Study of ROTC cadets likely applicable across military, other demanding fields

Military leaders excel and succeed by being decisive, intelligent and charismatic. Not to mention seasoning all of that with a healthy dose of grit.

Yet the ability to project themselves to a future or past time and view present challenges from a broader perspective is an underexplored, underappreciated trait—and a strong sign of leadership effectiveness in the military and beyond, according to a new study co-authored by a University of Michigan researcher.

It’s called “temporal self-distancing,” and the form of thinking emerged as the only significant predictor of leadership effectiveness among various self-regulatory traits in a study of cadets conducted during the U.S. Army Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) Cadet Summer Training. That’s the culminating leadership assessment for future military officers.

“What really stood out in this research is that leadership isn’t just about pushing through adversity, it’s about how you think about it,” said Walter Sowden, a lecturer in management and organizations at U-M’s Ross School of Business and corresponding author of the study.

“Cadets who naturally see challenges from a long-term perspective performed better under pressure. That’s a skill that can be trained, and it’s something leaders in any field can develop to improve decision-making and resilience.”

The study incorporates responses from 234 cadets who completed a survey measuring five self-regulatory tendencies: self-control, cognitive reappraisal, emotional suppression, grit and temporal self-distancing.

Contrary to researchers’ expectations, traits such as self-control and grit, were not significant predictors of effective leadership. Nonetheless, they note those traits are desirable and the findings don’t diminish their potential importance.

“Our results do not challenge traditional leadership theories that predominantly emphasize traits such as decisiveness, intelligence and charisma, but rather broaden the scope of this construct by suggesting the need for inclusion of specific self-regulatory processes within their frameworks,” the authors wrote.

Sowden, who served for 28 years in the U.S. Army, said his experience as a soldier shaped much of his research focus. He also points to his time earning a doctorate at U-M, when he was a member of the Emotion and Self-Control Lab, where he studied how psychological processes like emotion regulation and self-reflection shape behavior.

“After earning my Ph.D, I saw an opportunity to leverage that training to explore leadership effectiveness in a military context—specifically, how psychological self-regulation contributes to performance in high-stakes environments,” he said. “The U.S. Army ROTC Advanced Camp provided an ideal environment to study this, as it is both a leadership crucible and a decisive career-shaping event for future military officers.”

Sowden says the ability to detach and “zoom out” from the stress of the moment would be useful in any high-stakes business environment, such as leading a crisis response, navigating a corporate turnaround or managing workplace conflict.

The study has been accepted for publication in Military Psychology. Sowden’s co-authors are Neil Lewis Jr., a behavior scientist at Cornell University, and U.S. Army Maj. Rachell Jones, assigned to the 1st Armored Division.