What the Birkman Method© Can Tell Us about the Psychological Profile of Business Aviation Departments, Their Leadership, Strengths, and Challenges

ABSTRACT

Method

The study summarizes a significant amount of Birkman data, validated by one-on-one interviews with business aviation professionals and supported by close observation of the departments and corporations where they work.

Objective

Earlier research focused on military, commercial, and trainee pilots; the present study of business aviation examines not only pilots but also maintenance technicians, cabin attendants, schedulers, and directors of aviation who fly, maintain, and manage corporate jets.

Results

The findings compare the resulting profile(s) with output from previous studies; throw additional light on the “boomerang effect” in CRM training and other unresolved issues and ambiguities in existing knowledge; and suggest directions for further research, including refined methods and broadened uses for psychological assessments in and beyond the selection process.

Acknowledgments

This article would not have been possible without the contributions of Pete Agur and Don Henderson of VanAllen, David Butler of WorkLife Consulting, and Sheryl Barden of API, who generously shared their first-hand knowledge of business aviation; the insights into management and organization design provided by Roy Autry and Esther Powers; and access to internal company documents and many helpful editorial and technical comments from the staff at Birkman International. The author is also grateful to the reviewers and editorial staff at IJAP for their many helpful comments and improvements to the original manuscript.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. See, for example, (Bartram, 1995; Callister et al., 1999; Carretta et al., 2014; Fitzgibbons et al., 2004; Helton & Street, 1993; Wakcher et al., 2003). For a comprehensive list and summary of military and commercial pilot and pilot candidate studies conducted between 1971 and 2018, see, Chaparro et al. (2020).

2. By comparison, the 16PF, as its name implies, consists of 16 primary scales, sometimes resolved into and reported in the form of five “global” or “second order” scales (Cattell & Mead, 2008). Likewise, the NEO-PI reports on five “domains” (Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism or Emotional Stability, and Openness to Experience or Intellect), together comprising 30 “traits” or “primary” scales (Costa & McCrae, 2014).

3. See, Slack et al. (2020), especially Chapter 5 (Validity), which shows the correlations between Birkman Components scores and domain and trait scores on the 16PF, NEO-PI, and by implication, other FFM instruments.

4. For detailed certification requirements and levels, see https://birkman.com/solutions/signature-certification/#advanced

5. The Birkman questionnaire consists of three sections: 125 statements about “Most People,” which participants are asked to mark either “true” or “false”; another 125 statements about themselves (i.e., Yourself”), again to be marked true or false; and 48 lists of four professions each, which participants are asked to rank order by attractiveness, regardless of pay, prestige, opportunity, or work history and proficiency (Slack et al., 2020).

For a representative individual Report, see https://birkman.com/solutions/birkman-basics/

6. In this respect, Social Energy is roughly equivalent to Extraversion on the NEO-PI and equivalent scales on other Five-Factor instruments, on all of which the pilot community tests well above average.

7. This appears to be an important difference between Birkman’s assignment of personality traits and the NEO-PI and other Five-Factor instruments’. In the latter, Assertiveness is a sub-scale of Extraversion, where it is defined as a combination of results orientation and social ascendancy – an inclination to see others and work with them (as tools or instruments) to get things done. On the NEO-PI, in a stark contrast to The Birkman Method, pilots score an average of 71% on Assertiveness (King, 2014). On the Birkman, Assertiveness is more closely related to the score for Agreeableness on the NEO-PI, where only 53% of commercial pilots test high or very high on the sub-scale, Trust (Fitzgibbons et al., 2004).

8. This quirk in the profile offers a likely explanation for the otherwise puzzling results in two earlier studies of CRM training. In one (Helmreich et al., 1990), a small, but meaningful percentage of seminar participants showed a “boomerang effect” – i.e., their attitudes changed in the opposite direction from that intended. In the other, (Hörmann & Maschke, 1996) the investigators found an inverse relationship between years of professional employment and acceptance of a new environment and new practices: “Being in the airline business for more than 10 or 15 years or having several thousand flying hours” [and thus feeling that no one needs to tell them how to do the job] “could in fact be a substantial burden rather than an advantage for a job change” (p. 178).

9. For corroborating evidence, see, Nieß and Zacher (2015), who found that openness to experience (as measured by the NEO-PI) was “associated with a 39% higher likelihood of … upward job changes into managerial and professional positions” (p. 13) and that it was the only Five-Factor characteristic of which this was true. In other respects, Openness, positive or negative, is the least distinctive characteristic of the pilot profile.

10. Even the most passionate advocates of the Five-Factor Model point out the limited value for analytical and clinical work of broad-brush, highly generalized descriptors. See, for example, (Mershon & Gorsuch, 1988; Boyle, 2008; Costa & McCrae, 2014), p. 236.

11. In fact, Tett et al.’s meta-analytic study (Tett et al., 1991) found that “studies employing job analysis to select trait scales and a confirmatory rather than an exploratory approach had an overall predictive validity more than twice that of studies that did not (p. 703).

12. For a recent study that meets the criteria Tett et al. propose, see, Helmreich et al. (2001), which focuses on the specific behaviors that define effective CRM performance; looks at different kinds of national, corporate, and department cultures that support them; and draws on coded performance data, collected by trained observers, to describe and analyze cockpit behavior. For a case study that reflects the main findings of Helmreich et al.’s research, see, Dibble (2021).

13. See, for example, Bartram (1995), Carretta et al. (2014), and Helton and Street (1993). Actually, it is probably more appropriate to describe the purpose of such studies as “de-selection” – elimination or separation/identification of candidates that do not fit the existing profile of the profession or the organization, especially since most authors after Bartram follow his lead in speculating that candidates for positions in aviation “self-select,” whether they have the appropriate profile or not.