Intelligence leadership is at its strongest when it brings together diverse perspectives from many experiences, yet most intelligence leadership is still heavily male-dominated. While progress has been made on this front, women are still heavily underrepresented in senior leadership positions. Recently, there have been dramatic steps forward, including a number of women appointed to leadership roles as agency heads, but this progress has been uneven and sporadic. By recognizing that female leaders bring essential and valued skills to the intelligence enterprise that contribute significantly to security and stability, the field of intelligence becomes stronger and more effective. Only by continuing to expand opportunities for women in intelligence leadership, will intelligence organizations be best positioned to respond to today’s complex and evolving threats.
Numerous works have been written about the impact that women in the SOE and OSS had during World War II, the contributions of female codebreakers at Bletchley Park and Arlington Hall, and during the Cold War. Some excellent recent research concerns the impactful role that CIA analysts had in the search for Osama bin Laden after September 11th, and the vital intelligence female analysts and case officers such as Cynthia Storer, Barbara Sude, Gina Bennett, and Jennifer Matthews provided in the fight against al-Qaida. These successes show the impact that women bring to intelligence teams, and their contributions to mission success in a wide variety of analytic and operational roles.
Recently, there has been a dramatic improvement not only in the recognition of women as intelligence operators and analysts, but also their impact as leaders. These include the selection of a number of Agency Directors, including Gina Haspel, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Letitia “Tish” Long, the first woman to head a U.S. Intelligence Agency when selected as Director of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA), and both the former and current Directors of National Intelligence, Avril Haines and Tulsi Gabbard. Other notable female leaders include Greta Bossenmaier, Canada’s National Security and Intelligence Advisor, and in the United Kingdom, Anne Keast-Butler, the first female head of GCHQ, and Blaise Metreweli, the first female head of MI6. Recently, Major General Ann Lena Hallin was selected as the first female Director of Military Intelligence and Security in Sweden, and Michelle Johnson currently serves as the first female Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Intelligence at NATO Headquarters. These women have shown remarkable skill and leadership, rising through the ranks in traditionally male-dominated industries, and finding ways to “speak truth to power” on difficult issues such as foreign terrorism, hybrid threats, and complex and evolving geopolitical realities concerning security threats in Europe and beyond.
Unfortunately, many of these women also faced traditional obstacles against women in leadership; their progress reveals not the absence of barriers, but their ability to overcome them. In many Western agencies, the number of women working in intelligence agencies at entry and mid-career levels are roughly equivalent to the percentages of women in the workforce or society as a whole. However, this drops off dramatically at upper leadership levels, where women often make up only 10% of executive leadership. Most research indicates there is no single reason why women are underrepresented in senior leadership, but a series of related potential factors.
One CIA study identified three key ways in which women can be empowered for future intelligence leadership roles. First, the report found the importance of mentorship in developing potential future executive leaders among female employees. Secondly, they recommended current leaders work to align mission needs with employee goals in a more organized and deliberate manner. Finally, they recognized the importance of greater organizational and workplace flexibility, to help employees balance work/life decisions throughout their careers. These findings also mirror those from business and executive leadership studies, which have found the importance of mentorship in developing current and future female executive leaders and opportunities for leadership with greater work/life balance.
Intelligence operates at it strongest when it can example complex problems from a multifaceted perspective, incorporating as much strategic insight and experience into its perspectives. By finding ways to improve recruitment of intelligence leadership from a variety of roles and careers, building and improving professional mentorship, and finding opportunities to empower a broad variety of leadership perspectives from both men and women, the field of intelligence will be a stronger, more agile, and dynamic workforce best able to see the complex world of geostrategic problems from all multiple angles.
Jennifer A. Davis
Associate Professor, Intelligence Analysis
James Madison University
United States of America
Davi32ja@jmu.edu
