Leadership for Intelligence Professionals   

Suggestions for Personal Leadership Development
for Mid-Level Intelligence Professionals

Introduction

There are five personal "core traits" that military, intelligence and other national security Leaders are expected to have and need to display to be successful in gaining the trust of the people of an organization so that they will willing follow---Integrity, Competence, Courage---and accept change---Vision and Inspirational qualities. (For and extended discussion of these core traits, go here_____

Based on over 10 years of reviewing hundreds of Self-Assessments in which students, following the guidance on this website, have identified their personality and temperament-based characteristics that provide strengths and weaknesses for Leadership, it is apparent that each intelligence professional has some innate personal characteristics or qualities and some preferred ways of behaving that contribute to making several of those core traits strong assets for their Leadership; and that each has other characteristics and behaviors that contribute to weakness in some other core traits necessary for Leadership. Yet, to be a Leader who can call on the appropriate combination of traits required to gain the trust of people and Lead them to accept change and meet any challenge the organization may face, an intelligence professional must have some degree of strength in all of the those core traits.

Thus, a useful initial effort for personal-professional leadership development would seem to be to focus on sustaining one’s stronger core traits and, at the same time, to work on increasing one’s strength in the weaker. The following are suggestions for concrete and practical activities that can help intelligence professionals sustain and build their strengths in all the core traits necessary for effective Leadership.

A mid-level intelligence professional should:

-Develop Career Goals
-Perfect Your Integrity and Demonstrate Courage to Gain and Sustain Trust
-Undertake Continuous Learning to Develop Competence and Vision
-Walk to Demonstrate Caring and Be Inspiring
-Adopt a Participatory Leadership Style.

Find suggestions for starting and conducting those efforts by selecting those of interest by clicking on INDEX or by scrolling down.

(Note: In those materials, the unattributed quotes citing the characteristics of various temperament and personality types are drawn from the following sources:

-Pamphlet: Introduction to Type in Organizations, Susan Krebs Hirsch and Jean M. Kummerow (Palo Alto: Consulting Psychologists Press; 1998).
-Pamphlet, Introduction to Type, Sixth Edition, Isabel Briggs Myers (Palo Alto: Consulting Psychologists Press; 1998).
-Pamphlet: Leadership , Temperament and Talent, David Keirsey, (Del Mar CA: Prometheus Nemesis Book Co; 1998).
-Pamphlet: The Sixteen Types, David Keirsey (Del Mar CA: Prometheus Nemesis Book Co; 1998).)