic decisions are, some type of decisions (Rosenzweig, 2013) are urgent and must be handled resolutely. A strategy may not be on the shelf for such a situation. In that case the tactical level is important. Henriksen & Andersen (2010) say that the tactical level is often overlooked, while it is important nonetheless, because it is the place where strategy gets translated into practice. Herazo et al. (2012) therefore equate the tactical level with project management: ‘responding to precise objectives in the short term’. Tactical management is concerned with the short to midterm. The notion of strategic and tactical situations is helpful but is also depending on perspective. Quinn (1980) proposed that a situation can be tactical and strategic depending on the person looking at it. For a CEO, a decision can be operational, whereas the very same decision can be strategic in attaining operational goals for a sales manager. For this study, the perspective of the leader will be taken throughout the text.
In applying the model from Yukl et al. (2002) in a strategic change situation versus a tactical situation, other relevant factors may come forth. The behaviors that are effective in a situation where a change effort is involved are different in strategic and tactical situations. Behaviors that are effective in strategic situations, are different from those where the strategy is merely implemented. Different behaviors lead to different perceived leadership styles. That is why the research question of this thesis is stated:
To answer this research question this study will examine the literature on leadership behaviors. The behaviors are based on Yukl et al. (2002) and expanded through further literature research. Leadership behavior in general and the behaviors that influence perceived strategic and tactical leadership are explained first. Following that the literature on strategic and tactical leadership in teams going through change will be discussed. And an expectation of the results based on this literature will be given.
THEORY
Leadership behaviorThe theoretical concept of leadership behavior is broadly defined as ‘a distributed function that may be seen as a process or practice exhibited at many levels in an organization’ (Higgs & Rowland, 2010). It encompasses roles, attitudes, competencies and actual behaviors. Andersson (2009) distinguishes three different leadership behavior concepts: leadership style, decision making style and motivation profile. In leadership style Yukl et al.’s (2002) distinction between task, relationship and change orientation is often used. The decision making style is evolved from Carl Jungs classic archetypes and divided in sensing, intuition, feeling and thinking. Finally the motivation profile zooms in on achievement, affiliation and power motivation (McClelland, 1987). The scope of this text is limited to leadership style as defined by Andersson (2009) and Yukl et al. (2002).
leadership has directed its focus on transformational leadership (Bass & Stogdill, 1990), and has led to a characterization of specific transformational leadership behaviors by Carless, Wearing & Mann (2000). These include communicating a vision, developing staff, providing support, empowering staff, being innovative, leading by example and being charismatic. Some of these behaviors are found directly in Yukl et al.’s (2002) model and others, e.g. being charismatic, are not. Yukl et al. (2002), however, state that what is described by them as relations and change oriented behavior mirrors these transformational leadership behaviors of Carless et al. (2000).
For this research the framework of Yukl et al. (2002) is chosen as a starting point. This is called the hierarchical taxonomy of leadership (see table 1). As mentioned, it consists of the metacategories ‘task oriented behavior’, ‘relations oriented behavior’ and ‘change oriented behavior’. The relevant leadership behaviors found in literature who are not included in this model are categorized and discussed in light of Yukl et al.’s (2002) division. When Yukl et al. (2002) describe the process by which they added behaviors to their model they name the following criteria:
Table 1. Hierarchical Taxonomy of Leader Behavior (Yukl et al., 2002) Task Behavior
Plan short-term activities
Clarify task objectives and role expectations
Monitor operations and performance Relations Behavior
Provide support and encouragement
Provide recognition for achievements and contributions
Develop member skill and confidence
Consult with members when making decisions
Empower members to take initiative in problem solving Change Behavior
Monitor the external environment
Propose an innovative strategy or new vision
Encourage innovative thinking
- These are not three mutually exclusive metacategories (task, relation, change), therefore the behaviors need to have primary relevance for one metacategory. Although they can have relevance for the other categories.
- To increase the validity of measurement, the behavior needs to be directly observable. - The behaviors need to be relevant to all types of leaders in organizations, in order to make the model as widely applicable as possible and not for example be limited to top management teams.
- Every behavior has to be confirmed in previous leadership research.
Firstly the three task behaviors will be described, these consist of:
Plan short term activities. This is defined as a summary of activities in small increments. The plan answers questions like what, how, who, when. The result of this is a written plan, often followed by meetings where the plan is discussed and revised accordingly (Yukl et al., 2002).
Clarify Responsibilities. Addresses both setting objectives and determining who will meet these goals. Goals should be set realistically but challenging. This has proven to lead to increased performance (Yukl et al., 2002). Clarifying can be broken down in clarity of roles and clarity of tasks. In strategic leadership it is important to be aware of the roles different people have, what their authority is, how they relate to each other and so on. ‘Whom is involved?’ is the relevant question. In tactical leadership, on the other hand, clarity of tasks is more important. Here, the roles are clear and implementation is at hand. ‘Who does what?’ is the distinguishing question.
Monitor operations and performance. Monitoring focusses employee attention if it is apparent what is being monitored. Making employees aware of which indicators are monitored is therefore a requirement. Monitoring can for example be reading reports, quality inspection, observation, progress meetings etcetera (Yukl et al., 2002).
Provide support and encouragement. Providing support is about showing genuine concern for people’s feelings, accepting people and showing them consideration. An important aspect in which genuine consideration is displayed is approaching people according to their personal needs. Oreg & Berson (2011) note, for example, that this should be part of leadership development programs, where a focus should be on followers orientation towards change. A test like the Belbin team role inventory (Belbin, 2000) could help in this respect. Smet et al. (2012) found that genuine concern and listening to employees can be trained.
Provide recognition for achievements and contributions. Yukl et al. (2002) shorten this category to recognizing. Recognizing is showing visible appreciation for achievements and contributions to a project or the organization. This involves most of the time giving rewards, whether it be tangible or intangible. General consensus exists about the positive effects of rewards in terms of employee satisfaction and increased performance (Yukl et al., 2002). One specific way to do this is to focus on strengths (Kaiser & Overfield, 2011, Smet et al., 2012). They argue that focusing on strengths can potentially lead to far greater benefits than focusing on countering weaknesses. This touches upon the Appreciative Inquiry literature (Cooperrider & Srivastva, 1987) which has the same premise. Kaiser & Overfield (2011) warn against too great a focus on strengths. According to them this can result in a narrow perspective in detriment of developing other aspects.
