Intelligence Leadership and Governance (Studies in Intelligence)

This book examines the factors that are critical in developing future leaders of intelligence agencies and communities in the post-9/11 security environment.

As the twenty-first century security and policy-making environment becomes increasingly complex for decision-makers, the focus on intelligence agencies 'to deliver' more value will increase. Several official and academic reviews into both the events of 9/11 and the intelligence that supported the US-led invasion of Iraq demonstrated that while several issues contributed to such intelligence failures, leadership issues was an important factor. However, none of the official reports or the subsequent and growing theorising on intelligence failure has focused profoundly on what leadership is in the intelligence context nor how practitioners and researchers can build better evidence to improve intelligence leadership. If intelligence agencies and their products are to remain valuable for decision-makers and we are to reduce both the frequency and impact of future intelligence failures-improving intelligence leadership in all its dimensions remains critical.

Drawing principally on leadership developments across the 'Five Eyes' intelligence alliance (UK, USA, Australia, Canada, NZ), the book uses the 'effective intelligence framework' as its theoretical foundation to elucidate key themes on how to improve intelligence leadership capabilities and organisational performance. Drawing on secondary data sources and semi-structured interviews of former and current 'intelligence leaders' the book provides a grounded theory approach to building practitioner and researcher understanding of what individual and organisational factors result in better leadership. Uniquely, the book explores which individual attributes and organisational factors together result in better leadership of intelligence agencies and communities in the one volume. In short, this book addresses four key research objectives:

1. What is intelligence leadership?

2. What individual leadership capabilities are critical to managing challenges and opportunities in the post 9/11 security environment?

3. What organisational factors determine well led and sustainable intelligence communities in the post 9/11 security environment?

4. Does 'intelligence governance' improve individual intelligence leadership and organisational outcomes?

This book will be of much interest to students of intelligence studies, strategic studies, leadership studies, security studies and International Relations.