5/03/2007

The personality of a general

Fascinating:
... the Air Force administers the Myer-Briggs Personality Inventory test at both the Air Force Academy and the War College levels. At the Academy, the bureaucratic personality type (ISTJ) is just one among many. But by the War College, ISTJs are completely dominant.
By recalling junior officers and advancing them to high rank in the Civil War, the Union probably obtained a rich mix of personality types.

... an ISTJ may show some or all of the following weaknesses in varying degrees:

* Excessive love of food and drink

* Lack of interest in other people, or in relating to them

* Occasional inappropriate emotional displays

* General selfish "look after oneself" tendencies

* Uses judgement to dismiss other's opinions and perspectives, before really understanding them

* May judge others rather than themselves

* May look at external ideas and people with the primary purpose of finding fault

* May become slave to their routine and "by the book" ways of doing things, to the point that any deviation is completely unacceptable

* May have difficulty communicating their thoughts and feelings to anyone