The Scandinavian Leadership Model: Trust, Responsibility and Influence in Practice

The Scandinavian Leadership Model: Trust, Responsibility and Influence in Practice

A manager invites people to contribute, but has already made the decision. An employee is held responsible for results, yet must seek approval before changing anything. An organisation describes itself as flat, while everyone knows whose views it is unwise to challenge. Situations like these reveal how far our descriptions of Scandinavian leadership can be from what people experience at work. Words such as trust, involvement and shared responsibility have limited value when our decisions, priorities and reactions tell a different story.

The Scandinavian leadership model is commonly associated with low power distance, employees who work independently, collaboration and a less authoritarian approach to leadership. Nordic reviews of the literature support this description, but it becomes incomplete when leadership is detached from the working life and society around it. Traditions of balancing interests, organised labour market parties and delegation are also part of the explanation. The interaction between these factors makes the model interesting, rather than any notion that Scandinavian managers have an innate ability to treat people better. [1]

This article distinguishes between what the sources describe, what research can tell us about outcomes, and how we believe the principles can be applied in practice. The practical examples are hypothetical. The aim is to give leaders and HR professionals a reference article that stands up to critical questions: What does trust require? When does involvement become ambiguous? What responsibilities do employees have? And how do we preserve what is valuable in the tradition as working life changes?

Contents

1. What do we mean by Scandinavian and Nordic leadership?
2. The societal model, the working life model and leadership practice
3. Historical roots: Cooperation and competing interests
4. Culture and the limits of cultural explanations
5. Trust as a practical commitment
6. Low power distance and clear managerial responsibility
7. Participation, co-determination and decision-making
8. Co-workership: Shared responsibility for the work
9. Norwegian, Swedish and Danish contributions
10. Autonomy requires clear boundaries and competence
11. Psychological safety and professional disagreement
12. Social capital and collaboration on the core task
13. What do we know about performance and the working environment?
14. Similarities and differences across the Nordic countries
15. Weaknesses and practical pitfalls
16. International and multicultural workplaces
17. Digitalisation, artificial intelligence and hybrid work
18. Under pressure: Restructuring, safety and preparedness
19. Recruitment and onboarding for autonomous work
20. Developing practice in your own organisation
21. Questions leaders and HR should be able to answer
22. Leadership that stands up to everyday scrutiny
23. References and further reading

1. What do we mean by Scandinavian and Nordic leadership?

Here, Scandinavia refers to Norway, Sweden and Denmark. The Nordic region also includes Finland and Iceland, while Nordic cooperation includes the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Åland. Leadership literature sometimes uses the terms interchangeably, although they do not cover exactly the same area. We use Scandinavian leadership for the tradition named in the title, and Nordic when the perspective or sources encompass more of these countries. This is a geographical distinction, rather than a claim that every organisation within the region is managed in the same way.

A useful working definition is that Scandinavian leadership gives employees considerable scope for professional judgement and influence, while expecting managers to provide direction, coordination and accountability. This is the article's synthesis, rather than a standardised definition or a model against which organisations can be certified. There is no common formula specifying how many decisions employees should make, how flat an organisational chart should be, or how many meetings make a business Scandinavian.

The Nordic Council of Ministers' report Nordic leadership describes the delegation of authority and responsibility, cooperation, consensus-seeking and managers who play down displays of their own authority. The report reviews earlier research and explanations. It should be read as a map of characteristic features, rather than evidence that all Nordic managers practise them, or that these features always produce good results. [1]

For an individual organisation, the question is how the ideals are expressed. Who receives information before a decision? Who can challenge an assessment? Who decides when professional considerations conflict with cost or time? The answers reveal more about leadership practice than the country in which the head office is located.

2. The societal model, the working life model and leadership practice

Three levels need to be distinguished. The Nordic societal model concerns the organisation of the economy, welfare and the sharing of risk. The working life model concerns relationships between employers, employees and government, and how interests are handled through collective organisation and cooperation. Leadership practice concerns what managers and employees do within an organisation: setting priorities, making decisions, organising work, following up and learning. The levels influence one another, but they are not identical.

In The Nordic Model: Embracing Globalization and Sharing Risks, Torben M. Andersen and his co-authors discuss how Nordic countries have combined openness to international competition with arrangements that share risk. Their report provides an economic and institutional background to the discussion of leadership. Published in 2007, it should not be treated as an up-to-date account of economic performance. Its continuing relevance here is the argument that organisational behaviour needs to be understood in the context of the conditions within which organisations operate. [2]

For a manager, this means that a collaborative way of working cannot be reduced to personal character. If an organisation rewards internal competition, withholds information and requires approval for every change, building an autonomous team will be difficult, however approachable and pleasant its manager may be. The working approach needs support from the systems that allocate resources and authority.

The reverse also applies. Strong national institutions do not automatically make a manager clear, fair or competent. A Norwegian workplace can have poor leadership and weak collaboration. An organisation outside the Nordic region can develop thoughtful approaches to involvement. The societal model provides a context, while the quality of local practice still needs to be assessed on its own merits.

