Lieutenant-Colonel J.P. Bradley, CD, PhD Head and Associate Professor

Department of Military Psychology and Leadership

Professional Biography

Prior to enrolling in the Canadian Forces in 1971, Lieutenant-Colonel (LCol) Bradley completed a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English with a minor in Psychology from the University of Prince Edward Island.

Infantry

In 1971, LCol Bradley was commissioned as a subaltern in the Royal Canadian Regiment (RCR) where he served for 12 years before leaving the infantry to become a personnel selection officer. He had four postings as an Infantry officer. First, he served a two-year tour as a Rifle Platoon Commander in 2RCR, followed by a three-year posting with 2 Commando of the Airborne Regiment where he was employed consecutively as a Platoon Commander, Unit Intelligence Officer and Company Second-in-Command. Next came a three-year tour as the Regular Force Advisor for First Battalion, the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, a military unit in St Johns, and then he finished his Infantry service with a two-year tour as Second-in-Command of J Company, 2RCR. During his early years as a Platoon Commander, he served two six-month tours with the UN in Cyprus, one during the hostilities of 1974, and also participated in several small-unit exchanges with the U.S. Army.

Personnel Selection

LCol Bradley reclassified to the Personnel Selection Occupation in July 1983 and served as a base personnel selection officer at Canadian Forces base (CFB) Gagetown and CFB North Bay for four years. The primary duties of this job involved psychological testing, occupational and educational counselling, and assessing individuals for trade re-assignments, officer selection, and special employment.

Post-Graduate Education and Research

In 1987 he was selected to proceed on Post Graduate Training at the University of Western Ontario to pursue an MA in Industrial-Organizational Psychology. In his MA studies, LCol Bradley specialized in the influence of employment attitudes (e.g., commitment, satisfaction, etc.) on work-related outcomes like performance and attrition. His thesis research examined the impact of military physicians' attitudes toward military service on turnover and formed part of the research findings used in the Medical Officer Occupation get-well program of the late 1980s.

For five years in the period from 1989 to 1994, he was employed as a researcher in the Officer Selection and Training Section of the CF Personnel Applied Research Unit (CFPARU) in Toronto where his research covered the areas of employee attrition, personnel selection, leadership, and attitude measurement. For three of these years, LCol Bradley was the Canadian psychologist member on the Euro-NATO Aircrew Selection Working Group, an international panel of psychologists and pilots tasked with developing a common selection system for NATO fast-jet pilot selection.

In 1994, LCol Bradley returned to the University of Western Ontario to complete his PhD. In this phase of his studies, he focussed on psychological measurement, in particular the measurement of intelligence, personality (i.e., disposition), and work performance. His dissertation research examined the utility of employing personality measurement in CF officer candidate selection.

Personnel Selection Policy

In 1996, LCol Bradley spent one year at NDHQ developing selection policy in the Assistant Deputy Minister (Personnel) Group. While at NDHQ, he represented Canada on Sub-Group U of The Technical Cooperation Panel (TTCP), an international group of personnel specialists from the U.S., Canada, U.K., Australia, and New Zealand.

Royal Military College (RMC)

LCol Bradley has been Head of the Military Psychology and Leadership Department since 1997.

LCol Bradley teaches the following courses:

• PSE 454 Advanced Leadership and Motivation
• PSE 401 Military Professionalism and Ethics
• Leadership
• The Profession of Arms

Scholarly Works