Abstract:

Leadership is an essential - even defining - part of military institutions. Sincemodern militaries are firmly hierarchal organizations defined by regulations and expectations, the context intricately tends toward transactional leadership. Moreover, the modern American military sees little criticism or externaloversight compared with the past, a circumstance that may lead to the development of deficient or even toxic leadership practices in a substantial minority of situations. On the other hand, the very notion of transformational leadership arose in part from observing the successes of charismatic military leaders such as General Eisenhower. The idea of transformational leadership has risen to the forefront of leadership research in business and the overall organizational context due to certain advantages concerning motivating and empowering followers. However, despite its military roots, it has rarely been applied to the military background in recent research. Transformational leadership has the potential to offer advantages in crucial areas such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and desire to stay. However, transactional leadership also provides some benefits. Therefore, this mixed-methods exploratory study seeks to explore the leadership styles that are present in the U.S. military today and their effect on the critical outcome variables of satisfaction, organizational commitment, and desire to stay among the military personnel. Given the high cost of turnover in a context as training-intensive as the military, these are essential outcomes with evident practical importance.

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