Abstract
This qualitative study was designed to examine how Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) civilian employees experience leadership behaviors and characteristics during reorganizational changes in U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Combatant Command (CCMD) intelligence organizations, known as Joint Intelligence Operations Centers (JIOCs, pronounced j-EYE-ock). More specifically, this study’s goal was to create best practices for leaders to prepare for organizational change. Fourteen DIA civilians who work in three geographically separated JIOCs in senior analyst or division leadership roles were interviewed, resulting in two major themes and 13 sub-themes. First, JIOC culture must be considered in leaders’ behaviors and decision-making for engaging in multiple areas across the complex JIOC organization with two chains of command, intelligence analysts with high intellectual curiosity, and a transient workforce. Second, the use of a military planning model should be employed for a successful, coherent reorganization. This study resulted in a strong list of best practices for JIOC leaders to employ for diverse member engagement, unambiguous, transparent communications in numerous venues, member buy-in, a diverse planning team, clearly outlining vision, goals, and requirements, and creating champions of change. This study adds to the limited body of work on major, complex organizational change in hierarchical or bureaucratic DoD joint intelligence commands.