Leadership for Intelligence Professionals   

An Example of an Intelligence Professional Successfully Speaking Out on Ethical Issues

 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.

Source

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

-Recollection of news reports at the time.

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”

Source

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

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