3. Historical roots: Cooperation and competing interests

The story of Nordic leadership becomes too simple if it begins with the idea that people here have always been trusting and committed to equality. Working life must also be understood through competing interests, negotiations and attempts to develop different ways of organising work. Cooperation does not make those differences disappear. It means that the parties develop arrangements for handling them without turning every issue into a struggle over the entire relationship.

Three historical milestones show how this development took different national forms. In Denmark, the September Compromise, or Septemberforliget, was concluded in 1899 following a major industrial conflict. The Confederation of Danish Employers describes it as a foundation for a labour market regulated through agreements between employers and employees. In Norway, the first Basic Agreement between the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions, LO, and the Norwegian Employers' Confederation was concluded in 1935. In Sweden, LO and the Swedish Employers' Confederation signed the Saltsjöbaden Agreement in 1938, emphasising the parties' responsibility for resolving conflicts themselves. [23, 24, 25]

These agreements were not ready-made manuals for modern leadership. They illustrate how organised parties with different interests developed rules for working together. That is a different history from one in which cooperation emerged because everybody wanted the same things. For managers today, it is a reason to treat disagreement as an expected feature of organisational life and ensure that understandable processes exist for handling it.

In Work Organization and ‘the Scandinavian Model’, Bjørn Gustavsen argued that work organisation cannot be explained solely by society's overarching political arrangements. Specific initiatives to develop workplaces also matter. He discussed initiatives involving two or three parties and identified local trust-building between management and workers as a common feature. This offers a more precise explanation than assuming that a particular welfare model automatically produces a particular organisational form. [3]

The historical research tradition on workplace democracy includes Einar Thorsrud and Fred Emery. The National Library of Norway records their book Mot en ny bedriftsorganisasjon: Eksperimenter i industrielt demokrati as a publication from the cooperation project between LO and the Norwegian Employers' Confederation. The book provides a historical entry point into the relationship between work organisation and democracy. [4]

In our view, the lesson for today's managers is that good practice has to be developed through work on real tasks. A new statement of values can express an ambition, but it does not establish who may change a work process or how disagreement will be resolved. That requires practical trials, reflection on experience and a willingness to adjust both managerial behaviour and organisational arrangements.

4. Culture and the limits of cultural explanations

Culture influences what we consider reasonable. It may shape how a manager is expected to speak to employees, whether people are expected to propose their own solutions, and how directly disagreement can be expressed. Such expectations often become invisible to those who share them. Only when someone asks different questions or interprets an instruction differently do we recognise the assumptions that were never explained.

Ulf Andreasson's report Trust: The Nordic Gold describes high social trust as an important resource in the Nordic countries and discusses its background and challenges. Social trust here concerns trust between people in society. It cannot simply be used as a measure of trust in an individual manager or an organisation's leadership. An employee may place considerable trust in public institutions while having good reasons to question their immediate manager's judgement. [5]

This distinction should influence how HR assesses culture. Asking whether an organisation has high trust is too broad to produce a useful answer. Ask instead whether employees trust that commitments will be honoured, information will arrive in time and mistakes will be handled fairly. A department can have considerable professional trust between colleagues and little confidence in how staffing decisions are made. Both can be true at once.

Culture should not become the explanation before other conditions have been examined. A new employee waiting for clarification may be dealing with unclear authority or inadequate training. Someone who objects may have identified a real weakness. Labels such as “not very Nordic” or “not a good fit” can make it easy to overlook information the organisation needs.

5. Trust as a practical commitment

Trust becomes visible when someone is given discretion and others become dependent on the judgements made within it. For managers, this involves accepting that a task may be completed in a sound way that differs from their own preferred approach. For employees, it means making uncertainty, deviations and the need for help visible before the consequences grow. Both should be able to explain the commitments that come with this way of working.

Danish researcher Tina Øllgaard Bentzen examines the relationship between trust, governance and control in Tillidsbaseret styring og ledelse i offentlige organisationer. A central theme is that control and trust can work against one another or support one another, depending on their design and how the arrangements are experienced. The book also discusses changing roles and barriers between ambition and practice. [6]

A practical implication is that an organisation should be able to explain the purpose of its monitoring. Checking a safety-critical operation serves a different purpose from requiring daily accounts of routine professional choices. Before asking for more reporting, managers should consider which decision the information is intended to improve. If nobody uses it, there is reason to examine whether the reporting should change.

Trust also needs to withstand outcomes that differ from expectations. A manager who grants freedom when everything goes well, but introduces extensive micromanagement after the first mistake, makes discretion unpredictable. A better response may be to investigate whether the mistake arose from insufficient competence, unclear boundaries, an unreasonable workload or a judgement that was genuinely unsound. The action should address the cause, rather than the manager's need to appear decisive.

6. Low power distance and clear managerial responsibility

An informal tone can make a manager easier to approach. It reveals little, however, about who holds power. Managers can still influence pay, assignments, development opportunities and the explanations accepted when something goes wrong. Low power distance should therefore be assessed by how accessible and open to scrutiny the exercise of power is. Can an employee obtain a reason for a decision? Can a decision be challenged without loyalty becoming the issue?

This creates a practical challenge for managers who want to be part of the team. Close relationships with employees do not remove the responsibility to prioritise competing needs or address inadequate delivery. If managers avoid these tasks to preserve a pleasant atmosphere, employees are often left with the consequences. They divide the additional work among themselves, try to interpret unclear expectations or allow disagreements to continue without resolution.

