Purpose - The purpose of the paper is to explore the universality of a qualitatively (grounded theory) developed model of leadership in complex and/or stressful rescue operations.

Design - The model was operationalised and tested on leaders (n = 385) from the ambulance service, the police force, and the rescue services in Sweden. A questionnaire was operationalised from the codes and categories of the previously developed model.

Findings - The study showed that the most important factors in explaining the outcome of complex rescue operations were organisational climate before the incident, positive stress reactions, and personal knowledge of the co-actors during the episode. Cases where the leader appraised that the situation could not be resolved with the available resources were characterised by less favourable ratings, irrespective of whether humans were perceived as being threatened or not. The strength of this controllability aspect was interpreted in terms of a professional action-oriented identity.

Research limitations/implications - The results were affected by a high dropout rate and the fact that there were comparatively few large-scale rescue operations.

Practical implications - The results may be valuable in both training and exercises with rescue operation commanders.

Originality/value - The paper presents a validation of a new, integrative, theoretical process model of leadership in complex, stressful rescue operations.