The relationship between Emotion Regulation and Leadership among Swedish Military Leaders

Sammanfattning: Emotion regulation involves recognising, understanding and regulating one's emotions to adapt to different situations. Leadership is often defined by distinct styles, characterised by various behaviours and skill sets employed by leaders to influence, guide, manage, and motivate their team members. While previous studies have established a relationship between emotion regulation and leadership, limited research has explored this relationship within a military context. This study aims to investigate the leadership and emotion regulation profiles of Swedish military leaders and the potential relation between these constructs. 45 military leaders recruited from the Swedish Armed Forces participated in a web-based questionnaire assessing Emotion Regulation (ER), Difficulties in Emotion Regulation (DER), and Transformational, Transactional, and Laissez-faire leadership. Descriptive statistics and correlation analyses, followed by simple linear regressions, were conducted. Results indicate a leadership profile marked by mainly Transformational and Transactional characteristics with a preference for Cognitive reappraisal (CR) over Expressive suppression (ER). Additionally, findings suggest low levels of emotion regulation difficulties. The results from the correlation and regression analysis provide support for the relationship between emotion regulation and leadership. Future research should delve deeper into this relationship, exploring potential moderating variables such as personality traits and subordinates perspectives.