Clear managerial responsibility means that someone establishes direction, clarifies priorities and ensures that difficult matters are addressed. This can be done openly and respectfully. A manager can acknowledge that a suggestion is valuable, explain why it will not be adopted and clarify what happens next. Such an explanation gives employees more to work with than a friendly response that leaves the decision ambiguous.

A useful question is whether employees know when independent action is expected and when an issue should be escalated. If this becomes clear only after something has gone wrong, too much of the organisation's direction depends on unwritten rules. The Nordic ambition of autonomy becomes more credible when its boundaries can be explained in advance.

7. Participation, co-determination and decision-making

In this article, participation means the opportunity to contribute knowledge and influence one's working situation. Co-determination refers to more formalised forms of influence through representative arrangements. The specific rights depend on the country, legislation and agreements involved. This is a conceptual distinction for discussing leadership, rather than a review of an individual employer's legal obligations.

Direct dialogue between a manager and an employee and representative dialogue through trade union representatives serve different functions. A meeting at which everyone can express an opinion does not necessarily fulfil the requirements of formal processes. Equally, formal consultation will rarely capture every detail of how a task is actually performed. Organisations need to understand which issues belong in which forum.

In practical leadership, the scope of participants' influence should be established before a process begins. Are they being asked to describe problems, propose alternatives, offer advice or make the decision jointly? What is already settled? Who decides if disagreement remains? When these questions go unanswered, managers may see a process as open while employees feel they have spent time discussing a decision that was never open to change.

Consider a hypothetical department that needs to change working hours. Its budget may already be fixed while different shift arrangements remain possible. The manager should state this clearly, ensure that the relevant representative arrangements are respected and invite people to assess the alternatives that can genuinely be chosen. Meaningful influence requires an understandable scope for participation and a conclusion that explains how contributions were considered.

8. Co-workership: Shared responsibility for the work

The Norwegian concept medarbeiderskap, known in Swedish as medarbetarskap, shifts attention from the manager alone to how people participate in the work and the workplace community. English-language literature uses terms including co-workership, coworkership and employeeship. We use co-workership here for this broader relationship of responsibility, collaboration and contribution. In Medarbeiderskap: Hva som får folk til å ta ansvar og vise initiativ, Johan Velten, Stefan Tengblad and Runar Heggen describe a committed interaction in which employees share responsibility with their manager for results, the working environment and the workplace as a whole. The book connects the development of leadership and co-workership. [7]

In our practical interpretation, this means contributing beyond completing a narrowly defined task without considering the wider context. It may involve flagging a problem that affects the next stage of a process, giving a colleague useful information or explaining to a manager that two priorities cannot be delivered simultaneously. Responsibility also means asking for help when one's own competence is insufficient.

This does not mean that everyone should do everything, or that employees should compensate for persistent understaffing. Shared responsibility for the workplace must be compatible with clear roles and a reasonable balance between tasks and capacity. When “taking responsibility” means that the most conscientious person always takes on more, the allocation of work needs to be examined.

Managers themselves participate in co-workership through their conduct towards colleagues, other departments and the organisation's overall purpose. A manager can expect employees to share relevant information, but must do the same. Developing responsibility for the whole organisation becomes difficult if the management team protects separate territories and passes its disagreements down through the organisation.

Co-workership should therefore be discussed through familiar situations. What do we do when a deadline cannot be met? How do we handle two departments making different promises to a customer? What do we expect of the person who discovers an error? The answers make the concept useful and establish a basis for mutual expectations.

9. Norwegian, Swedish and Danish contributions

Velten, Heggen and Tengblad: Developing the interaction

The Norwegian book published in 2016 brings together two practitioners, Johan Velten and Runar Heggen, and researcher Stefan Tengblad. This combination matters when reading it: the book addresses working life and offers a development perspective, but should not be treated as a single study of effectiveness. Referring to the book establishes a professional concept and approach. It does not, by itself, demonstrate that a particular co-workership programme will produce a particular improvement. [7]

Velten and Heggen develop the subject further in Tillitsbasert leder- og medarbeiderskap, published in 2022, with a subtitle that translates as “Everyone is a co-worker, and some co-workers have managerial responsibility.” This is also the book cited by the earlier version of this article. It connects co-workership to the Nordic societal model and the authors' experience of organisational development. It is relevant as practice-oriented professional literature and should be distinguished from independent evidence of effects. [8]

Hällstén and Tengblad: Relationships with employers and colleagues

In the Swedish anthology Medarbetarskap i praktiken, edited by Freddy Hällstén and Stefan Tengblad, co-workership is described through employees' relationships with their employer and other employees. Responsibility, commitment, trust and collaboration are central concepts. The publisher's description also emphasises accessible managers and well-developed responsibility for staff as conditions for constructive co-workership. [9]

This provides a useful corrective to the idea that autonomous employees need less leadership in every respect. An employee may enjoy considerable professional freedom while still needing a manager to resolve conflicts, secure resources or provide support with difficult judgements. Freedom from micromanagement needs to be accompanied by availability in areas employees cannot address alone.