Consult with members when making decisions. Involvement in decision making can lead to better decisions. Furthermore, these decisions will also be more readily accepted. This process can act as a catalyst for change (Brown & May, 2012). Important components of involvement are: collaboration across organizational boundaries, dialogue and inspiring employees when they feel overwhelmed (Smet et al., 2012).
Empower members to take initiative in a problem solving. This entails delegation, giving employees more authority and autonomy. It can also mean empowering team members by providing necessary resources such as time, money and information. When an employee has more information, empowering them can lead to more informed and therefore better decisions. A common mistake is to take empowering separate from other behaviors such as supporting and recognizing. This form of pure delegation will lead to worse results, because employees will feel left alone. Empowering backed with support and recognizing leads to improved performance because employees have freedom to take advantage of their full potential while getting support where necessary and being motivated by the recognition received. In order to empower team members it is required to be aware of their capabilities and specifically their strong points (Smet et al., 2012; Kets De Vries et al, 2012). Strengths-based leadership can be helpful because the focus is on improving competitive advantages a company already possesses. The idea behind this is that capitalizing on strengths will yield greater results than averaging out weaknesses (cf. Cooperrider and Srivastva, 1987). A negative effect of this perspective is that employees can forget to take a broader view, and focus only on certain aspects while completely neglecting others. This can result for example in not choosing challenging goals (Kaiser & Overfield, 2011).
2005). In a similar vein, heterogenous teams are more likely to be effective compared to homogenous teans when the longer the team is together. Team composition influence on team effectiveness is explained because the composition of the team affects the knowledge and skills present. In team composition, surface-level and deep-level variables are important. Surface-level composition variables consist for example of demographic factors like gender, age etcetera. Deep-level composition characteristics, on the other hand are factors like personality traits, skills, experience etcetera. Finally, Arnulf (2012) adds that strong personalities can influence the readiness to change within a team. This is caused by the rigidity that follows the dominance of one or a few team members.
Humility. This point draws mostly on the work of Owens & Hekman (2012). They make the case for the humble leader on basis of the definition that humility is learning and receiving from those with less power. Davis, Hook, Worthington, Van Tongeren, Gartner & Emmons (2011) define a humble leader as someone who is more other-oriented than self-focused, without superiority and is accurate in the perception of the self, neither too high or too low. The complexity of today’s organizational environment forces managers to embrace bottom-up aspects of leadership. Therefore, humility will enable leaders to harness the knowledge and experience of followers. One important aspect of being a humble leader is modeling teachability (the ability and openness to learn). This can help the organization learn and adapt quicker to a changing environment. Enabling the entire organization to reap the benefits of lessons learned by others. Elrod (2013) focusses on the art of listening in order to learn from others. Listening, he says, is the difference between confidence and arrogance. It is the awareness of both strengths and weaknesses that allows the humble leader to be confident and open to learning at the same time. Davis et al. (2011) note that humility is hard to measure in self-reports because in general, really humble people would not call themselves humble. Humility has been found to enable trust (Elrod, 2013) and is part of transformational leadership (Landrum, 2011).
Table 2. Similar Relations Behaviors in Earlier Measures Selection
BTRSPI (Belbin, 2000)
16PF5 (Cattel, 1966)
TSI (Anderson & Burch, 2003)
TCI (Anderson and West, 1994, 1998, 1999)
diversity index (Blau, Falbe, McKinley, Tracy, 1976) Humility
Honesty-humility (HH) subscale of HEXACO-PI (Lee & Ashton, 2004)
IAT-HA (Powers, Nam, Rowatt & Hill, 2007; Rowatt, Powers, Targhetta, Comer, Kennedy & Labouff, 2006)
RHS-71 (Davis et al., 2011)
DHS (Landrum, 2011)
Thirdly, Yukl et al. (2002) describe four change behaviors, these are supplemented by another four change behaviors that were found in other literature sources. The change behavivors are:
Monitor the external environment. This is identifying threats and opportunities, often done as part of a SWOT-analysis. These can lay in the areas of supply chain, customer preferences, trends, economic conditions etcetera. An executive needs to be sensitive to this information and can increase this sensitivity by reading industry reports, attend congresses and trade meetings, market research, reading competitors reports, networking, etcetera). Yukl et al. (2002) distinguish between identifying problems and proposing solutions. Identifying problems is a form of sensemaking, thereby helping employees to cope with change (Higgs & Rowland, 2005). Solutions are deliberately delayed until employees also see the problem, which causes employees to be more open to changes.
thoroughly communicated and easily transferable and perceived as challenging but attainable. When this is done right the possible benefits are an increased sense of urgency, trust in leadership (Ely et al., 2012) and commitment to change (Kotter, 2007).
Encourage innovative thinking. Consisting both of being innovative and helping others to be innovative, being innovative is part of the set of transformational leadership behaviors (Carless et al., 2000). Michaelis (2009) views innovative behavior as a practice, and therefore, it can be controlled. To encourage innovative thinking Michaelis (2009) states that it needs to be incorporated in the organizations’ reward systems. Another aspect of making this behavior part of the organization is role modelling which is described below.
Take risks to promote necessary changes. Change always entails a certain amount of risk. Especially in case of fierce resistance to change. Being a change agent can lead to a loss of status or reputation when change fails or with a group that rejects the new vision. Yukl et al. (2002) name a diminished reputation, derailed career and personal rejection as the most common forms of risk taking. A leader has to bear these risks if he or she wants to make a change.
