Mission command: How daily empowering leadership enables proactive behavior

Empowering leadership is central to mission command, the dominant leadership doctrine in modern militaries, which emphasizes decentralized decision-making, initiative, and adaptability in complex, high-pressure operations. Drawing on leadership and proactivity theories, this study examines how daily empowering leadership (i.e. autonomy support and development support) relates to work engagement and performance through personal initiative and strengths use. Using a 15-day diary study design, 261 Norwegian military cadets (3156 observations; 80.6% response rate) reported their daily experiences during a practice-oriented leadership development course. Multilevel analyses showed that leader autonomy support, but not development support, was positively related to daily engagement and task performance (as rated by others), and that these relationships were mediated by personal initiative and strengths use. Moreover, autonomy support had a stronger relationship with initiative on days when development support was high, amplifying its indirect links with engagement and performance. Controlling for directive leadership confirmed the unique value of autonomy support. Overall, the findings suggest that empowering leadership fosters proactive motivation and effectiveness in demanding military contexts, offering both theoretical insights and practical guidance for cultivating engaged, high-performing teams.