Intelligence Leadership in the News
Leadership for Intelligence Professionals
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Learn to Lead |
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Welcome |
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Leadership for Intelligence Professionals |
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Course Syllabus |
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Course Topics |
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Introduction to Leadership |
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Leadership Traits |
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The Leader's Character |
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Types of Leaders and Styles of Leadership |
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Leadership Competencies |
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Followership, Leadership and the Staff Officer |
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Leadership in Intelligence Coordination: Leading Teams |
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Leadership in Management |
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Supplemental Materials |
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Supplemental Materials |
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Self-Assessment |
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Self-Assessment Guidance |
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Worksheet |
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Personal Leadership Development Plan |
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Plan Guidance |
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Example |
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Two Student Examples |
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Student Example: Calendar Style |
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Personal Leadership Philosophy |
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Philosophy Guidance and Example |
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Student Examples |
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COMMUNICATIONS |
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Learn to Lead
learntolead@earthlink.net
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Intelligence Leadership in the News (Past Entries)
Inter-Agency Teams and Culture: Today’s Leadership Challenges.
The National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) is intended to be the solution for insuring Intelligence Community cross-Agency collaboration to “connect the dots” and identify the diverse and complex terrorist threats.
The 9/11 Commission recommended the establishment of a
In February 2010, a report by the independent Project on National Security Reform provided a critique of the NCTC’s Directorate of Strategic Operational Planning (DSOP).
Interagency mechanisms or teams such as DSOP are the way forward for managing complex, high-priority national missions….
An important component of the broader study of DSOP was to assess DSOP’s human capital issues, including: assessing the challenges and opportunities associated with managing an interagency workforce comprised of different backgrounds, expertise, lexicon, and cultures….
The report concludes that:
Overrall, DSOP has made progress in fulfilling its mission to provide the “connective tissue” between national counterterrorism policy and strategy…. It is conducting a broad range of interagency planning, assessment, and resource oversight to help ensure a holistic and whole-of-government approach to counterterrorism.
Notwithstanding this progress, numerous obstacles persist and prevent DSOP from becoming a more efficient and effective interagency entity.
Among those obstacles are the difficulties of leading people who are temporarily assigned from different agencies to function together as a top-performing team despite the differing organizational cultures from which they come. For example, the report found:
-DSOP faces traditional issues associated with attracting detailees from other agencies….individuals have relatively few incentives to join interagency teams, and departments and agencies have not been provided sufficient incentives to share personnel
-While some agencies such as the Department of Defense have generally been strong supporters, other agencies’ support—in terms of providing sufficient numbers and quality of detailees to DSOP— has been uneven. In addition to the lack of availability of DSOP mission critical competencies in other agencies, DSOP also faces the traditional challenges of attracting employees of other agencies on detail assignments. These challenges include but are not limited to:
- Inconsistent legal requirements governing detailees.
- Reluctance of contributing agency to provide resources for its limited supply.
- Lack of contributing agency buy-in regarding value of DSOP and value of detail.
-…not only does DSOP face considerable challenges in obtaining employees with the needed competencies, but the Directorate also faces high leadership turnover and an overall employee turnover rate approximately three times greater than other federal departments and agencies.
….a turnover rate in fiscal year 2008 of approximately thirty percent. This diverges from federal department turnover rates during the same period of between five percent (Justice) and eleven percent (Treasury) with a USG-wide average of eight percent.
-The majority of federal departments and agencies within the USG do not have parallel planning and assessment capabilities from which DSOP can draw….The significant exception is the military, which over many years, has built a highly skilled planning workforce. This is evident in the workforce composition within DSOP, which is largely made up of current military on assignment or former military who have joined the cadre ranks.
-...as a result of conflicting mandates, authorities, and cultures, the study found selective but critical situations where departments and agencies have stronger incentive to not cooperate with DSOP than to cooperate.
There are a host of consequences to this reality. Most significantly, this dynamic affects the quantity and quality of department and agency participation at senior-level meetings and within DSOP-led functional working groups. It also impacts the quality and number of detailees and assignees that departments and agencies are willing to send to DSOP….