Commitment. Defined as both comprehending and supporting the goals and objectives of something or someone (Barton & Ambrosini, 2013) The leader of the organization is looked upon for guidance and his or her commitment is an important factor in followers’ commitment to change (Brown & May, 2012). The hierarchical distance influences this relationship (Hill, Seo, Kang & Taylor, 2012). The further away from the fire, the cooler the passion for change. When the leader takes a public commitment it inspires trust among followers. This becomes stronger when they see the potential cost for the leader, e.g. in terms of reputation (Yukl et al., 2002). Showing commitment has been found to increase ownership (Barton & Ambrosini (2013).
change effort. Therefore, the leader needs to subject himself to monitoring and development of his own behavioral patterns. Only when this is done, they can inspire and train others in the necessary changes. Michaelis (2009) adds upon this by noting that this will increase commitment to change with followers, because it increases trust, resulting in a more likely successful implementation. Role modeling is especially crucial when it comes to behaviors that do not have the backing of formal reward systems (Yaffe & Kark, 2011).
Self-awareness. The phrase ‘nosce te ipsum’ (know yourself) has been in use by the ancient Greeks and Romans since the dawn of philosophy and science. In recent years it has been conceptualized as a three-dimensional construct (Ashley & Reiter-Palmon, 2012): private self-consciousness, public self-consciousness and social anxiety. For this research the first part is most interesting. Having a high sense of self-awareness leads to a high ability to reflect upon the self and the organization. This can help managers avoid getting ‘stuck’ as Higgs & Rowland (2011) call it. According to Ely et al. (2011), people in leadership positions internalize a leader identity. It causes them to have an elevated sense of purpose. Having this sense of purpose, it is important to concretize it. Because when leaders concretize their purpose, they can lead others towards their goals. Oreg & Berson (2011) found that this mechanism increases performance. Argyris (1973) proposes a leadership group training to make this practical and help leaders concretize their vision. Leaders should be trained for example in reflective skills through means of peer feedback. Peer feedback has been found to increase self-awareness (Mayo, Kakarika, Pastor & Brutus, 2012).
or her exchange agreement with the employer’ (Dabos & Rousseau, 2013). According to Smet et al. (2012), when employees feel overwhelmed managers need to inspire them. Also they should promote collaboration across organizational boundaries and finally help employees embrace change programs with the use of dialogue. These three points are close to the concept of emergent change (Mintzberg, 1989). Higgs & Rowland (2010) found that emergent change is the most effective, more so than planned change. Emergent change includes incorporating elusive elements in the change process.
Table 3. Similar Relations Behaviors in Earlier Measures Commitment
ACOCS (Meyer & Herscovitch, 2002)
HKW Goal Commitment Scale (Neubert & Cady, 2001)
OCQ (Hartline & Ferrel, 1996) Lead-by-example
GTL (Carless et al., 2000)
Role Model Scale (Rich, 1997)
TLI (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Moorman & Fetter, 1990) Self-awareness
Self-Consciousness Scale (Fenigstein, Scheier & Buss, 1975)
Self-Reflection / Internal State Awareness Scale (Burnkrant & Page, 1984)
Rumination / Reflection Scale (Trapnell & Campbell, 1999)
Self-Reflection / Insight Scale (Grant, Franklin & Langford, 2002)
Self-Awareness Measure (Ashley & Reiter-Palmon, 2012)
ECI (Boyatzis, 1982)
Informal Influence
PCI (Rousseau, 2000)
Table 4. Hierarchical Taxonomy of Leadership Behavior (adapted from Yukl et al., 2002) Task Behavior
Plan short-term activities (Yukl et al., 2002)
Clarify task objectives and role expectations (Yukl et al., 2002)
Monitor operations and performance (Yukl et al., 2002) Relations Behavior
Provide support and encouragement (Yukl et al., 2002)
Provide recognition for achievements and contributions (Yukl et al., 2002)
Develop member skill and confidence (Yukl et al., 2002)
Consult with members when making decisions (Yukl et al., 2002)
Empower members to take initiative in problem solving (Yukl et al., 2002)
Selection (Belbin, 2000; Cattel, 1966; Anderson & Burch, 2003; Anderson and West, 1994, 1999, 1998; Blau, 1977)
Humility (Lee & Ashton, 2004; Powers, Nam, Rowatt & Hill, 2007; Rowatt et al., 2006; Davis et al., 2011; Landrum, 2011)
Change Behavior
Monitor the external environment (Yukl et al., 2002)
Propose an innovative strategy or new vision (Yukl et al., 2002)
Encourage innovative thinking (Yukl et al., 2002)
Take risks to promote necessary changes (Yukl et al., 2002)
Commitment (Meyer & Herscovitch, 2002; Neubert & Cady, 2001; Podsakoff, et al., 1990)
Leading-by-example (Carless et al., 2000; Rich, 1997; Podsakoff et al., 1990)
Self-awareness (Boyatzis, 1982; Ashley & Reiter-Palmon, 2012; Grant, Franklin & Langford, 2002; Trapnell & Campbell, 1999; Burnkrant & Page, 1984; Fenigstein, et al., 1975)
Informal influence (Rousseau, 2000)
Teams going through change
does all the work himself, losing view of the bigger picture (Kanter, 2011). With this in mind it is an interesting question how managers can cope with these two extremes and how they are able to see the bigger picture, without losing sight of practical issues. In the next section this thesis will discuss the actual behaviors that lead a team to be working and thinking strategically effective. First, the characteristics of a strategic situation are described. Management literature has sought answers to the problem of dealing with reasons for change in numerous areas such as structure of the organization (Mintzberg, 1989), management style (Greiner, 1989) and teamculture (Burnes, 2009). Strategy is needed in these kind of situations and this has been subject of management research since the 1950’s. But since Mintzberg (1976) introduced the concept of emergent strategy this concept changed seriously. Before his observations, strategy was thought of as being something of the top management, which was then carefully planned and executed throughout the entire organization. Mintzberg (1976) observation was that strategy formulation was often not more than programming, i.e. seeing what was already going in the organization and designate it strategy. He went on to provide a model in which both intended and emergent strategy together decide the direction of the organization. To be aware of this process, creates possibilities to cope with it effectively. O’Shannassy (2003) gives a distinction between strategic planning and strategic thinking. Where strategic thinking is a process where inputs, technology, people, structure, systems and processes, problem solving, strategic intent, participation and thinking in time come together and producing a vision, solved problems, commitment, flexibility, change management etcetera. And strategic planning is taking these outputs and specify them into operational plans and actions (O’Shannassy, 2003). In this thesis a strategic situation resembles the strategic thinking described above, while a tactical situation is operationalizing the outcomes of the strategic thinking process. Tactical leadership can be described as codification, elaboration and conversion of strategies that were created during strategic sessions to the praxis of the organization.
