Det situationsanpassade ledarskapet
The Swedish Armed Force is one of the largest authorities in Sweden and has as its primary mission to be responsible for Sweden's military defence. Their unique activity - to participate in armed combat ? requires leaders who can make quick and rational decisions in uncertain and conflicted environments. This study aims to gain an understanding of how individuals with leadership roles in the Swedish Armed Forces are experiencing their leadership in relation to the organization's structure and culture. In order to achieve the purpose of the study, the following research question was created: How do individuals with leadership roles experience the influences of the organization's structure and culture on their formal leadership? The theoretical starting point is Weber's organization theory, Schein's organizational culture theory, and different definitions of leadership. The method used is a qualitative approach with semi-structured interviews, in which our interviewees have had to answer our questions in their workplace. The results of the study revealed that the Swedish Armed Forces is considered to have a bureaucratic organizational structure and a specific organizational culture that affects both directly and indirectly on the formal leadership. Among other things, the respondents experience that their leadership is constantly changing and must be adjusted according to where in the organization they are active as leaders. Another organizational impact is the fact that you often will lead other leaders in the Swedish Armed Forces. Therefore, it is important as a leader to be responsive, stand by decisions and to be an ethical and a moral example, which proved to be a part of the organizational culture. Another pattern that occurred was that the interviewees perceive the democratic leadership style as an ideal, which means including the employees in the decision making process. However, this type of leadership was not always possible to apply in specific situations because of different organizational structures (but also cultural values and norms) was experienced to prevent this.