As a result, there is evidence that DSOP has been forced to develop national plans without the expertise of some of the most important players. In one classified example, a plan was criticized because it did not incorporate CIA actions. In reality, the CIA had not participated in the planning process, so it was no surprise that its perspectives were not fully considered. In another classified example, DSOP lacked the regional expertise to develop a region-specific plan tasked to DSOP by the NSC because of a lack of State Department participation.
The lack of full interagency participation in the strategic operational planning process has other consequences as well. When national plans lack full interagency buy-in, and when departments and agencies don’t feel invested in the plan, implementation of those plans suffers.
While some improvements to this situation which is crippling
Source: Project for National Security Reform, Toward Integrating Complex National Security Missions: Lessons Learned from the
For more information on Leading Teams, go here____.
For more information on the Leader's role in creating an organizational culture, go here____.
Leaders Focus on People, Managers Focus on Systems
“President Obama has said that the failures revealed by the Christmas Day plot are both human and systemic. He’s right, but the 9/11 Commission said the same thing. The question is what is he going to do about it. USAToday editorial January 5, 2010.
Leaders focus on people: Admiral Denis Blair, Director of National Intelligence:
The president was direct in his assessment that intelligence failures were a contributing factor in the escalation of this threat. This is a tough message for us to receive. But we have received it, and now we must move forward and respond as a team.
In coming days, we will review what information was available to whom, determine what mistakes were made in assessing or sharing that information, commend those who did their jobs well, and hold accountable those who did not. I have no doubt in our ability to close the gaps that these attacks have exposed….
We are an adaptive learning organization. We can an must outthink, outwork and defeat the enemy’s new ideas. Our intelligence community is now more collaborative than ever before, know how to operate as a team and can adjust to conditions on the ground. In the immediate term we have a challenging job of self-examination, and we will do it as a community….we will work together to understand, anticipate and act against our enemies….
I could not be more proud of this community, of all we have accomplished together and of your willingness to sacrifice for the country. We have more to do, and we will do it as a mutually supporting team, with our eye on the goal of keeping Americans safe.
Managers focus on systems:
….These actions are necessary given inherent systemic weaknesses and human errors revealed by the review of events leading up to December 25th . They are also required to ensure that the standards, practices and business processes…are appropriately robust….”
Department of State:
· Review visa issuance and revocation criteria and processes….
Department of Homeland Security:
· Aggressively pursue enhanced screening technology, protocols and procedures….
Director of National Intelligence:
· Immediately reaffirm and clarify roles and responsibilities of counterterrorism analytic components of the intelligence community….
· Accelerate information technology enhancements….
· Take further steps to enhance the rigor and raise the standards of tradecraft of intelligence analysis….
· Ensure resources are properly aligned….
Central Intelligence Agency:
Issue guidance aimed at ensuring timely distribution of intelligence reports.
Source: Presidential Memorandum of January 7, 2010 “Attempted Terrorist Attack on December 25, 2009; Intelligence, Screening and Watchlisting System Corrective Actions
When Leaders Fight Over Management Rather than Lead, Nobody Wins
"For those who believe the only thing the CIA leadership has to do is provide all-source intelligence analyses to President Obama and his top policymakers, think again....
"Early last week, several long-festering bureaucratic issues that had arisen between Director of National Intelligence Denis C. Blair and CIA Director Norman Panetta had to be settled by national security advisor James L. Jones, through some Solomon-like decisions.
"Blair's four-year-old organization has been trying to establish its role as supervisor of all 16 intelligence agencies, particularly the CIA, former top dog.
"Three issues arose within the last year....
- "...a May Intelligence Community Directive from Blair that dealt with appointing DNI representatives to foregin partners and international organizations....
- "...a DNI role in oversight of covert action....
- "...Blair's determination to name the intelligence community representative at National Security Council Meetings....
Jones...decided all three issues....
- "CIA station chiefs would continue to serve concurrently as DNI representatives---a well-publicized CIA win.
- Blair will name the intelligence community representative to NSC meetings...a not well-publicized DNI win.
