Thread by @AshTheWiz

An interesting article. It should make a good read for all SSB aspirants as well as IOs, GTOs and Psychologists, including those who are coaching kids for the SSB. Presented as a thread here.
@SSBCrackExams @simply_mixed_up @ZeOldMonk

ANGULAR PERSONALITIES OF THE DEFENCE SERVICES: Part 1
By Brig BL Poonia, VSM (Retd)

What is an Angular Personality? These are the people whose personality graph at some point shows a prominent kink. They are generally difficult people. But how do we define difficult people? 1/15

They are a 'miniscule minority' who are capable of making the lives of others difficult. In a social group, they are capable of screwing the happiness of even a matured majority. They always want to remain in the limelight and dominate various social groups without having... 2/15

the calibre or the competence to do so. Basically, they suffer from a complex. In the Defence 'Services Selection Boards' (SSBs), they are classified as 'Factor Two' cases. To cut the story short, they are the people with low 'Emotional Intelligence'.
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Lacking 'Tact', which involves skilful management of feelings of the person being dealt with, they care 2 hoots for others' feelings & derive sadistic pleasure in hurting people, to satisfy their ego because they lack d ability to put themselves into d other person's shoes.
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One may wonder as to why do these people always fire shots at a tangent! That's because they are 'Angular Personalities'.
But then how did they get selected in the SSBs, and some of them even managed to reach very high ranks, including Maj Gens, Lt Gens, Army Commanders...
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or even Army Chiefs? I'm aware of two such Army Cdrs (one from Armoured Corps, and the other from Engineers), and one Army Chief (ex Infantry).
And that's because, in SSB, such candidates are borderline cases in the 'Social Factor', but are at times pushed through by the...
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Assessors by giving grace marks. Those who have been Assessors will recall that not all candidates in the SSBs are cleared by all the three assessors, i.e. by the GTO, the Psychologist, and the Interviewing Officer. Quite a few of them are cleared by giving grace marks.
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Otherwise, the shortage of officers in the Defence Services will shoot up to unacceptable proportions. There was a time during 2001-05 when the shortage of officers in the Services had crossed the figure of 12,000, which has now been brought down to a little more than 9,700.
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So let's understand the basics of the selection system in the Defence Services. In the SSB, a candidate is tested for 15 different Leadership Qualities, under four different factors. These are:
Factor 1: Planning and Organizing Factor
Factor 2: Social Adjustment Factor
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Factor 3: Social Effectiveness Factor
Factor 4: Dynamic Factor
You will be surprised to know that even a person whose Planning & Organizing, and Dynamic factors are very high, but the Social Factors are weak, can rise to the highest rank, in case he can manage to keep...
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his bosses happy. Because the sufferers of deficiency of 'Social Factors' are not the seniors, but juniors and colleagues. And they are rightly known as 'Factor 2' cases (not 'Factor 3' cases), because 'Factor 3' of a person, in case, can never be higher than 'Factor 2'.
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Hence the officers, who are professionally competent, but socially cunning and clever, can manage to keep their bosses happy. However, they will always remain a pain for their subordinates and colleagues. Not only do they become a pain for others, wherever they go, but...
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some of the clever and cunning among them, do manage to rise to higher ranks too.
Moreover, not attaining a particular rank in the ladder does not necessarily mean that the officer was not as good as the one who made it.
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Let's not forget that there is something called 'Destiny'. I would never like to consider anyone more knowledgeable, or a better officer, just because one has reached a higher rank.
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But I would certainly respect anyone and everyone who is a gentleman with strong human values is open to conviction and respects the feelings of other people. In short, these are the people with high Emotional Intelligence.
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