Paternalistic Leadership: An Alternative Perspective to Military Leadership Practices

Abstract

The winds of change experienced on a global scale significantly affect all kinds of organizations. In this interaction process, organizations seek to make management practices and leadership performance more accountable and effective in terms of resource scarcity and sustainable competitive advantage. Especially in military organizations that mainly use public resources try to display a leadership style in accordance with changing expectations and understandings by reviewing the effectiveness of leadership practices with increasing expenditures and efficiency concerns. In this context, our study aims to examine the paternalistic leadership style, which has important organizational outputs for all kinds of organizations and supports important performance outputs in military organizations in the international literature. By benefiting from secondary sources in the study; At first, the extant literature on the concept of paternalistic leadership was shared, and then the results of empirical studies carried out especially in military organizations were included. It has been emphasized that the application of the Paternalistic Leadership style, which includes the Turkish Management Approach and the cultural values of collectivist social structures, could have important results in increasing the organizational effectiveness of military organizations in an environment of increasing efficiency and productivity concerns. While the study raises awareness for military organizations to review their management practices in line with the requirements of changing environmental expectations and sustainable management understanding, it is considered that paternalistic leadership has significant contributions to the literature, especially in terms of summarizing studies examining military organizations.