Ice Cold Leader

CHAPTER 18Implementing Your Guidelines for Behavior

I LOVED BEING A SPECIAL AGENT FOR THE FBI. SOME OF THE greatest leaders I have ever met sat in the FBI offices in New York City and led amazing cases that had a profound impact in New York City, the United States, and around the world. However, as I've stated many times, my opinion is that those great leaders in the FBI I am speaking of were outliers, not the norm.

I bring this up not to take a gratuitous shot at the FBI. I bring it up to highlight that, despite loving the job of FBI Special Agent, the environment drove me away. As I spent time in New York City, I would see consistent flashes of poor leadership that I had a hard time believing were really happening—half-truths, lies, jealousy, vindictiveness, “my way or the highway,” laziness, outsized and misplaced ego, gossip, and pettiness. It was hard to believe. But it wasn't until I left the New York Office and transferred to a much smaller office in a different state that I fully realized the overall corrosive environment I was a part of.

Every single Guideline for Behavior I cite in this section was not only lacking in that smaller office, but the culture also consisted of the opposite behaviors. Lateness to meetings and not paying attention or otherwise rude behaviors during meetings were the norm. Half-truths and innuendo were treated as fact (in some cases, so was outright lying). When an idea was put on the table for discussion, you could count on gossip, bad-mouthing, ...