Situational strength has long been viewed as a useful way of conceptualizing and predicting person–situation interactions. Some have recently argued, however, that more rigorous empirical tests of its behavioral influence are sorely needed. The current article begins addressing this literature gap by (a) developing the Situational Strength at Work (SSW) scale, (b) examining the ways in which individual differences influence perceptions of situational strength, and (c) testing situational strength’s moderating effects on two types of voluntary work behavior (i.e., organizational citizenship behavior and counterproductive work behavior). Results indicate strong psychometric properties for the SSW (thereby facilitating future organizational research on situational strength), support for theoretically based predictions regarding the role of individual differences in perceptions of situational strength, support for theoretically based moderator effects on organizational citizenship behavior, and the presence of countertheoretical (yet strong and consistent) moderator effects on counterproductive work behavior. Thus, this study makes several contributions to the situational strength literature but also reveals important areas for future theoretical development and empirical research.

This report examines whether the Tailored Adaptive Personality Assessment System (TAPAS) may be useful for selecting and classifying recruits into Military Occupational Specialties (MOS) and describes the two broad approaches that were taken to evaluate the measure for these purposes. TAPAS data for this research were collected from Army applicants at the Military Entrance Processing Stations (MEPS) between May 2009 and June 2011. In addition, criterion data were collected in the Tier One Performance Screen (TOPS) program. The total sample size for this research was 151,625. With this data, we first examined the validity of TAPAS scales for predicting outcomes in four high density MOS including 11B, 31B, 68W, and 88M. Next, we examined whether the TAPAS scales could be used to differentiate high performers in each MOS from those that would perform better in a different occupation. Using composites of the TAPAS scales, results indicated that some individuals might perform better in an MOS other than the one they were assigned to. Therefore, TAPAS may be useful as a supplement to the current procedures for MOS qualification and classification.

This chapter explores the attributes of successful leaders from the perspective of a performance requirements approach, providing a broad overview of determined factors within the context of performance requirements of successful leaders. It describes three broad domains of leadership requirements: cognitive, social, and motivational. The survey of leader performance requirements summarizes the conceptual basis for an array of attributes, arranged in discrete sets, which are likely to differentiate successful from unsuccessful leaders. There has also been a recent increase in the number of multivariate studies of leadership that do draw from these different sets of prescribed leader attributes. It is noted that cognitive, social, self-motivational, and other sets of leader individual differences are linked with leadership outcomes. The research domain on the attributes of successful leaders can provide some rich insights to both leader researchers and practitioners.

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