Investing in People at Defence

The Amsterdam Leadership Lab (ALL) of the Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences, under the leadership of Prof. Dr. Reinout de Vries and Prof. Dr. Mark van Vugt, is going to develop defence-specific personality, leadership, and team instruments and training programmes that will be implemented across the entire defence organisation in development, training, and coaching trajectories. ALL does this in collaboration with the consultancy firm PerCo. The project is planned to run for the next 10 years and aligns with the aim of the Ministry of Defence to place greater and more targeted emphasis on the personal development of military personnel.

As a foundation for constructing these defence-specific instruments, researchers at the Amsterdam Leadership Lab, Reinout de Vries and Mark van Vugt, use the HEXACO personality model and the Circumplex Leadership Scan (CLS). The HEXACO model is based on six personality dimensions: Integrity, Emotionality, Extraversion, Tolerance, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience. The CLS applies two interpersonal leadership dimensions, agency and communion, which partly overlap with two of the six personality dimensions, namely Extraversion and Tolerance. Together, these two models provide a comprehensive profile of an individual's personality and leadership styles.

Based on these two models, which were partly developed at VU Amsterdam, the partner organisation PerCo has designed training programmes and coaching trajectories that help people in the workplace deal with everyday (inter)personal challenges. In developing a defence-specific instrument, it will be necessary to take into account that certain personality traits and leadership styles may be effective in, for example, a peacetime context but not in a wartime context.

Researchers from VU Amsterdam and consultants from PerCo look forward to taking on the challenge - together with the Ministry of Defence - to provide all defence employees with optimal insight into their functioning, both individually and in their team.