Fieldmarshal (Role Variant)

This article is about the role variant. For other uses, see Fieldmarshal.

Fieldmarshal Rational is one of the 16 role variants the Keirsey Temperament Sorter is based on. David Keirsey originally described the Fieldmarshal role variant; however, the very brief personality descriptions of Isabel Myers greatly contributed to its development. Fieldmarshals correlate primarily with the ENTJ Myers-Briggs type and secondarily with the INTJ Myers-Briggs type.

Overview

Fieldmarshals are introspective, pragmatic, directive, and expressive. They are highly skilled in situational organizing and marshalling. Their ability to do contingency planning is a close second to their ability to do structural engineering. As their organizing and coordinating skills are highly developed, Fieldmarshals excel at marshalling evidence, systemizing, generalizing, summarizing and prioritizing. Their ability to do structural or functional analysis is likely to be underdeveloped by comparison so they may need to turn to an Architect or an Inventor for this type of input.

Fieldmarshals have a strong desire to give structure and direction to groups of people. Of all the role variants, fieldmarshals are the most likely to see where an organization is going and they have the desire to communicate that vision to others. Thus they are more directive in their social exchanges than they are informative. Fieldmarshals often rise to positions of responsibility in work as they are devoted to their jobs and are excellent administrators. Fieldmarshals enjoy being executives.

Fieldmarshals search more for goals and policy than they do for procedures and regulations. They strive to make their organization more efficient by reducing red tape, task redundancy and confusion in the work place. Fieldmarshals base their decisions on well thought-out plans, impersonal data and engineered operations. They expect others to follow their vision and they are willing to remove employees who are being counterproductive. For Fieldmarshals, there must be a goal-directed reason for doing any actions. People’s feelings are usually not sufficient reasons.

Fieldmarshals are impatient with the repetition of error, ineffectiveness and inefficiency. If an established procedure can be demonstrated to be ineffective at accomplishing a certain goal, they will abandon the procedure. Fieldmarshals keep long-term and short-term objectives in mind while striving to turn their organizations into smooth-functioning systems.

Distinguished fieldmarshals

The following individuals are identified as Fieldmarshals,

• Bill Gates
• George C. Marshall
• George Bernard Shaw
• Margaret Thatcher
• Napoleon Bonaparte
• Carl Sagan
• Edward Teller
• Golda Meir

See also

• Rational temperament
• Keirsey Temperament Sorter
• ENTJ
• Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

Sources

• Keirsey Temperament and Character The Web Site for the Keirsey Temperament Sorter and Keirsey Temperament Theory.
• Fieldmarshal Rational Portrait of Fieldmarshal Rational