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The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the role of personality hardiness in facilitating change or growth in transformational leadership of Norwegian Navy cadets following a stressful military training exercise.

Leadership styles were measured in cadets before and after an intensive leadership training exercise, and again six months later. Hardiness was measured near the end of the first academic year. Leader performance was measured with first year leader development grades.

Repeated measures ANOVAS showed a sustained increase in transformational and transactional leadership following the exercise, and a decrease in the passive‐avoidant style (management by exception – passive and laissez‐faire).

This research was conducted with a relatively small group and findings may not generalize readily to other populations.

These results suggest high hardy individuals have a greater readiness to make use of stressful training experiences as opportunities for developmental growth as leaders.

This study is the first of its kind to explore the role of a key personality variable – hardiness – to facilitate positive benefit from a real‐world training experience designed to develop better leadership capabilities. Further, it is one of few studies to identify factors contributing to the growth transformational leadership style. A strength of the study is that it was conducted in the context of a real‐world leadership training activity.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the influence of psychological hardiness, social judgment, and “Big Five” personality dimensions on leader performance in US military academy cadets at West Point.

Army cadets were studied in two different organizational contexts, i.e. summer field training and during academic semesters. Leader performance was measured with leadership grades (supervisor ratings) aggregated over four years at West Point.

After controlling for general intellectual abilities, hierarchical regression results showed leader performance in the summer field training environment is predicted by Big Five extroversion, and hardiness, and a trend for social judgment. During the academic period context, leader performance is predicted by mental abilities, Big Five conscientiousness, and hardiness, with a trend for social judgment.

Results confirm the importance of psychological hardiness, extroversion, and conscientiousness as factors influencing leader effectiveness, and suggest that social judgment aspects of emotional intelligence can also be important. These results also show that different Big Five personality factors may influence leadership in different organizational contexts.

The study identifies personality factors related to leader performance in different types of work environments or contexts. Results can be used to improve leader selection and development programs.

This is the first study to examine the influence of psychological hardiness together with Big Five personality factors on leader performance. It identifies hardiness as an important predictor of leadership, while also showing that organizational context makes a difference for what Big Five personality factors influence leader performance: extroversion appears to be more influential in highly social and active work environments, whereas conscientiousness has greater salience in academic and business settings.

The purpose of this paper is to pursue an idea on leadership theory integration which includes two integrative attempts. The first involves three different leadership models (the developmental/transformational leadership model, the authentic leadership model, and the indirect leadership model). The second consists of a suggestion of how this integrated model, in turn, can be integrated into an interactional person‐by‐situation paradigm including a process‐over‐time perspective.

A qualitative analysis of the three existing leadership models mentioned above was performed. In the second integrative step, the following concepts were added: individual characteristics (general and stable as well as specific, of importance in a given situation); contextual characteristics (general more stable contextual profile as well as specific contextual profile in a given situation); appraisal and sensemaking processes over time; trust; and psychological capital.

An integrated leadership model is proposed which rests on three explicit hypotheses with two addendums. Empirical support for the suggested model is evaluated.

The presented idea may be of value in recruitment and selection, leadership development programmes, and organisational design.

The theoretical integration of existing models is new and could act as a conceptual bridge.

This study aims to examine how authentic leadership relates to risk perception in safety critical organizations (SCOs). It is hypothesized that authentic leaders influence risk perception through the mediating effect of safety climate.

Using a survey design, the variables were assessed in a cross‐sectional sample of 293 offshore oil installation workers from a single company.

The authors’ findings show that follower ratings of authentic leadership are negatively related to risk perception and positively associated with ratings of safety climate. Controlling for personality characteristics and leadership responsibility among respondents, the results confirm the hypothesis in that safety climate mediates the relationship between authentic leadership and risk perception. Safety climate had the strongest relationship with risk perception when assessed as a higher order construct.

This study is one of the first to investigate the relationship between authentic leadership and safety. The results indicate that authentic leadership and safety climate are important factors that relate to risk perception in SCOs. The authors’ findings suggest that SCOs should consider recruiting and developing authentic leaders to foster positive safety climates and risk management.

The study seeks to illuminate factors that benefit, or do not benefit, the development of swift trust towards leaders in temporary military groups.

The study group comprised 50 Norwegian cadets, 34 Norwegian military officers, 317 Swedish cadets, and 190 Swedish military officers. Data were gathered using a questionnaire which included two open‐ended questions on aspects which contribute to swift trust (and lack thereof) towards leaders, as well as Likert‐scale questions on temporary group characteristics, and a personality inventory.

A qualitative clustering analysis of the open‐ended responses yielded a hierarchical model of aspects which contribute to swift trust (or the lack thereof) with the following two superior categories: individual‐related characteristics such as emotional stability and relationship‐related characteristics such as encourage involvement and creativity. The latter superior category covaried most strongly with ratings of the groups' performance.

The results need to be substantiated by further research in other professional groups and cultures.

The findings can help leaders of temporary groups become more conscious of how they may affect the group members' development of swift trust.

The hierarchical and detailed model of aspects which contribute to swift trust in leaders of temporary groups is new.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relative impact of workplace bullying and risk perception on the mental health among employees in safety critical organisations. The paper also aims to examine whether self‐esteem moderates the relationship between bullying and risk perception as stressors and mental health as an outcome variable.

Employing a survey design, the variables were assessed in a cross‐sectional sample of 1,017 employees in the Norwegian offshore oil and gas industry.

The results show that workplace bullying is a stronger predictor of mental health problems than is risk perception. Self‐esteem had a buffering effect on the relationship between risk perception and mental health problems, whereas no protective effect of self‐esteem was found with regard to the association between bullying and mental health.

The findings have implications for how organisations may promote employee well‐being and health. It is suggested that organisations develop interventions that are aimed at reducing the occurrence of both.

The present work investigated the effect of corporate social responsibility and top management support on employee ecological behaviour (EEB) with the mediating role of green culture and green commitment. Social identity theory (SIT) was used to describe the association between green culture, green commitment and EEB. Further, a conceptual model that summarises the interaction between perceived corporate social responsibility, top management support, green commitment, green culture and the adoption of ecological behaviour was developed.

The paper opted for a quantitative design using convenience sampling by collecting the data through a structured questionnaire gathered from 308 academics working in five Malaysian higher education institutions.

Corporate social responsibility and top management support positively influence green culture and commitment. Moreover, green commitment positively influenced EEB and fully mediated the relationship between corporate social responsibility and EEB and between top management support and EEB.

The academic staff of universities was the target population of this research. Nevertheless, universities have a diverse population with complex activities that can affect the implementation of a sustainable workplace within the campus. Future research should also examine non-academic staff, including administrative, technical and operational staff, due to different employees' perceptions.

As far as the authors know, this is the first study to assign the mediator role to green culture in a relationship between top management support and EEB amongst academic staff in the Malaysian context. Future research should consider other intervening variables that influence adopting ecological behaviour.