Employees' own accounts

Caroline Bergman, Jesper Löve, Annemarie Hultberg and Katrin Skagert investigated how employees in a Swedish healthcare organisation understood coworkership. The study involved twelve focus group interviews with 68 employees. Participants described collaboration across professional and organisational boundaries, trust in one another's competence, community and influence. Coworkership was experienced as a collective process in which managers were not explicitly included. [10]

The finding shows that management terminology is not necessarily understood as management intends. A practical recommendation is to let employees describe what they regard as good collaboration and reasonable responsibility before designing a development programme. Managers and employees can then examine where expectations align and where they differ.

Kenneth Hagsten, Andrea Eriksson and Kristina Palm investigated co-workership in Swedish community pharmacies, drawing on material that included 20 interviews at five pharmacies. The study describes work being handled with considerable independent initiative. It provides a concrete way into discussing co-workership in a particular sector, but qualitative material of this kind cannot establish how all Swedish or Nordic workplaces operate. [11]

The Trust Delegation and Louise Bringselius: A Swedish reform perspective

Co-workership should also be considered alongside Sweden's discussion of trust-based governance. The Trust Delegation's main report from 2018 examines how the public sector can make better use of employees' knowledge and experience. Its framework draws, among other contributions, on the work of research director Louise Bringselius. This is an official inquiry containing analysis and proposals, rather than an evaluation of the effects of a fully implemented reform. [26]

For leaders and HR, the connection is useful because it draws attention to several levels at once. If employees are to exercise more professional judgement, their immediate manager needs to be able to allow it. Requirements from higher levels must also be compatible with that discretion. Development work should therefore examine both interaction within the team and the conditions under which its manager operates.

Danish contributions: Organisation and collaboration

The Danish literature used here explores related questions through trust-based governance and organisational social capital. Bentzen discusses how roles and governance arrangements need to change when an organisation seeks greater trust. Olesen, Thoft, Hasle and Kristensen examine how relationships enable people to collaborate on the core task. These concepts overlap with co-workership, but are not identical to it. [6, 12]

We should therefore be cautious about translating different Nordic traditions of scholarship into a single concept. Their value lies in the different aspects they illuminate: the employee's contribution, the manager's commitments, relationships between people and the systems that enable action. This provides a better basis for development than choosing one concept and expecting it to explain everything.

10. Autonomy requires clear boundaries and competence

Assigning a task does not necessarily give an employee genuine discretion. If they cannot influence the approach, allocate the necessary time or resolve conflicting demands, the responsibility becomes difficult to carry. We recommend considering the task, authority, competence, information and support together. If any of these is missing, the manager should examine the implications before demanding greater independence.

Consider a hypothetical project manager told to take full responsibility for delivery. Other managers can nevertheless reassign the project's staff, alter priorities and promise the customer additional work. The project manager is accountable for a result they can influence only partly. This should be addressed as a problem of unclear governance, rather than left as a discussion about the project manager's ability to deliver.

Norway's State Employer Portal recommends clarifying what employees have authority to decide for themselves, what remains the manager's responsibility and what is constrained by purpose, objectives, resources and rules. This practical guidance offers a useful starting point for such a conversation. [13]

The scope for independent action should also be able to develop. A new employee may need closer follow-up initially, while an experienced professional can perform the same task with considerable independence. This should be explained as an assessment of the task and the conditions for performing it, accompanied by a learning plan. Otherwise, differences in follow-up can appear arbitrary or personal.

Ask employees to explain the boundaries in their own words. If manager and employee have different understandings of what requires approval or clarification, discovering this during a conversation is preferable to discovering it after a difficult decision.

11. Psychological safety and professional disagreement

Psychological safety is an international research concept relevant to the discussion of Nordic leadership. Amy Edmondson's 1999 study defines it as a shared belief that a team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking. The study of 51 work teams found an association between psychological safety and learning behaviour. This is a specific research finding, rather than proof that every intervention described as creating safety will improve performance. [14]

In everyday management, the concept can help us examine the cost of sharing information that others would rather not hear. An employee who says a plan cannot be delivered exposes themselves to a response. Is their contribution examined? Must they defend their attitude? Are they subsequently described as negative? The reaction tells the rest of the team what to expect next time.

We recommend separating the assessment of a message from the assessment of how it is delivered. A concern can be substantively relevant even when expressed awkwardly. Managers can examine its content and hold a separate conversation about how disagreement should be expressed. If the latter takes all the attention, the organisation risks losing the information itself.

Safety should also be combined with accountability for commitments. People need to be able to admit that they have not done what they agreed to do, while also participating in a conversation about consequences and next steps. A workplace where nobody dares to set expectations for others offers a weak basis for learning and collaboration. Professional disagreement therefore needs a working process: describe the observation, explain the assessment, examine the alternatives and establish who decides.

