Military Leadership and Technology : In which ways do military leaders perceive technology as support or limitation in their leadership?

Abstract: The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how technology, in broad meaning, is perceived as supporting or limiting in conducting military leadership. Implementation and advancement of new technology has affected the whole military organization in everything from firepower to IT-systems. The environment which the military operates in is lethal, complex and have a high degree of variety and puts an extra burden on military leaders who must have the recourses to be able to execute different missions in conditions which can rapidly change. Military leaders from the Swedish Armed Forces were interviewed regarding perceived supporting and limiting factors in military leadership caused by technology. Technology in itself was not perceived to limit or support leadership, but rather the consequence of its implementation. The perceived supporting factors were; calmness due to the feeling of more control and easiness to communicate with subordinates. The perceived limiting factors were risk of micro-management due to increased overview of subordinates, feeling of not being adequate, administrative technological systems and access to more “irrelevant” information. A contemporary military leader needs to both trust their subordinates and not micromanage but also use their critical thinking to understand what is relevant and what is not. Keywords: leadership, perception, technology, military leadership, Swedish Armed Forces