TY - JOUR AB - Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify and gain a deeper understanding of environmental, organizational, and group conditions, and leadership-related issues in particular, in severely stressful situations involving a moral stressor faced by military and police officers.Design/methodology/approach A combined deductive and inductive approach was used, and in total 23 military and police officers, all having experience of morally difficult decisions during severely stressful conditions, were interviewed.Findings A hierarchical conceptual framework of contextual characteristics was developed. The environmental, organizational, leadership-related, and group aspects identified in this study on morally stressful situations resemble findings from general research on work and stress. However, a stronger emphasis was put on leaders’ handling of values and his or her ability to confront senior management when needed.Practical implications The results suggest that well-documented methods aimed at the prevention of, and recovery from, work-related stress, also can be used in the case of extreme situations involving moral stressors.Originality/value The interplay between leadership and extreme situations involving moral stressors is, to the best of the knowledge, understudied. VL - 12 IS - 4 SN - 2056-4929 DO - 10.1108/IJPL-04-2016-0019 UR - https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPL-04-2016-0019 AU - Hyllengren Peder AU - Nilsson Sofia AU - Ohlsson Alicia AU - Kallenberg Kjell AU - Waaler Gudmund AU - Larsson Gerry PY - 2016 Y1 - 2016/01/01 TI - Contextual factors affecting moral stress: a study of military and police officers T2 - International Journal of Public Leadership PB - Emerald Group Publishing Limited SP - 275 EP - 288 Y2 - 2024/03/28 ER -