Examples of Intelligence Professionals Successfully Speaking Out

 
 

Leadership for Intelligence Professionals   

 




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 Leadership for Intelligence Professionals



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Examples of Intelligence Professionals Successfully Speaking Up 

Before Speaking Out Weigh Risks and Benefits

 This component of the courage calculation focuses on trade-offs.  Who stands to win?  Who stands to lose?  Will you lose your self-respect?  What are the chances that your reputation will be tarnished beyond repair if you go forward?  Will you lose your job? Cause others to lose theirs?  Delay your opportunity for promotion?

 

Then Speak Out on an Ethical Issue

 

Lieutenant General Claudia J. Kennedy, the first female three-star general in the U.S. Army [as Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence], went through a difficult risk-benefit assessment [when she was a Lieutenant Colonel] before reporting a fellow officer who had plagiarized a research paper at a professional army school.  Kennedy weighed the negatives (discomfort and embarrassment for ‘snitching’ on a fellow officer) against the positives (allegiance to the army’s high standards for its future leaders, and adherence to her own ethics).  The decision was difficult: An instinct for self-protection, loyalty to her colleagues and to the institution and her personal integrity all contended within her.  She considered speaking privately to the officer, but realized that he would react angrily and that, after all, it wasn’t her job to manage him.  In the end, she decided that her loyalty to the standards was paramount: ‘I…recognized that overlooking an ethical lapse was tantamount to participating in the event.’ she writes in her book Generally Speaking.  She discreetly reported the incident; her reputation remained intact and her career thrived”

 

It is also worth noting that exercising integrity and courage builds integrity and courage.  Later, while serving as a Lieutenant General, and as the Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, US Army, Claudia Kennedy also reported another general for sexual harassment, resulting in the end of his career.

 

Sources

-“The Tests of a Leader: Courage as a Skill” in Harvard Business Review January 2007.

-Recollection of news reports at the time.

 

Or Speak Out on a Professional Issue 

 

General Michael T. Flynn,

 

...the top military intelligence officer in Afghanistan…raised eyebrows by writing a report in which [he] said too many intelligence analysts were “ignorant”, “incurious”, and “disengaged”….[He] demanded that 2000 additional intelligence analysts be brought to Afghanistan.

 

In response

 

Secretary Gates said he liked what you had to say, but didn’t like that you released this critique through a Washington think tank rather than traditional military channels.

 

But, Flynn believed that military channels

 

…are just too cumbersome.  I needed the seriousness of the situation to get noticed.  And I knew that going that route was going to get wider readership faster. At the end of the day, it ended up being exactly what was needed.

 

However, “There’s been some push-back against some of your reforms from other generals.”   But that hasn’t bothered Flynn.  He says

 

At the end of the day, everybody in senior leadership positions-they read something like that and they go “Ooh-you know, it makes them a little uncomfortable.  But, when they really read it, they go. “Shit, this makes sense!  This is exactly what we should be doing.

 

 

Source

Interview of General Michael Flynn by Elaine M. Grossman, reporter for Global Security Newswire in the Atlantic November 2010.

 






Welcome  |  Course Syllabus  |  Introduction to Leadership  |  Leadership Traits  |  The Leader's Character  |  Types of Leaders and Styles of Leadership  |  Leadership Competencies  |  Followership, Leadership and the Staff Officer  |  Leadership in Intelligence Coordination: Leading Teams  |  Leadership in Management  |  Supplemental Materials  |  Self-Assessment Guidance  |  Worksheet  |  Plan Guidance  |  Example  |  Two Student Examples  |  Student Example: Calendar Style  |  Philosophy Guidance and Example  |  Student Examples

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