Christopher M. Piehota

Over the course many careers, people are called upon to fill leadership roles, whether formal or informal in nature, to assist their organizations, employers, and colleagues to accomplish missions; reach business objectives; and maintain healthy, productive workplaces. With a combined base of over 40 years of combined service with the private sector, Federal Bureau of Investigation, NASA, and the U.S. Air Force, I have had the honor of serving in various leadership capacities in a number of high-pressure missions, no-fail operations, and crisis response situations. As a FBI Special Agent, I had a front row seat to the tragedies of airline crashes TWA 800 and Egypt Air 990, as well as the attacks on September 11, 2001 and subsequently worked in high consequence national security matters on an international level for many years.

Throughout all of these leadership and operational experiences, I was fortunate to serve under valued mentors and skilled managers who helped me to develop and refine a leadership perspective that facilitated my eventual promotion to serve in one of the nine most senior FBI leaders for the entire organization. I served as a direct daily advisor to the FBI Director where I provide vulnerability-capability assessments for mission areas such as cyber operations, counterterrorism, counterintelligence, technical special operations, and major crisis management responses. I would like to offer a conversation to share ideas, anecdotal experiences, and lessons learned to build perspectives on the following macro leadership concepts.

Development of a healthy environment is primarily characterized by a consistent atmosphere of mutual support, as facilitated by a three-dimensional approach that is simple and can be applied to most any organizational structure (direct and indirect micro approaches can be specified based upon respective organizational structures, cultures, policies, and practices).

• Interpersonal (Be honest, objective, considerate)
• Organizational (Be accountability-based and results-oriented – Starting with yourself)
• Professional (Be enthusiastic, resilient, communicative, and example-setting)

Leadership is a privilege, is our most valuable resource, and should be treated as a vital resource for any organization. The open sharing of ideas can be one of the best ways to keep a positive, flexible outlook on how we can continue to enjoy ourselves while providing mentorship and development for the leaders of the future. The preceding concepts can be successfully implemented and sustained on all organizational levels.

As a former senior U.S. government official and a currently practicing subject matter expert and consultant, I have had various opportunities to speak in many public forums, as well as in private and classified forums on subjects such as national security threats, security practices, investigations and operations, technological opportunities and challenges, organizational leadership, crisis-risk management, and organizational improvement. Over the course of my career, I delivered a large number of presentations, briefings, keynote addresses, and speeches at various private and-or secure forums on topics such as current and emergent technological threats-opportunities, current and emerging societal threats, counterterrorism operations, counterintelligence concerns, and the value of government-private sector-community partnerships in countering such areas of hazard. I provided Congressional testimony, was a speaker-briefer for Senate and House of Representatives members and staff officers. and served as a regular executive participant in National Security Council briefings and meetings. I have been fortunate to have spoken with various open-source news media representatives and, also, to have been a featured guest on several nationally distributed podcasting programs.