From War Room to Boardroom: An Integrative Approach for Helping Today’s Warfighters Become Tomorrow’s Civilian Leaders

What aspects of military experience can help or hinder transitioning veterans in their communication with others? Using the lens of leadership communications, this systematic review seeks to uncover those behaviors which are most likely to result in positive – or negative – outcomes for the veteran transitioning from military service to civilian life. By increasing awareness of these behaviors and their associated outcomes, it is anticipated that service members will have a more positive transition experience. Leadership communication behaviors were identified by performing a search for available academic studies and associated literature for veteran populations, cataloging the results, and individually reviewing each one to identify either positive or negative outcomes associated with the use of leadership communication behaviors. Behaviors were then ranked by their number of associated citations to determine relative strength. Key findings of this review show initiative as the most cited positive leadership communication behavior and anger as the most cited negative. A listing of the top ten positive and negative behaviors is provided along with a discussion of the results. An abbreviated summary of the results suitable for placement in a brochure, magazine, or website article is also included.