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Although the notion of universal human rights allows for the idea that states (and supranational organizations such as the European Union) can, or even should, control and impose restrictions on mi...

Leadership and ethics are mostly treated as related though separate phenomena. This edited volume explicitly treats leadership and ethics as a single domain. Military leaders have to deal with personnel who have either used or experienced violence. This intertwinement of leadership and violence separates military leadership from that in other professions. Even in a time that leadership is increasingly questioned, it is still good leadership that keeps soldiers from crossing the thin line between legitimate force and excessive violence.

In line with most modern leadership theories, Western militaries want their leaders to be strong and visionary. But at the same time nearly all militaries stress the need for decentralization of leadership, especially in light of today’s complex and unpredictable missions that take place under the label of the comprehensive approach. The question is which of these seemingly opposing tendencies wins through. Research into the functioning of Dutch commanders showed that decentralized leadership was put into practice to a greater extent during the recent mission in Uruzgan than had been the case in Bosnia in the 1990s. The results of this research also suggest that to succeed a comprehensive approach to military missions requires a less obtrusive style of leadership than is commonly espoused in military doctrine and leadership theory alike. The second part of this article makes some suggestions about how such an unobtrusive leadership style could take shape, particularly in the context of comprehensive organizing.