12. Social capital and collaboration on the core task

The Danish white paper Virksomhedens sociale kapital, by Kristian Gylling Olesen, Eva Thoft, Peter Hasle and Tage Søndergård Kristensen, describes social capital as a collective organisational quality that enables members to accomplish the core task together. Trust, fairness and the ability to cooperate are central to this understanding. The perspective shifts attention from individual well-being alone towards the relationships on which the work depends. [12]

A research article by Kristensen, Hasle and Jan Hyld Pejtersen, published in the same year, presents a similar understanding and reports associations with the psychosocial working environment and health in two studies. This supports taking collaborative relationships seriously. It does not justify promising that a social capital initiative alone will reduce sickness absence. [15]

A practical question is where collaboration breaks down. A department may have a positive internal atmosphere while being difficult for the rest of the organisation to work with. Customer service may lack information about promises made by sales. Operations may receive changes without being consulted. HR may design procedures that cannot be carried out with the staffing available. Development work should then focus on the handovers between tasks and organisational units.

One hypothetical improvement initiative would be to select a recurring deliverable and follow it through the organisation. What information does the next person need? When does it arrive? Which errors have to be corrected repeatedly? Who has authority to change the procedure? This kind of review makes collaboration concrete and offers a better starting point than concluding that people need to be more positive towards one another.

13. What do we know about performance and the working environment?

It is reasonable to investigate whether involvement, support and discretion are associated with good outcomes. Establishing that an overall Scandinavian leadership model is the cause is more demanding. Studies use different concepts, measure different conditions and examine particular sectors or organisations. Some rely on interviews, others on questionnaires. Sources should therefore be read with attention both to what they find and to what their research design allows them to establish.

Daniel Lundqvist, Andreas Wallo and Cathrine Reineholm reviewed 40 studies of leadership and employee well-being in a Nordic working life context. Supportive and transformational leadership were recurrently associated with well-being, while conditions in the working environment appeared to mediate much of the relationship. The authors also noted that the specifically Nordic context was insufficiently explored in many of the studies. The review supports the importance of leadership while limiting the strength of conclusions about a distinct Nordic effect. [16]

Åge Johnsen, Helge Svare and Christian Wittrock investigated trust-based management in Norway's public sector using questionnaire data from 143 managers and employees. They found positive associations with organisational performance, both directly and through trust. Such data must be interpreted as associations and cannot, on their own, establish the direction of causality. [17]

Norway's National Institute of Occupational Health, STAMI, also describes how high job demands become more burdensome when control over work is low, and how role conflict involves demands that cannot be reconciled. This matters for a leadership approach that expects autonomy. The working environment needs to be assessed through actual demands and the opportunities to handle them, rather than solely through employees' perceptions of their manager's intentions. [18]

A measured conclusion for organisations is that leadership practice should be assessed alongside work organisation. Measure what you are trying to improve, and remain open to alternative explanations if outcomes change. An improvement in employee outcomes at the same time as improved staffing does not establish which part of the change made the difference.

14. Similarities and differences across the Nordic countries

A Nordic perspective should include Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland without treating them as a single culture. These countries feature in comparative research on working life and leadership, but a shared characteristic at an overarching level does not describe every organisation. A municipality, an industrial company and an international corporation can have very different decision-making processes within the same country.

It is tempting to portray Swedes as consensus-seeking, Danes as direct, Norwegians as informal and Finns as decisive. Some people may recognise these descriptions, but they offer a weak basis for understanding a particular colleague. They also invite selective attention: we notice what confirms our expectations and overlook what does not fit.

The sources used in this article are strongest for Norway, Sweden and Denmark. They do not support an equally detailed comparison of managerial behaviour in Finland and Iceland. The Finnish ETLA report contributes a socioeconomic background, while The Future of Work in the Nordic Countries brings together researchers from all five countries to discuss changes in Nordic working life models. [2, 19]

For organisations collaborating across the Nordic region, we therefore recommend examining ways of working directly. When is a decision considered final? What is expected of participants before a meeting? How explicit should a recommendation be? Which issues require formal consideration? Such questions can reveal relevant differences without expecting employees to represent an assumed national personality.

The same applies to minorities and employees with international backgrounds. Nordic working life encompasses more experiences than those of the majority culture. A leadership model based on involvement should also allow established practices to be explained, examined and changed.

15. Weaknesses and practical pitfalls

The following pitfalls are our practical analysis of situations leaders and HR should examine. They do not represent a ranking of how common these problems are in the Nordic countries. The purpose is to help identify when a sound principle stops serving its purpose.

Involvement without closure. People are invited to an expanding series of meetings without being told who will decide or when the work will move forward. Managers should be able to explain what remains open, which contributions are still needed and what will bring the process to a close. Otherwise, the search for agreement can delay necessary choices and make responsibility for implementation difficult to establish.

Informal power without transparency. The organisation describes itself as flat, but decisions are made by those with easy access to particular people. New employees spend time learning whom they must speak to before a meeting. One response is to make the decision-making basis and decision owner explicit, and investigate whether important contributions can be heard only through personal networks.

Responsibility that keeps expanding. The capable, helpful employee receives more tasks whenever something is urgent. Over time, organisational capacity comes to depend on that person continuing to stretch themselves. Managers should monitor the total workload and clarify what will be removed when something new is added. Co-workership requires an allocation of work that still functions when the most conscientious person says no.

Disagreement treated as a personal problem. An employee identifies weaknesses in a plan and is described as difficult. There may be a problem with their conduct, but the organisation should first examine whether the objection is relevant. If critical contributions are routinely interpreted as a lack of commitment, opportunities to correct decisions before implementation are weakened.