Effective leadership behaviors in strategic and tactical management
been an area of scholarly interest for many decades and has been well-defined within that time. The combination of these two areas, however, has been less well researched. I.e.: which behaviors are most effective when the aim is to propose strategic changes? This section of this thesis will list the expected effectiveness of behaviors in strategic and tactical situations. The differentiation will be made on basis of O’Shannassy’s (2003) distinction as described in the previous section.
Table 5. Hierarchical Taxonomy of Leadership Behavior (adapted from Yukl et al., 2002)
Leadership behaviors Strategic
situation
Tactical situation Task Behavior
Plan short-term activities X X
Clarify task objectives and role expectations X X
Monitor operations and performance X X
Relations Behavior
Provide support and encouragement X
Develop member skill and confidence X
Provide recognition for achievements and contributions X
Consult with members when making decisions X
Empower members to take initiative in problem solving X
Selection X
Humility X
Change Behavior
Monitor the external environment X
Propose an innovative strategy or new vision X
Encourage innovative thinking X
Take risks to promote necessary changes X
Commitment X
Leading-by-example X
Self-awareness X
Informal influence X
creation of a vision by instigating a sense of purpose. For relations behaviors humility is set in this category. Humility is about getting the best out of people and letting them excel. This coincides with participation principles and employment of people.
Secondly, the behaviors that are expected to be effective in in tactical situations: For change behaviors the first one is ‘taking risks to promote necessary changes’. Yukl et al. (2002) also note this behavior as not having been found directly effective in successful change. It is therefore a behavior that falls in the tactical category. Taking risks helps employees to follow in desired behavior and actions and is therefore helpful in tactical situations. The second behavior is informal influence and is effective in tactical situations because it can reduce resistance to change. By doing so the operational goals will be easier met. The final change behavior is leading-by-example and follows much the same reasoning as taking risks. It is effective because it members will follow the leaders behavior that will lead to attaining the desired outcomes. The relations behaviors that are required in tactical situations start with providing support and encouragement and providing recognition for achievements and contributions. These behaviors are effective because they help affirm the task behaviors by giving employees incentive and support to execute the vision and plans. Empowering is a leadership behavior that is effective in strategic situations because it gives employees the room to make use of their own expertise. Finally selection is effective in this category for it is of pivotal importance to select and acquire people with the right skills, and also to select the right amount of people to get the tasks done.
The above results in the conceptual model found below in figures one and two:
Task behavior
Plan short-term activities Clarify task objectives and role
expectations
Monitor operations and performance Relations behavior
Provide support and encouragement Provide recognition for achievements
and contributions
Empower members to take initiative in problem solving
Selection
Change behavior
Take risks to promote necessary changes
Leading-by-example
Informal Influence
Perceived tactical leadership
Task behavior
Plan short-term activities Clarify task objectives and role
expectations
Monitor operations and performance Relations behavior
Develop member skill and confidence Consult with members when making
decisions Humility
Change behavior
Monitor the external environment Propose an innovative strategy or new
vision
Encourage innovative thinking Commitment
Self-awareness
Perceived strategic leadership
Figure 1. Conceptual model of effective leadership behaviors in strategic situations
METHOD
Contextteam. Because of the history of the organization the team is divided and going in different directions. And the issues at hand force the team to adopt an ‘adhocracy’ approach of managing. The general consensus is a that the organization has ultimately the same goals and therefore every subsidiary could benefit from each other’s input.
Data collection
As mentioned in the introduction the data collection will consist of in-depth interviews of about 90 minutes. Interviews were held with the six members of the management team. table 6 shows their details.
There are two general managers, two divisional managers, and two support staff members. They have been together in this composition for three years. The interview will be held according to the critical incidents technique. Asking them to recall different situations regarding leadership behaviors in change situations over the past three years. Situation one is where strategic thinking was present, situation two is where the focus on an issue was tactical, instead of strategic. These questions will be expanded upon by a list of questions, focusing on the behavior of the general manager. The interviews, when held, are coded with the software suite ‘Kwalitan’.
Critical incident interview protocol. The critical incident technique (CIT) is used for almost sixty years (Butterfield, Borgen, Amundson & Maglio, 2005). In that time it has become a diversely applied qualitative technique. Though the most used method in this technique is interviewing, questionnaires or record forms are not uncommon. It’s originator, Flanagan (1954), describes it as consisting of “a set of procedures for collecting direct observations of human behavior in such a way as to facilitate their potential usefulness in solving practical problems and developing broad psychological principles.” For this research, the ‘human Table 6. Interviewee details
Interviewee Gender age function Experience in current role
1 M 53 General manager 5 years
2 M 55 General/R&D manager 4,5 years
3 M 36 Divisional manager 4 years
4 M 33 Divisional manager 7 years
5 M 63 Financial advisor 38 years
behavior’ is the task, relations and change leadership behavior of the manager as defined by Yukl et al. (2002). The ‘procedures for collecting direct observations’ will be six preliminary interviews among members of the NLT.
First I will give a definition of strategic thinking. Strategic thinking is a process that involves planning through analytical reasoning, creative thought, intuition, an orientation on the future and opening up new possibilities (Kutschera & Ryan, 2009; O’Shannassy, 2003; Dragoni, In-Sue & Tesluk, 2011; Zaleznik, 1977). Second, I will ask the interviewees to describe three different situations in which strategic thinking occurred to a greater or lesser extent (based on an example in Flanagan, 1954).
