Bullying and toxic leadership in the U. S. Army disrupt bonding processes between leaders and subordinates, which may jeopardize military operations, threaten resiliency initiatives, inhibit leader development, and stifle innovation. Little research, however, has looked at the role of informal leaders who operate outside the formal power structure in military environments. Using social exchange theory as the foundation, the purpose of this case study was to explore the activities of informal leaders who mediated the normal and disrupted leadership bonding processes in an Illinois Army National Guard Infantry Brigade. The research questions explored the informal leaders' influence and behaviors to gain a greater understanding of the bonding processes. A maximum variation purposeful sampling was used to select 25 informal leaders from 8 company size units in an Illinois Army National Guard Infantry Brigade. Publicly available archival data were also considered. All data were coded inductively and then subjected to Braun and Clark's thematic analysis procedure, revealing the perception that informal leaders improved bonding between soldiers and leaders and reduced stress associated with military service. The implications for positive social change include recommendations to the Illinois National Guard to provide support for using informal leaders as a mechanism to promote more cohesive relationships between leaders and subordinates and to explore the use of informal leadership to reduce stress.

Aim of the research: This essay describes what can happen between the singers in a choral voice and how the individuals differ in taking initiative and acting in leading roles. Method: I have done qualitative interview studies with conductors and singers, and also recording studies. The recording sessions have been done in following choir rehearsals in a Swedish upper secondary school, and with a simultaneous video recording to be able to also take notice on eventual visual signs between the singers. With close up headworn microphones and by multi track recordings it have been possible through an analyzing program to watch graphically exactly how each individual sings and to compare the singers with each other. The recordings and analyses have been done using Cubase5 and Variaudio with printouts of the same sequence of the music the single voices in the same choral voice. Results: My informants all speak of formal and informal leaders in the choral voice. Many of them also talk about these leaders as leading the choral voice and also with their personal voice and timbre, give color to others. It is possible to graphically view differences in attacks and intonation, and also to notice when someone is ahead and “pulling” others to follow. This leading role can be both positive and negative, a confident but not so good singer can unfortunately bring along other singers to take wrong steps in the music.