Trust in words without organisational change. In a Swedish municipal care study, Helena Håkansson found that a strong economic management logic could override attempts to establish more trust-based working practices. The study drew on interviews and observations in one municipal district. It illustrates a possible tension between reform ambitions and existing governance, rather than showing that every financial requirement is incompatible with trust. [20]

In a Norwegian study published in 2025, Rannveig Røste and Thea Dahlquist emphasise that trust-based leadership practice requires support from governance systems and the wider organisational context. Their analysis of municipal directors' experiences also suggests that discretion develops in the relationship between trust and control. This is a useful reminder that immediate managers cannot, by themselves, change all the conditions under which employees work. [21]

16. International and multicultural workplaces

Tone Elisabeth Berg, Hege Eggen Børve and Fredrik Mørk Røkenes reviewed empirical studies of the Nordic model and management in international corporations. Fifteen studies met the criteria for full review. Workplace democracy was a central theme, and both management support and employee involvement were highlighted. The review identified partial adoption of the model in foreign-owned companies in the Nordic countries and some continuation of it in Nordic companies operating abroad. Transfer was therefore neither complete nor absent. [22]

We recommend making working arrangements more explicit when people have different experiences of authority and responsibility. “Just take the initiative” offers little help if an employee does not know which decisions they are expected to make independently. Managers should provide concrete examples and invite questions about the consequences of getting something wrong.

The same applies to meetings. Some people need time to express themselves in another language. Others are accustomed to disagreement being addressed before or after the meeting, with the meeting itself used to confirm decisions. If managers simply ask whether anyone has comments, important perspectives may be lost. Written contributions beforehand, clear questions and an opportunity for each person to contribute can be useful approaches to try.

Adaptation must also work both ways. An experienced international employee may identify unclear authority that Norwegian colleagues have learned to live with. This should be treated as information about the organisation. An inclusive way of working allows people to understand and influence practice, while maintaining clear expectations for the task and the collaboration.

17. Digitalisation, artificial intelligence and hybrid work

The research project on the future of work in the Nordic countries examines how digitalisation, demographic change and new forms of employment challenge working life models. Its report was published in 2021 and is used here as background to these developments, rather than as evidence of the effects of today's generative artificial intelligence. [19]

A current question for managers is who has influence when technology changes the work. A new system may shift decisions from professionals to standardised rules without the organisation having discussed the implications for responsibility. Before introducing a solution, we therefore recommend mapping which judgements employees previously made, which the system will take over and who can intervene when an outcome appears wrong.

When artificial intelligence is used, it should also be clear who checks the quality of its output and who is accountable for its subsequent use. Employees can hardly be expected to assume professional responsibility for a proposal if they lack the competence or time to assess it. This is a practical recommendation about work organisation and does not replace assessment of privacy, security or other requirements applying to the particular solution.

Hybrid work also requires deliberate attention to the distribution of information and influence. Who participates in informal conversations where direction is established? How does someone working elsewhere learn what has changed? An organisation can offer flexibility while developing a decision-making environment that is difficult to access. Managers should therefore make priorities visible and assess employees' contributions through the work they deliver, rather than how often they are seen.

18. Under pressure: Restructuring, safety and preparedness

In our view, a leadership philosophy becomes clearest when considerations collide. Inviting dialogue is easy when there is time and resources for every suggestion. It is more demanding when an organisation must reduce costs, handle a serious error or decide with incomplete information. Employees then need an explanation of what is changing, who decides and what contributions are still expected.

During restructuring, managers should distinguish between information, involvement and decision-making. What does the organisation know? What is uncertain? Which alternatives are being examined? Which questions need to be addressed through representative arrangements? Managers should be clear about the limits of influence and avoid promises they cannot substantiate. Respect is also expressed through precise answers when the message is difficult.

In safety-critical work, discretion and escalation need to be clarified before something happens. We recommend practising who can stop an activity, what information must be reported and who decides as time pressure increases. Employees who identify a hazard should know both what they can do themselves and where help is available. Autonomy without this clarity can make a situation more uncertain.

After an incident, the organisation should examine the information on which decisions were actually based. What could the individual have known? Was responsibility clear? Was information available? Which conditions made an error more likely? Any unsafe or otherwise unacceptable conduct must also be addressed. Thorough learning requires room for both, and should result in concrete changes that are followed up.

19. Recruitment and onboarding for autonomous work

Organisations that want initiative and professional challenge should examine whether their recruitment process allows them. Consider a hypothetical candidate asking how a manager handles disagreement about priorities. The interviewers interpret the question as a sign that the candidate could be difficult to manage. Yet they describe the role as one for an independent person expected to challenge established practices. The employer should then examine its own assessment criteria.

We recommend assessing autonomy through specific actions. Ask candidates to describe a situation in which the assignment was unclear or they disagreed with a decision. What did they do to understand the boundaries? Whom did they involve? How did they raise professional objections? What happened after the decision? This provides a better basis for discussion than asking candidates to confirm that they enjoy responsibility.

Employers should also explain their actual leadership practice. What can the role decide? Which priorities typically create conflict? How are mistakes followed up? A realistic account enables candidates to assess the employer and provides a more credible starting point for collaboration if they join.

