By Dr. James Burch | 06/03/2024
The field of intelligence is ultimately focused on identifying potential threat actors who seek to engage in activities in a secretive and clandestine manner. Detecting these bad actors requires a wide variety of skill sets. It also requires the people engaged in intelligence analysis to adapt specific mindsets.
“Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play.”
–Immanuel Kant, German philosopher
Intelligence Activities Are Wide-Ranging and Diverse
The intelligence activities employed by the U.S. Intelligence Community extend beyond traditional intelligence collection and analysis. They include broader human and military targeting, planning, and working with a variety of customers, ranging from senior policymakers to military commanders, diplomats, and law enforcement officials.
These broad intelligence activities are also supported by an underlying infrastructure of professionals with various skill sets, including:
- Scientists
- Engineers
- Information technology (IT) professionals
- Financial specialists
- Human resources (HR) professionals
- Educators
The alignment and synchronization of these numerous and interdependent functions lies at the core of integrated mission management. Given this wide range of activities, the conundrum is figuring out where to start.
An intelligence professional seeking leadership positions and greater responsibility cannot possibly master all these skills or even have a strong knowledge of all these activities. As a result, intelligence professionals must operate within a personal set of values and mindsets, ideally fostered by a healthy organizational culture.
What Is a Mindset?
The American Psychological Association (APA) defines a mindset as “a state of mind that influences how people think about and then enact their goal-directed activities in ways that may systematically promote or interfere with optimal functioning.” In other words, a mindset is one’s lens and perspective on how we frame issues and make sense of the environment that surrounds us.
What Is a Systems Mindset?
While there is a plethora of literature on mindsets, an intelligence professional should ideally adopt a systems mindset as defined by Sam Carpenter in his book, Work the System: The Simple Mechanics of Making More and Working Less. Carpenter observes that a systems mindset is an “embedded vision of the world as an orderly collection of processes, not as a chaotic mass of sights, sounds, and events.”
A systems mindset is grounded within the concept of systems theory, which has its origins under the work of Austrian biologist Ludwig vonBertalanffy and Russian-American social psychologist Uri Bronfenbrenner. Von Bertalanffy and Bronfenbrenner researched human physiology and its relationship to its ecological environment.
The perspective achieved through a systems mindset establishes the framework that places an individual at the center of analysis. It permits us to draw upon different theoretical lenses and disciplines to evaluate the complexity of human interactions within a social environment.
At its core, it is an inductive perspective that seeks to question the environment from its broadest perspective, as opposed to approaching the environment from a prescribed or predisposed framework.
In terms of the intelligence profession, a systems mindset – seeking to discover the order within the social setting through broad and multidisciplinary perspectives – seems well-suited to serve as the foundational underpinning for understanding the environment.
The Value of a Growth Mindset
While a systems mindset presumes an open approach to integrate a broad set of activities across the intelligence field, an intelligence professional must also use an adaptive perspective. This perspective is essential for evaluating and implementing new and innovative solutions to complex issues.
To adopt a growth mindset is to operate based “on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts,” according to author Carol S. Dweck. More specifically, this mindset is the approach where individuals believe their skills and talents can be grown through personal initiative, collaboration with others, and development. Conversely, people with a fixed mindset believe their talents are innate gifts with little room for development.
A growth mindset is consistent with collaboration and development. Individual and organizational values that foster an environment based on collaboration, trust, and transparency are ideally suited to identify and evaluate complex problems that require novel solutions.
How Mindsets Lend to Leadership’s Credibility
The ability to operate across a broad spectrum of activities – within an integrated mission management approach that spans across several intelligence functions – involves more than merely adopting the appropriate mindsets. The ability to operate within the complex discipline of intelligence also requires credibility.
Author James Kouzes and leadership scholar Barry Posner have explored the issue of leadership over the past several decades and have explored those values admired most in effective leaders. Consistent in their research are the values of integrity/honesty and competence.
Integrity and honesty are necessary to establish a healthy organizational environment where people can express their true insights and thoughts while holding on to their principles amidst difficult challenges. Competence is grounded in professional acumen and accomplishment.
While it is understood that an intelligence professional cannot possibly master every aspect of the intelligence discipline or every process that constitutes integrated mission management, a leader’s personal credibility or believability lies in their professional competence. A strong balance between integrity/honesty and competence is necessary for effective leadership.
After all, a person of high integrity and honesty may not be an effective leader if they are professionally incompetent. Conversely, a leader who lacks moral principles, is untrustworthy, and is professionally competent is not likely to gain too much followership.
Defining Success Within the Intelligence Community
The Intelligence Community is a sprawling enterprise that spans several mission areas and organizations. The career fields and skills employed by intelligence professionals are also varied and focus on a wide variety of functions.
Within this complex environment, the need to operate within the principle of integrated mission management is significant. The Intelligence Community needs to focus on complex threat issues that span individual agency systems, processes, and missions.
Ultimately, intelligence professionals need to adopt a systems mindset to assess their environment inductively and broadly. This approach allows for evaluating and understanding the variables that constitute the problems to be solved.
Intelligence professionals must also adopt a growth mindset. They must be open to exploring new options and solutions to address complex issues.
Lastly, intelligence professionals must possess credibility. They need to be believable in that they hold to their principles amidst adversity and challenges, while still expressing their views honestly. They also need to have a professional competence that contributes to the validity of their views.
Intelligence Studies Degrees at American Military University
American Military University (AMU) offers both an online bachelor’s degree in intelligence studies and an online master’s degree in intelligence studies. These programs offer courses in a wide range of topics, including the various forms of intelligence, U.S. Intelligence Community activities, and the intelligence cycle, as well as the evolution of the Intelligence Community and its capabilities.
Both degrees offer several concentrations to provide useful knowledge for aspiring intelligence analysts, including an intelligence analysis concentration and an intelligence collection concentration. For more information on these degrees and their concentrations, visit our program page.