1. Think of a time when, in your opinion, the team was working on issues strategically. 2. Think of a time when, in your opinion, the team was working on issues tactically as
opposed to strategically.
Every question will be expanded upon by the following eight questions (Hemlin & Olsson, 2011):
a. What was the situation in which the incident occurred?
b. What where the circumstances which led the team, according to you, to think strategically?
c. How would you describe the ingredients necessary for the team to think strategically? d. Where there any members of the team who had a specific role in the process of
strategic thinking?
e. What actions were taken by team members that contributed or opposed strategic thinking?
f. How does the presence of strategic thinking affect your own work?
g. Do you feel the team is adequately equipped to think strategically? And why? h. In this situation, what (could have) helped you to think more strategically?
which is about how people answer questions beginning with ‘why’. It draws on these explanations to make inferences on future actions (Flanagan, 1954). This will lead to a better insight in the dynamics of the situation in the team. These are interesting research outcomes in the effects of leadership behavior on strategic thinking. Subsequently, valuable practical recommendations can be deduced from this. The original use of CIT has been a tool to formulate a hypothesis (Butterfield et al., 2005; Flanagan, 1954) by classifying the obtained data using insights from literature.
Data analysis
The data was analyzed through a three-step process. Firstly a deductive analysis, based on the literature found in the introduction and theory sections. Secondly, the interviews were analyzed inductively in order to enhance the validity of the results. The combined outcomes of the analysis will be discussed in the results section in the final step, the comparative analysis. In this analysis, the results are merged into a definitive outcome of this study. The steps in this process are described in table seven, eight and nine. The deductive and inductive analysis will be explained more in detail below. Finally, these definitive behaviors were then checked against their effectiveness for tactical and strategic leadership decisions.
Table 7. The Changes During the Various Steps of Analysis – Task Behaviors
Step 1: Indicator based on literature/deductive analysis
Step 2: Indicator changes based on inductive interview analysis
Step 3: Indicators in the final content analysis schema
Plan short term activities Plan short term activities
Clarify task objectives and role expectations
Clarify task objectives and role expectations Monitor operations and
performance
Monitor operations and performance
ADDED: Implementing Implementing
Deductive analysis. The interviews were first analyzed using a deductive technique. Table 4 was used as a reference for analyzing. This table, based on Yukl et al. (2002) and expanded with additional and recent literature was the basis for this analysis. The behaviors of table 4 are shortened to the following codes: short-term planning, clarifying, monitoring (task behaviors); supporting, recognizing, developing, consulting, empowering, selection, humility (relations behaviors); external monitoring, envisioning change, encouraging innovative thinking, taking personal risks, committing, leading-by-example, self-awareness, informal influence (change behaviors). These codes were then assigned to matching text fragments in the interviews and divided in positive and negative statements.
Table 8. The Changes During the Various Steps of Analysis – Relations Behaviors
Step 1: Indicator based on literature/deductive analysis
Step 2: Indicator changes based on inductive interview analysis
Step 3: Indicators in the final content analysis schema
Provide support and encouragement
Provide support and encouragement
Provide recognition for achievements and contributions
Provide recognition for achievements and contributions
Develop member skill and confidence
Develop member skill and confidence
Consult with members when making decisions
Consult with members when making decisions
Empower members to take initiative in problem solving
Empower members to take initiative in problem solving
Selection Selection
Humility Humility
ADDED: Participation Participation
ADDED: Taking ownership of decisions
Inductive analysis. The inductive analysis was done in order to increase face validity of this research. This was done in three passes. A first pass where codes were assigned to text fragments describing or referring to leadership behaviors. The results of the first pass were then combined into similar codes. Finally this aggregated code list was used to create categories, similar to the ones found in Yukl et al. (2002). Also, the criteria from the Yukl et al. (2002) article were applied, these criteria are threefold: direct observability, universal applicability and each behavior must have primary relevance to one category of leadership behavior. Those categories are task behavior, relations behavior and change behavior.
Table 9. The Changes During the Various Steps of Analysis – Change Behaviors Step 1: Indicator based on
literature/deductive analysis
Step 2: Indicator changes based on inductive interview analysis
Step 3: Indicators in the final content analysis schema
Monitor the external environment
Monitor the external environment
Propose an innovative strategy or new vision
Propose an innovative strategy or new vision Encourage innovative
thinking
Encourage innovative thinking
Take risks to promote necessary changes
Take risks to promote necessary changes
Committing Committing
Leading-by-example Leading-by-example
Self-awareness Self-awareness
Informal Influence Informal Influence
ADDED: Work from the
vision Work from the vision
ADDED: Create a common
RESULTS
The results section of this paper is divided in three parts. First, the results of the deductive interview analysis, secondly the inductive analysis. Thirdly the findings will be combined in a comparative analysis.
Deductive interview analysis
The interviews were first analyzed using a deductive technique. This resulted in 339 codes, distributed as seen in table ten, eleven and twelve.
Table 10. Distribution of task behavior codes with examples strategic
leadership
tactical leadership Example
Positive relation Negative relation Positive relation Negative relation short-term planning 9 3 16 2 “This is complicated. So we outline a process where we take steps that are necessary to go through this complicated process.”
clarifying 18 1 17 2
“Owner, who is the owner [of the process]? What is the scope, the range of his
responsibility? That is what we need to know”
monitoring 3 - 12 1
“I would feel the need to say: let’s go about this a little bit more traditional. Let’s see how well we do things. And
monitor and see whether we can improve upon that and get more grip on the situation that way.”
task behaviors 30 4 45 5
I think the manager is doing a good job for example with the annual plans. ... Everyone has to hand in his plans … [He] tries to insist on anchoring decisions … that would help us to monitor those [decisions].
In a lot of reactions the interviewees mentioned that for monitoring to be effective, there needs to be sound planning. For example:
The vision needs to be translated into planning, that way we can evaluate: are we on course to attain our goals?
Another important aspect of monitoring is that it is placed in time and it is clear how it happens. Team members need to know when the monitoring takes place:
[to be able to monitor decisions] we need a clearer follow-up plan. For example: we continue this [discussion] in two months. I didn’t see that anywhere.
