Experienced Military Officer's Perception of Important Character Strengths

Abstract

Problem statement: Military officers educated from the Norwegian Military Academy are expected to become leaders in military international operations. Leadership in these contexts will demand a high degree of intellect and character. However, there is a lack of systematic research on which specific character strengths that are crucial to possess for military officers to succeed in international operations. Purpose of study: This paper discusses a group of experienced officer's perception of which character strengths are deemed most important for the Norwegian Military Academy's officers to succeed. Method A group of participants consisting of 25 experienced military officers were given a list of 24 character strengths. They were requested to judge each character strength according to its importance for military officers. Findings and results: 12 character strengths were selected as the most important for military officers and their leadership. These were in ranked order: Leadership, integrity, persistence, bravery, open-mindedness, fairness, citizenship, self-regulation, love of learning, social intelligence, perspective and creativity. Conclusions and recommendations: These 12 character strengths were the same 12 identified as important for military officers in another study conducted at the NMA. It was therefore decided that these 12 selected character strengths will function as the basis for the development of an instrument for observing character strengths during military field exercises.