Team leadership and teamwork in the Croatian Navy – Maritime Interdiction Operations Teams

Mihael Dedo, Robert Fabac, Tomislav Sunko

This paper deals with the topic of teamwork, and application of the theory of team
leadership to the example of Maritime Interdiction Operations Teams (MIT) and
transfer of teams, in composition of the Croatian Navy. The paper presents the key
topics and issues of the theory of team leadership: influence of the leadership process
on the team’s processes and ultimately on performance, distributed leadership within
the team, influence of the context on leadership and success. By researching boarding
teams, their structure, leadership processes of such teams, processes performed
by teams and the way in which such teams carry out their tasks in context of the
military organization, the Croatian Navy and the Armed Forces of the Republic of
Croatia were elaborated. Peculiarities of the team leadership and team processes from
cognitive, motivational, coordination, and emotional categories were determined.
Characteristic activities of the transition phase of the team as well as the action phase,
and peculiarities of performance of the boarding teams, were determined. Scientific
contributions of the work, and contribution to military organization, as well as a
wider social contribution, are the result of the aforementioned findings.

Keywords
transshipment teams, leadership, team leadership model, structure, Croatian Navy,
vessel interception procedures