Resilience Under Military Operational Stress: Can Leaders Influence Hardiness?

Abstract

Although many people suffer physical and mental health decrements following exposure to stress, many others show remarkable resilience, remaining healthy despite high stress levels. If the factors that account for resilience can be clearly identified and understood, perhaps resilience can be enhanced even for those most vulnerable to stress. One potential pathway to resilience is personality hardiness, a characteristic sense that life is meaningful, we choose our own futures, and change is interesting and valuable. This article applies this hardiness concept to the context of military operational stress, and argues that highly effective leaders can increase hardy, resilient responses to stressful circumstances within their units. I discuss the nature of stress in modern military operations, and briefly review relevant hardiness theory and research. Three sets of considerations lead to the proposition that hardy leaders can indeed increase hardy cognitions and behaviors in groups. These considerations concern (a) the likely underlying mechanisms of hardiness, which have to do with how experiences get interpreted and made sense of; (b) relevant theoretical positions on leader social influence, including transformational leadership and path–goal leader theory; and (c) several empirical studies that have shown indirect support for a hardy leader influence process. A case vignette is provided to illustrate how leaders might increase hardy cognitions, attitudes, and behaviors within their organizations during highly stressful operations. This potential for leaders to boost hardiness as a pathway to resiliency in groups under stress merits further active investigation.

Notes

1 Others have noted the significance of a sense of powerlessness in peacekeeping operations. For example, Weisaeth and Sund (1982) found that in Norwegian soldiers serving in Lebanon under the UNIFIL United Nations peacekeeping mission, the feeling of being powerless to act or intervene was a main contributor to posttraumatic stress symptoms.

2 A recent National Institute of Mental Health (2002) report on best practices for early psychological interventions following mass violence events noted great confusion regarding the term debriefing. The authors recommend that the term be reserved for operational after-action reviews, and not be applied to psychological treatment interventions such as critical incident stress debriefing (Mitchell & Everly, 2000). I maintain that for groups such as the military, after-action group debriefings, properly timed and conducted and focused on events rather than emotions and reactions, can have great therapeutic value for many participants by helping them to place potentially traumatizing events in a broader context of positive meaning (Bartone, 1997).