Network or hierarchy? Personality profiles of future military leaders

To what degree do future military officers resemble the traditional hierarchical leadership ideal, and to they an emerging new kind of network-based ideal? Military organizations are constantly changing in response pressures from within organization surrounding society. Today, such changes exert themselves novel recruitment strategies for a generation leaders. Previous studies have shown how network-organizational paradigm has come fore officer recruitment. However, core requirements leadership—remaining calm under pressure demonstrating ability lead others inspire followership—remain same. psychological scholarship often focused on subgroups rather than general differences personality between civilian populations. We remedy this limitation literature, use Big Five taxonomy unique dataset consisting profiles entire cohort Danish cadets (n = 190) large 1,568) population-representative sample. compare civilians using three-level matching procedure, finding that pool which leaders selected, cadets, less neurotic, more extraverted somewhat conscientious their counterparts, traits we theorize fit with leadership. The results indicate no open or agreeable peers, related balancing towards paradigm.