Managers of Analysts: The Other Half of Intelligence Analysis

The literature on intelligence analysis has a glaring hole: assessment of the management of analysts and their work. This gap is striking because managers influence all aspects of analysis and share responsibility with analysts for analytic successes and failures. While many managers ably recruit, train, mentor, and manage their analysts, they also are responsible for pathologies that negatively affect analysis and are often incorrectly attributed to analysts. Accurate understanding of the roles and influence of managers should change scholars’ views of the processes of analysis and better balance attention on analysts and managers.