During onboarding, employees should learn the scope of their discretion through ordinary tasks. The new employee and manager can review which decisions were made, what was unclear and when it was appropriate to ask for help. Make informal conventions visible too: How do people obtain clarification? When should other professional teams be involved? What is expected before an issue is escalated? This makes autonomy a capability the organisation develops, rather than a quality it simply expects employees to arrive with.

20. Developing practice in your own organisation

The following approach is TEAM NORSO's practical recommendation, rather than a research-validated formula. It can help make a specific problem manageable and examine whether changes in leadership and organisation improve everyday work.

Start with a specific source of friction. Choose a recurring issue that affects delivery: matters waiting for approval, unclear priorities, duplicated work or errors discovered late. Describe the sequence of events before explaining it in terms of culture or attitudes. Who needs what from whom, and where does progress stop?

Examine several perspectives. Speak to the people doing the work, those managing it and those receiving the result. Involve relevant trade union and safety representatives where appropriate. Look for differences between the formal procedure and the practices employees have developed to get the work done.

Clarify decisions and boundaries. Select a few recurring situations and describe what employees can decide, what requires coordination and what must be escalated. Also establish who decides in the event of disagreement. The aim is to let people act without guessing how their manager will react afterwards.

Assess capacity and competence. Ask what needs to be in place for the responsibility to be manageable. Is training needed, different information, more time or fewer tasks? If you expand discretion without examining these conditions, understanding why a trial succeeds or fails will be difficult.

Agree on mutual commitments. Employees can commit to raising concerns early, sharing necessary information and carrying out agreed tasks. Managers can commit to clarifying priorities, giving reasons and being available when an employee's authority is insufficient. Both should understand what the other needs to succeed.

Run a trial in a limited area. Choose a work process where quality, time and workload can be monitored. Agree to review it after a suitable period. This allows something concrete to change without declaring that the entire organisational culture has been transformed.

Review the experience together. Were waiting times reduced? Did errors surface earlier? Did coordination become easier? Who took on more work? Ask for specific examples and investigate unintended effects. Use the answers to adjust practice and decide whether it should continue or be extended.

21. Questions leaders and HR should be able to answer

These questions can be used in a management team or in conversations with employees. They support reflection and are not a validated assessment instrument. Ask for examples from recent months. This makes the answers more useful than general judgements about the quality of the culture.

• Do employees know which decisions they can make without approval?
• Can they explain what takes priority when two demands conflict?
• Do they have information and competence that match their responsibilities?
• Do they know when to ask for help and who is available?
• Can someone disagree professionally with their manager without having their loyalty questioned?
• Are employees told how their contributions have been considered?
• Do we distinguish between direct participation and representative processes?
• Do we examine work organisation when delivery falls short?
• Is additional work allocated in a way we can explain and justify?
• Do new employees and people working remotely have access to relevant decisions?
• Do we consider workload when assigning more responsibility?
• Does the management team act according to the expectations it sets for employees?

If managers and employees answer differently, you have found a starting point. Examine the difference before deciding what to do. It may reflect missing information, different experiences or practices that genuinely vary from one situation to another.

22. Leadership that stands up to everyday scrutiny

The Scandinavian leadership model is most useful as a starting point for examining how we distribute influence, responsibility and authority. It loses value if it becomes an identity an organisation takes for granted. No organisation becomes good at collaboration simply by describing itself as Nordic. That has to be demonstrated in decisions and in how people are treated when they need clarification, have made a mistake or disagree.

For TEAM NORSO, resilient leadership means that working relationships must function when the task is demanding and resources cannot cover everything. Employees then need a manager who sets priorities and provides support. Managers need employees who use their competence, speak up and take responsibility for their commitments. Organisations need systems that make this possible. The work begins by looking honestly at a concrete situation and asking what needs to become clearer for people to resolve it together.

23. References and further reading

The sources cover concepts, historical background, empirical research and practical development work. Books and official inquiries are distinguished from research articles. References support the specific points beside which they appear; they are not intended as evidence for every practical recommendation in the article. Norwegian, Swedish and Danish publication titles are retained in their original language to help readers locate the correct editions. Explanatory descriptions below are in English.