And monitoring needs to be done in an identifiable way.
Is the plan SMART enough to be monitored? This way we won’t say, it didn’t happen because we were too busy or people weren’t enthusiastic, but: How do we make it work?
We have talked a lot strategically … we’ve been very creative. … But it never got any further than that.
Secondly, the process of strategic thinking also needs planning. Someone has to call a meeting, define the subject, facilitate discussion, et cetera. The third reason is that some things need to be in place in order to be carefree enough to be able to make strategic decisions. This way, doing tactical things and making tactical decisions can be the most strategic thing to do. For example, one interviewee mentioned the pay structure which was not implemented at the time:
One reason is that because it’s a pay structure, you know: it concerns everyone. We don’t do this lightly, we don’t do this often, it will cost a lot of energy.
As was said in the theory section, clarifying can be divided in clarity of roles and clarity of tasks. This is mentioned multiple times. In strategic situations:
First things need to be clarified. … The managers need to be in the right place.
This is something of which I would say … as strategic process: he was owner, knew what he wanted and included the team in taking responsibility.
In tactical situations:
We need a concrete plan … is it SMART enough?
We start by saying what someone has to do.
Table 11. Distribution of relations behavior codes with examples
strategic leadership tactical leadership Example
Positive relation Negative relation Positive relation Negative relation supporting 3 - 9 1
“Frankly, we had to admit that we didn’t go about this the right way. We left him out there by himself.”
recognizing 1 - 3 -
“It (recognizing
contributions) only happens when you trust someone and think: ‘this could be true because he or she says it.’ And if you start feeling that.
developing 10 - 2 2
“Those strategic
conversations have a double function: you are both working on the issues and developed in thinking strategically.”
consulting 16 3 4 3
“I think interaction contributed … We were involved”
empowering 7 1 8 -
“This has to be discussed in the NLT, because there we discuss things like mandate and room required [finances and time] to support this plan.”
selection 7 1 11 -
“So it has been a great move to make him responsible [for communication]. … He is a great projectmanager.”
humility 7 - - -
“In that sense, everyone had a listening attitude, tried to listen actively, to fathom what was being told.” relations
behaviors 51 5 37 6
situations, resources like money, information and time are more important, whereas in strategic situations intangibles as authority and autonomy are more important. For example, about a tactical situation one team member mentioned:
And then we lacked the time, we didn’t give ourselves time. That was an influencing factor.
One team member goes into the dynamics of authority in a strategic leadership situations and points out the importance of a clear chain of command.
There was no owner of the process [about communication]. [xxx] was responsible, but … the team lacked the mandate.
In selecting team members there is a strategic and tactic element as well. In strategic situations the question is about the sort of people the leader selects, with a focus on ensuring the continued identity and vitality of the organization or team.
It has a lot to do with the employees you hire, … do the employees live out our identity? And that is not as scalable as, say, in a painting job.
In tactical situations, it becomes more important that there are enough people to do the work that has been prepared.
I think that the one with whom I talked with most about strategy … also understood best what the strategic interest was.
Strategic leadership behaviors are further characterized by humility. An aspect of humility is learning from employees, as one manager describes this about a situation where the organization is making contact with another organization with an interesting business model:
So all our divisions are getting into contact with 3DM. … It is important for me to also read the book on this subject.
Furthermore this is described as being a longstanding part of the organizations practice when asked about the vision of the organization:
People who make the plans should also be able to implement them. I was also given the space to make plans and innovate. Of course I reported, but it wasn’t a process at the top.
This section is concluded with a behavior that is seen as being effective in tactical leadership situations. Supporting behaviors help leaders to be perceived as tactical. It helps to alleviate a feeling of failure and also creates freedom and room to improve work.
I see it … as supporting: you started with people and you can help them along the way.
There is also opportunity in supportive leadership, when employees feel their contributions are welcome and given thorough consideration, they will feel free to share their ideas. One interviewee refers to a time when he didn’t feel supported and saw some good ideas go to waste:
Table twelve shows the frequencies and examples of change behaviors. These will be discussed below.
Table 12. Distribution of change behavior codes with examples
strategic leadership tactical leadership Example
Positive relation Negative relation Positive relation Negative relation external monitoring 20 - 6 1
“I think as a division, they think a lot about who they are, where do we want to go, what is our value added, how do we relate to other players on the market, how do we work on quality?”
envisioning change 30 1 13 5
“My highest goal long term is having a healthy group of people, who are motivated to do their work.”
encourage
innovative thinking 21 1 4 4
“We can only tackle a subject when we have a goal, and someone to support us to reach that goal. Or if that isn’t possible, put someone on the project or entrust it to someone else. I would say: ultimately it’s the responsibility of the leader, whomever that may be, to recognize this sort of thing and put it on the agenda.”
taking personal
risks 2 - 2 -
First off, the change behaviors only seen as being effective in strategic situations are discussed. External monitoring is a typical change behavior that is applicable in strategic situations. Elements of this behavior include contact with various organizations, as mentioned below:
There is more and more talk with various organizations
Table 12. Distribution of change behavior codes with examples (continued)
strategic leadership tactical leadership Example
Positive relation Negative relation Positive relation Negative relation committing 8 1 4 -
“We have thought about this (female leadership) a few times and it was… It lies waiting… Nobody really has a sense of urgency around the subject.”
leading-by-example 5 1 4 -
“I think I am a champion and have a lot of
contacts.”
self-awareness 12 1 3 -
“I experienced this (training) as a moment where I didn’t feel very good, mentally. I felt crushed by the way things went around here. I tried to adapt, but that didn’t really work.”
informal influence 4 1 2 -
“We had a feeling that was like: “we need to get away from our daily routine”. I think the meetings where hard, though not personally. I think everyone respects each other and sees each other as friends.”
It also encompasses taking into account what the result of growth is in relation to external parties such as tax authorities.
It is also just being at risk from the tax authorities. We could be raided because we have overdue payments or because we have forgotten to subscribe our employees with the pension insurance.
