Military Review English Edition March-April 2016 | Page 56

(Photo by Sgt. Alexandra Hulett, Viper Combat Camera–USAREUR)

Soldiers of 1st Squadron, 91st Cavalry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade, provide security during a movement-to-contact drill
11 August 2015 while participating in exercise Allied Spirit II at the U.S. Army’s Joint Multinational Readiness Center in Hohenfels,
Germany. Personality factors often influence the manner individuals respond to changes in their environment.

Moving Beyond the MBTI
The Big Five and Leader
Development

Stephen J. Gerras, PhD, and Leonard Wong, PhD

I

n the recent past, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
(MBTI) has been the staple of self-awareness for
Army leaders (and often their spouses) across
the entire spectrum of professional military education ranging from the U.S. Army Sergeants Major
Academy to the U.S. Army War College. For the rare
few who might not be acquainted with Myers-Briggs,
the MBTI assesses four pairs of opposing preferences
that are said to be inborn and value-neutral to form a
person’s four-letter personality type.1 The instrument
determines a preference for either extraversion (E) or
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introversion (I), sensing (S) or intuition (N), thinking
(T) or feeling (F), and judging ( J) or perceiving (P).
Individuals are categorized into one of sixteen different
personality types, such as an ISTJ or ENFP, based on
the preferences.
Over the course of several decades, the MBTI
became the military’s preeminent instrument for providing insight into oneself and others as its use spread
throughout the Army. Its popularity was evident in
a 1990 study conducted by the National Research
Council (NRC) at the Army War College. In the study,
March-April 2016  MILITARY REVIEW