• Andreasson, U., and Lundqvist, M. (2018). Nordic leadership. Nordic Council of Ministers, ANP 2018:835. A review of characteristic features and possible explanations. Publisher. Publisher's introduction to the report.
• Andersen, T. M., Holmström, B., Honkapohja, S., Korkman, S., Söderström, H. T., and Vartiainen, J. (2007). The Nordic Model: Embracing Globalization and Sharing Risks. ETLA B 232. Background report on socioeconomic arrangements and institutions. Publisher.
• Gustavsen, B. (2007). Work Organization and ‘the Scandinavian Model’. Economic and Industrial Democracy, 28(4), 650–671. Research article on work organisation and workplace development initiatives. DOI.
• Thorsrud, E., and Emery, F. E. (1969). Mot en ny bedriftsorganisasjon: Eksperimenter i industrielt demokrati. Tanum. Historical book from the LO/NAF cooperation project on experiments in industrial democracy. National Library of Norway.
• Andreasson, U. (2017). Trust: The Nordic Gold. Nordic Council of Ministers, ANP 2017:737. Background report on social trust. DOI. Publisher.
• Bentzen, T. Ø. (2018). Tillidsbaseret styring og ledelse i offentlige organisationer. Jurist og Økonomforbundets Forlag. Research-based professional book on governance, trust, control and implementation in public organisations. ISBN 9788757437997. Publisher.
• Velten, J., Tengblad, S., and Heggen, R. (2016). Medarbeiderskap: Hva som får folk til å ta ansvar og vise initiativ. 2nd edition. Universitetsforlaget. Practice-oriented professional book on co-workership, responsibility and initiative. ISBN 9788215027289. Publisher.
• Velten, J., and Heggen, R. (2022). Tillitsbasert leder- og medarbeiderskap: Alle er medarbeidere, og noen medarbeidere har et lederansvar. Teamwork. Practice-oriented professional book on trust-based leadership and co-workership. ISBN 9788269039078, print edition; 9788269039085, electronic edition. Publisher's book page. National Library of Norway record.
• Hällstén, F., and Tengblad, S. (eds.) (2006). Medarbetarskap i praktiken. Studentlitteratur. Swedish professional anthology on co-workership in practice. ISBN 9789144038988. Publisher.
• Bergman, C., Löve, J., Hultberg, A., and Skagert, K. (2017). Employees’ Conceptions of Coworkership in a Swedish Health Care Organization. Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies, 7(4). Qualitative study of employees' understandings. DOI.
• Hagsten, K., Eriksson, A., and Palm, K. (2024). Self-propelled Employees: Co-workership in Swedish Community Pharmacies. Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies, 14(1). Published online in 2023 and in the journal issue in 2024. Qualitative sector study. DOI.
• Olesen, K. G., Thoft, E., Hasle, P., and Kristensen, T. S. (2008). Virksomhedens sociale kapital: Hvidbog. Arbejdsmiljørådet and Det Nationale Forskningscenter for Arbejdsmiljø. White paper on organisational social capital. ISBN 9788779041905. Research institute record. Full text.
• Norwegian Agency for Public and Financial Management (2024). Tillitsbasert ledelse og selvledelse. State Employer Portal. Practical guidance on trust-based leadership and self-leadership. Guidance.
• Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350–383. Empirical team study. DOI. Harvard record and article.
• Kristensen, T. S., Hasle, P., and Pejtersen, J. H. (2008). Virksomhedens sociale kapital: En ny indfaldsvinkel til det psykiske arbejdsmiljø? Tidsskrift for Arbejdsliv, 10(2), 30–45. Research article on organisational social capital and the psychosocial working environment. DOI.
• Lundqvist, D., Wallo, A., and Reineholm, C. (2023). Leadership and well-being of employees in the Nordic countries: A literature review. Work, 74(4), 1331–1352. Published online in 2022. Literature review of 40 studies. DOI.
• Johnsen, Å., Svare, H., and Wittrock, C. (2022). Tillitsbasert styring og ledelse i offentlig sektor i Norge: Mye hørt, men lite sett? Nordisk Administrativt Tidsskrift, 99(1). Questionnaire study of trust-based management in Norway's public sector. DOI.
• National Institute of Occupational Health, Norway (n.d.). Krav, kontroll og utviklingsmuligheter. National Occupational Health Surveillance. Research-informed guidance on demands, control and development opportunities at work. STAMI.
• Alsos, K., and Dølvik, J. E. (eds.) (2021). The Future of Work in the Nordic Countries: Opportunities and Challenges for the Nordic Working Life Models. TemaNord 2021:520. Nordic Council of Ministers. Research-based synthesis report. Fafo. Publisher.
• Håkansson, H. (2022). Contradictions of Ordered Trust: Trust-based Work and Conflicting Logics in Municipal Care. Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies, 12(3), 3–22. Qualitative case study. DOI.
• Røste, R., and Dahlquist, T. (2025). Styring og ledelse i handlingsrommet mellom tillit og kontroll. Nordisk Administrativt Tidsskrift, 102(3). Qualitative study of municipal leaders' experiences of trust and control. DOI.
• Berg, T. E., Børve, H. E., and Røkenes, F. M. (2024). The Nordic Model and Management in International Corporations: A Scoping Review. Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies, 14(1), 25–46. Published online in 2023. Scoping review of 15 studies. DOI.
• Confederation of Danish Employers (n.d.). DA’s historie. Employer organisation's account of historical developments, including the September Compromise of 1899. Historical overview. The year and historical context were also checked against the University of Copenhagen's Employment Relations Research Centre, FAOS.
• Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (2022). Hovedavtalen. Trade union account of the first Basic Agreement in 1935. LO. The year was also checked against the Norwegian Labour Movement Archives and Library.
• Swedish Trade Union Confederation (n.d.). 1920–1939. Trade union account of the Saltsjöbaden Agreement in 1938. Historical overview. The year was also checked against the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise's historical account.
• Tillitsdelegationen (2018). Med tillit växer handlingsutrymmet: Tillitsbaserad styrning och ledning av välfärdssektorn. SOU 2018:47. Official Swedish inquiry on trust-based governance and management in welfare services. Government of Sweden. Full text at the Swedish Parliament.

English editorial adaptation of the Norwegian original.