International Journal of Behavior Studies in Organizations

The purpose was to explore the association between the Big Five personality dimensions, the use of influencing behaviors (influencing tactics and political skill) with military staff members’ perceived performance. The sample included 185 Armed Forces staff members from various countries (predominantly the Baltic countries, Sweden, Norway and the USA). A hierarchical multiple regression indicated that the Big-Five dimensions Extraversion and Openness made statistically significant contributions (albeit low) in step 1 of the regression analysis in relation to performance, however, their contribution was weakened after the influencing behaviors were added in step 2 of the analysis. Two influencing behaviors (influencing tactic Rational persuasion and Political skill) demonstrated to be unique statistically significant contributions to perceived performance in the model as a whole, with political skill being the strongest. Practical considerations and future research directions are suggested.