- On covert actions and their oversight, the CIA would continue to deal directly with the White House but must report oversight findings to the DNI. This was a more complicated split decision, but one that CIA claims as a victory....
Extracted from "Settling an intelligence turf war" by Walter Pincus in the Washington Post, November 17, 2009.
For more on Leadership in Management, go here____
Leading from a Staff Position
“Gen. David H. Petraeus plans to open an in-house intelligence organization at U.S. Central Command this week that will train military officers, covert agents and analysts who agree to focus on
“The organization, to be called the Center for Afghanistan Pakistan Excellence, will be led by Derek Harvey, a retired colonel in the Defense Intelligence Agency who became one of the Gen. Petraeus’ most trusted analysts during the 2007-08 counterinsurgency campaign in
“Mr. Harvey distinguished himself in
“….In 2005, Mr. Harvey wrote a paper on how to reform the intelligence community based on his experience in
“‘I put together a paper to outline the way ahead to address the shortcomings of the intelligence community's posture for addressing the threat in
“But when he presented the report to Gen. Petraeus, the general told Mr. Harvey not to go public with his critique. ‘His counsel was let me help you, there is a better way to bring change. Sometimes you don't go public.’”
Gen. Petraeus, then used his leadership position and exercised his leadership authority to start the reform effort based on Colonel Harvey’s recommendations and has given Colonel Harvey the opportunity to implement them. That is exactly the leadership role of the staff officer. More than any other follower, Staff Officers should consider themselves as partners with the Commander in the leadership process. That is because staff officers are the direct extension of the Leader. They assist and support their Commanders in carrying out their responsibilities:
-to participate fully and actively in Community and organizational policy, planning and decisionmaking activities.
-to create a vision and goals for their organization in support of Community and higher level organizational visions and goals.
-to develop policies and plans for the implementation of the higher level direction and guidance as well as for the realization of the organizational vision and goals.
Indeed, as General Perry Smith emphasized to Pentagon staff officers, their role was to “lead the generals”.
Source: Extracts from "Petraeus to open Intell Training Center" by Eli Lake in the Washington Times, August 24, 2009 and Perry Smith, Assignment Pentagon: How to Excel in a Bureaucracy (Brassey's 2002).
For More on Leadership as a Staff Officer, go here_____.
“In the old world, the CIA director ruled. He not only ran the spy agency, but he wore a second hat as Director of Central Intelligence. The DCI was ostensibly responsible for coordinating the activities of all 16 agencies and departments which make up the intelligence community. Then came along the DNI (Director of National Intelligence) in 2005 ....
Running the CIA in itself was a full-time job. The DNI would oversee the entire intelligence community while the CIA director concentrated on running the spy agency. But there’s a problem with this setup. Although the DNI was given more input into budgets and personnel than the DCI had, the DNI's powers are limited and somewhat vague. The intelligence chief has a say in lots of things, but there's no real muscle behind his decisions. It's not like the defense secretary, who has absolute authority over all department components.
Outgoing CIA Director Mike Hayden recently told reporters there is natural tension between the CIA and DNI, but it’s ‘not a bad structure.’ And how did departing DNI Mike McConnell respond to Hayden's quip? ‘Anytime you have organizations that have similar interests, you're going to have disputes,’ he said. ‘And particularly if the two leaders aren't working together and having a partnership and so on, the warfare at the trench level gets to be pretty much a raging battle.’
CIA nominee Leon Panetta got into the middle of the dispute during his confirmation hearing. Senator Carl Levin, D-Michigan, wanted to know Panetta's understanding of the relationship between the CIA and the DNI. Would he be under the supervision of the DNI?A bit baffled by Panetta's response, Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma, asked him point blank, ‘Is the DNI your boss or not?’ Panetta’s answer, ‘The DNI is my boss.’
It makes you wonder how Panetta and the other new guy - DNI Dennis Blair - will play in the sand box.”
Extracts from "CIA vs DNI, Clash of Titans" from the Association of Foreign Intelligence Officers Weekly Intelligence Notes dated 17 Feb. 09 based on "Benson/CNN/12 Feb 2009.
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