Leadership for Intelligence Professionals   

The Core Traits as Summarized by Others

One summary of the importance of these core traits, stated another way, is  stated by Ballard Morton—businessman, CEO, corporate board member, and Professor and Executive in Residence at the University of Louisville—who has inspired the development and evolution of this course.

Trust is the sine qua non of leadership....Ultimately, I think, leadership is a quest for integrity.  You must go deeply inside yourself to discover who you are, your values, and your ethics.
At the same time, this quest for integrity involves your relationship with others—especially your followers (or team members).  Here the emphasis is on communicating—particularly listening—respecting, caring, inspiring and building trust.
Finally the quest for integrity involves the organization or community you serve.  It has to do with your vision for the organization and your awareness of the world outside your organization.  It has to do with taking the action necessary to accomplish the mission and making sure that the mission and your actions benefit the customers you serve, the people you work with, and the society you live in.
Leadership calls for integrity

Source

Ballard Morton Gladly Learn: Leadership, Learning, Teaching and Practicing

Another summary of the importance of the core traits for intelligence professional Leaders was provided by Dr. William Nolte—Senior Intelligence Executive with long experience in analytical and leadership positions at the National Security Agency and on the Intelligence Community Staff —and illustrated with a slide when speaking to students taking this course each quarter for a period of  over five years:

The Virtues of Leadership

·         Leaders display vision-they seek long term-mission success, meaning success derived from instrumental rather than institutional behavior.

·         Leaders display truthfulness-How do we “bring truth to power” when truthfulness is not a signature of virtue among ourselves.

·         Leaders display constancy-Woodie Allen is right: success is largely a matter of showing up.

·         Leaders display courage-moral courage, expressed in the willingness to work with others but to express the unpopular opinion.  Translation: Leaders rock the boat; effective leaders do it constructively.

·         Leaders actively cultivate the leadership virtues; vision, courage, constancy, truthfulness; in sum integrity.

Source

William Nolte “Leadership and the Ethos of Organizational Renewal” delivered to students of the Joint Military Intelligence College, in August 2007.