Another behavior that is clearly visible to be relevant in strategic situations is envisioning change. It is communicated with enthusiasm, as one manager does in a visual description:
There are ideas about horizons, about how we could and should go on. We are very much on a point where we decide on how to develop further strategically as Navigators.
An important aspect of envisioning change is that it is perceived as feasible, though in one case the manager failed to achieve this:
The organization has not thought things through regarding this transition phase.
Envisioning changes is also important in that it is relevant to the ideals and values of followers. This has been confirmed by an interviewee who mentions:
As long as I don’t have to change, it’s fine with me. … But when we are talking about the entire organization … we run into problems like: we don’t have an organization wide vision.
Encourage innovative thinking is also a very clearly visible strategic behavior. This encompasses not only proposing innovations but also facilitating conversations about change and innovations. This statement clarifies that:
This interviewee acknowledges that things first need to be on the agenda, but also that there needs to be put thought in how to go about the conversation about this topic. Sometimes it is enough to take some time for it, sometimes the leader needs to obtain outside expertise to get the discussion going and get the desired outcomes. Self-awareness is the last behavior that contributes to perceived strategic leadership. As is seen in the following statement, which is about a coalition with another organization, who have the same goals but go about it differently.
I have experience and know it works, it just fits. But then I studied it and noticed that they do what we do, only closer to what we hope to be.
We see that at first, the manager starts from experience and is convinced of something. But it does not stop there. He also acknowledges the fact that he doesn’t really know how it works. He then uses this insight to study it and confirm his first belief.
Inductive interview analysis
The inductive analysis of the interviews resulted in 160 distinct codes divided over 357 text fragments. These codes where combined and the result of this first selection can be found in table thirteen.
Table 13. Inductive analysis code distribution. Perceived strategic leadership Perceived tactical leadership total codes Text fragments codes Text fragments Distinct items Text fragments After first codification 115*
204*
92*
153*
160*
357* After combining highly
similar codes 62* 53* 85*
After categorization 13** 12** 16
* see appendices for a list of codes & text fragments
** see table 14 for the strategic and tactical leadership behaviors
model of Yukl et al (2002). I.e. a distinction between task, relations and change behavior was made.
Table 14. Perceived strategic & tactical leadership behaviors
Strategic leadership situation Tactical leadership situation
Task behaviors Task behaviors
Short-term planning Short-term planning
Clarifying Clarifying
Monitoring Monitoring
Implementing Implementing
Reactive behavior
Relations behaviors Relations behaviors
Supporting Supporting
Developing Developing
Empowering
Selection
Selection
Taking ownership of decisions
Participation
Change behaviors Change behaviors
External monitoring External monitoring
Envisioning change Envisioning change
Lead-by-example Work from the vision
Create a common identity
I by myself, what can I do with this great education and fantastic vision? What does that help me when I’m out by myself somewhere in the middle of nowhere? It is a completely different situation.
That makes this behavior distinct from for example short-term planning, it is about the ability to go from vision to practice. Often this is a skill where employees need help with. Then there is also reactive behavior. This may sound contradictory as management books and gurus like Stephen Covey have taught us that the opposite, proactive behavior will lead to effectiveness. But then, this behavior falls in the tactical category. In tactical leadership it is important to be aware of contingencies and act upon them as necessary. One aspect of this is taking these issues seriously and not just solve the issue at hand but also the root causes. For example:
We think and work from arising situations, and from there on we form goals et cetera.
Here does a team member admit that they start working from situations instead of starting from principles or strategy. Reactive behavior is just that, but when it leads to forming goals and later into a strategy, this can be effective in some cases. Another part of this behavior is that some people flourish in situations where they can manage small action points. This was confirmed by one team member who observed this:
There are a few who like to go fast through the topics on the agenda.
This is also a quality that can be put to good use. In general there is a good amount of overlap between the two leadership situations. But there are also some differences, the first is creating a common identity, a specific strategic leadership behavior. This is a change behavior that is supportive of some other behaviors. In order to have full involvement and motivated employees there not only needs to be a common vision, but also a common identity. In the case of the Navigators, this is sometimes lacking. A team member mentioned:
This can be either through involvement and taking someone along or by rearranging official authority and autonomy in order to give divisional managers incentive to act in the interest of the entire organization. The second difference is a specific tactical leadership behavior: ‘taking ownership of decisions’. This is a relations behavior because it represents depicts a joint effort in decision making where everyone has had the opportunity to align their personal preferences with the outcome of the team decision making process. Finally there is working from the vision. This is the skill of the leader to instill in others the ability to grasp the vision and make it an integral part of their daily tasks and goals. An important part of this is focusing on the long term while doing short-term tasks. Another aspect is working from principles, which has been described by one team member as:
My intention is to work from a principle and from convictions. First a consideration of a decision and then the execution and consequences.
Comparative analysis
In this section both analyses will be aggregated and the final outcomes discussed. Comparing these analyses led to five possible outcomes: behaviors can be found in all three categories, only in literature, only in the inductive analysis, in both literature and deductive analysis and in the deductive analysis. The division of these possibilities can be seen in table fifteen and sixteen.
Table 16. division of tactical leadership behaviors according to occurrence Literature, deductive, inductive literature Literature, deductive Literature, inductive inductive Short-term planning Clarifying Monitoring Supporting Selection Recognizing Taking personal risks Leading-by-example Informal influence empowering Developing External monitoring Envisioning change Implementing Reactive behavior Taking ownership of decisions Work from the vision
For strategic and tactical leadership there are a group of behaviors that are found in all analyses and a group of behaviors that has been found in literature and either deductive or inductive analysis. The last group has generally a weaker foundation, because they were not confirmed in both analyses. The reasons for this will be presented in the discussion. Some behaviors were only found in literature and therefore have not been confirmed. Finally, the behaviors that have been found only in the inductive analysis are a unique contribution.
