Military Leader Behavior Formation for Sustainable Country Security

Abstract

The continuous improvement of military leadership identity to maintain excellent performance with respect to the promotion of mission success is a highly desired by the Lithuanian Armed Forces. This study seeks to identify the criteria for effective leadership behavior that is appreciated by Lithuanian servicemen. The validated Leader Behavior Description Questionnaire (LBDQ XII) was used to collect data representing followers' preferences with respect to commander–leader behavior by assessing twelve leadership behavior criteria. Additionally, commander–leaders were chosen as experts to judge the importance of the criteria by pair-wise assessment. Consequently, the Fuzzy Decision Making (FDM) with Fuzzy Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) method based on the new concept of the relationship between the influenced and influencing criteria were employed to analyze the ranking using leadership behavior and to establish the causal relationships among the criteria when the collected data were expressed in trapezoidal fuzzy numbers. This study contributes to military leadership by using a novel approach for identifying and prioritizing the behavior criteria for leaders. The results indicate six "cause" constructs: ability to persuade, taking the lead, result orientation, accurate forecasting, building interpersonal relationships, and cooperation with managers. These findings could assist militaries in designing effective improvement strategies for continuous leadership training.