Smooth power: identifying high-level leadership skills promoting organizational adaptability
Purpose The purpose of this research is to gain deeper understanding of the leadership skills that are important to enhance adaptability in a hierarchical organization together with the antecedent factors that influence the potential development of these sets of skills. Design/methodology/approach This is a qualitative research design applying grounded theory to investigate the specific skills of military senior officers and their interactions. Semi structured interviews were conducted and analyzed. Military organizations are hierarchical which may act against informal networking. Adaptability is however essential especially in emergency situations. Findings The organizational smooth power consisted of structural smoothness, emotional smoothness and relational smoothness. Four distinct superior categories emerged from the data: the professional background of the leader, professional name-branding, contextual appraisal and organizational smooth power. Research limitations/implications The authors advise that while it can be hypothesized that other organizational context may show similar behaviors, this would have to be tested by further research. Further research would be required to explore the generalizability of these finding to other parts of the world and to contexts other than the military. The authors do not claim to have captured all the relevant factors and the model developed by this research should be regarded as preliminary. Practical implications This research has practical implications for the recruitment and retention of personnel for senior military posts. It also has implications for leadership development initiatives and increasing both awareness of and skills in smooth power. Originality/value Previous research had not identified the specific skills needed to achieve the organizational adaptability necessary to meet the changing demands of the environment. While previous research has indicated that building networks and relationships are important it has not specified the skill set necessary for leaders to do so effectively. Thus, this research has originality and value and it also opens ways forward in future research.