Tables seventeen through twenty-two below give an overview of the behaviors found in the literature review, the deductive analysis and the inductive analysis. The dark grey marked lines are the new behaviors that are confirmed through this research. These behaviors satisfy the following criteria:
1. The behavior has been found in literature and both analyses OR
2. the behavior has been found in both analyses, but was not hypothesized. 3. The behavior is not in the original Yukl et al. (2002) model.
The light grey marked lines focus on the confirmed behaviors that add to the model, but in a less significant way.
1. The behavior has been found in literature, but only in one of the analyses OR 2. the behavior has been found in inductive analysis.
3. The behavior is not in the original Yukl et al. (2002) model.
Table 17. Comparative analysis for perceived strategic leadership – task behaviors
leadership behavior literature Deductive analysis Inductive analysis
short-term planning X X (9/30) X
clarifying X X (18/38) X
monitoring X 0 (3/16) X
implementing N/A N/A X
Reactive behavior N/A N/A 0
The tables for strategic leadership, seventeen through nineteen show task behaviors are common and all three original behaviors are confirmed in this study. The differences lie mainly with monitoring, which is not found in the deductive analysis.
Table 18. Comparative analysis for perceived strategic leadership – relations behaviors leadership behavior literature Deductive analysis Inductive analysis
supporting 0 (3/13) X recognizing 0 (1/4) 0 developing X X (10/14) X consulting X X (16/26) 0 empowering X (7/16) X selection X (7/19) X humility X X (7/7) 0
participation N/A N/A X
Taking ownership of decisions N/A N/A 0
Although selection was not expected to be found in strategic leadership, table eighteen shows it has been confirmed as an effective leadership behavior by both deductive and inductive analysis. Furthermore we find here that humility was confirmed by deductive analysis, although it has not been found often, all the instances are given in the strategic leadership scenarios.
Table 19. Comparative analysis for perceived strategic leadership – change behaviors leadership behavior literature Deductive analysis Inductive analysis
external monitoring X X (20/27) X
envisioning change X X (30/49) X
encourage innovative thinking X X (21/30) 0
taking personal risks 0 (2/4) 0
committing X X (8/13) 0
leading-by-example X (5/10) X
self-awareness X X (12/16) 0
informal influence 0 (4/7) 0
Work from the vision N/A N/A 0
Table nineteen shows the change behaviors for strategic leadership, and as expected these are found to be very common here. Although the inductive analysis does not confirm all the behaviors, it also adds ‘creating a common identity’, which is a behavior that was not observed before in relation to strategic leadership behaviors.
Table 20. Comparative analysis for perceived tactical leadership – task behaviors
leadership behavior literature Deductive analysis Inductive analysis
short-term planning X X (16/30) X
clarifying X X (17/38) X
monitoring X X (12/16) X
implementing N/A N/A X
Reactive behavior N/A N/A X
Tactical behaviors add implementing and reactive behavior to task behaviors, see table twenty. As was seen in the deductive analysis, the task behaviors lean more towards tactical behavior and therefore it is not surprising that here we find two more behaviors that expand this category. I.e. implementing and reactive behavior. Both have only been found in the inductive analysis but since they add a unique perspective it provides valuable insight.
Table 21. Comparative analysis for perceived tactical leadership – relations behaviors leadership behavior literature Deductive analysis Inductive analysis
supporting X X (9/13) X recognizing X 0 (3/4)) 0 developing 0 (2/14) X consulting 0 (4/26) 0 empowering X X (8/16) 0 selection X X (11/19) X humility 0 (0/7) 0
participation N/A N/A 0
Taking ownership of decisions N/A N/A X
Table 22. Comparative analysis for perceived tactical leadership – change behaviors
leadership behavior literature Deductive analysis Inductive analysis
external monitoring 0 (6/27) X
envisioning change 0 (13/49) X
encourage innovative thinking 0 (4/30) 0
taking personal risks X 0 (2/4) 0
committing 0 (4/13) 0
leading-by-example X 0 (4/10) 0
self-awareness 0 (3/16) 0
informal influence X 0 (2/7) 0
Work from the vision N/A N/A X
Create a common identity N/A N/A 0
Finally, the change behaviors that are effective in a tactical situation are shown in table twenty-two. Very few were found to be so, only two were confirmed in the inductive analysis: external monitoring and envisioning change. Also ‘working from the vision’ was added which indicates the need to align tactical leadership with strategic leadership.
To sum up the results of the comparative section, a list will be presented with the behaviors that are new to the hierarchical taxonomy. These behaviors have been found to be effective in either two or three of the analyses. For strategic leadership behaviors this means implementing behavior has been identified as a new behavior, as well as selection, humility and participation, for change behaviors, leading-by-example, self-awareness and create a common identity are added. For tactical leadership situations implementing and reactive behavior, selection, taking ownership of decisions and finally work from the vision are added. Appendix A shows the final behaviors with examples and descriptions of what is meant by these behaviors in this study.
Table 23. Leadership behaviors in strategic and tactical situations. Leadership behaviors Strategic situation Tactical situation Task Behavior
Plan short-term activities X* X
Clarify task objectives and role expectations X X
Monitor operations and performance x** X
Implementing behavior x x
Reactive behavior - x
Relations Behavior
Provide support and encouragement x X
Develop member skill and confidence X x
Provide recognition for achievements and contributions - -
Consult with members when making decisions x -
Empower members to take initiative in problem solving X x
Selection X X
Humility x -
Participation x -
Taking ownership of decisions - x
Change Behavior
Monitor the external environment X x
Propose an innovative strategy or new vision X x
Encourage innovative thinking x -
Take risks to promote necessary changes - -
Commitment x -
Leading-by-example X -
Self-awareness x -
Informal influence - -
Work from the vision - x
Create a common identity x -
* capital/large X shows behaviors that have been found in both analyses
** lowercase/small x shows behaviors that have been found in only one of the analyses
DISCUSSION
ConclusionsThe aim of this thesis was to find and test leadership behaviors that are effective in strategic and tactical situations. The research question was stated as: Which leadership behaviors lead
to perceived strategic and tactical leadership? The introduction explained the origin and
