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Jun 16, 2026
Leadership Legacy at the CIA with Cathe Hargenrader
Leadership Legacy at the CIA with Cathe Hargenrader
00:00
23:09
Transcript
0:00
Today, we are honored and privileged to talk to Kathy Hagenreider, who worked at the Central Intelligence Agency for 35 years and has 25 years of professional development experience in the broader intelligence community.
0:15
Most of her career was dedicated to initiatives for leadership growth.
0:19
She served as a member of the CIA's Corporate Executive Leadership Coaching program and completed coaching engagements with clients who ranged from emerging leaders to senior intelligence service officers.
0:31
Kathy is privileged to currently serve as a coach with the Army Leadership Program and is an active member of the coaching cadre for the Impact Center's Women's Executive Leadership Program. Welcome, Kathy.
0:43
We're so excited to have you. Thank you so much. I love being here.
0:48
Your organization is inspiring, and I'm very excited to be contributing in some way to the hard work that the two Rachels are doing for your organization. So thank you for having me. Of course. We're very grateful.
1:01
So there's so much we could talk about. Mm-hmm. Let's start at the beginning. What was it like to work at the agency, uh, early in your career? Great question.
1:12
Um, I'll say that before I retired, I really took some time to reflect on that, and I recommend that for anyone who's moving from a transition to reflect. I walked the halls, and I went past...
1:24
There's a gallery of all the, uh, directors, and there are a total of... There were a total of 25 when I left. There are more now, but I realized I had worked under half of them. Um, and so that was kind of cool.
1:36
I had never thought about that. I was there a long time. That's to say the culture really shifted from the time that I came in to when I left.
1:44
Women did not have much of a role when I first came on board, and, uh, we kind of had to make a place for ourselves and stand up for ourselves.
1:55
There were some men who I had experience with who did stand up, but it, it was a tough culture at times. And, um, by the time I left, we had a woman director as head of the agency.
2:09
We had, you know, there are six directorates. I think about three of them had women directors of those directorates, those stovepipe organizations, but y- so it really, really did evolve and, um,
2:22
I felt very much a part of that. People included me in that evolution. It's a very insular community, I learned. I-- A lot of people marry people who work there, including me.
2:34
I met my husband there, and so it's that pr- It feels like family. You kinda don't realize that sometimes until you've left or you're away for a bit, but we really did look out for each other.
2:48
I will say that it was apolitical. That was our whole... The mission of the organization was to be apolitical, to provide the facts to policymakers, taking everyone into account.
3:00
Water cooler, for instance, that's a really old term, I'm dating myself, but just downtime was not spent talking about politics at all.
3:08
It was really about each other and what was going on and, and I really appreciated that. That helped me continue to be devoted to the mission. I would say it was a family atmosphere. It was incredible.
3:20
I had intended to work for the agency for two years, and I was there 35, so that tells you something.
3:27
I, in eight-- In 35 years, I had eight assignments with discrete, very different duties, so it was a great place to, you know, move around and try out your strengths and see what really clicked,
3:41
and that was a great thing, too, about the culture.
3:45
It landed in my passion, which I never could have predicted from the time I started there, this very young woman from Pittsburgh, just out of college, not knowing what the heck I was doing in DC.
3:55
But yeah, it was, it was a great experience. I have a daughter who's in the federal government now. She said she never would, but she now says, "I know what you were talking about, Mom. I get it."
4:05
[chuckles] You mentioned that you were a part of the cultural change and evolution, and I'd like to hear more about that.
4:13
I know you had your first baby there, and you started talking to other women who were in a similar position as you. Can you tell us what that was like and how you banded together and created something- Sure...
4:26
that was supportive? Yeah. That was, again, out of adversity comes opportunity. Fairly cliché, but I, I had my first child and decided I was going to become part-time. I was... I worked part-time 28 of my 35 years.
4:41
I worked three days a week.
4:42
And we were assessed on performance according to potential, one to three, one being the top, and when my performance panel was reviewing my performance, the lead of the panel, not with agreement with people at the table as I understand it, knocked me down to the lowest potential level
5:02
because he said I was part-time and not invested in my job, in my work. And you can imagine that was actually very devastating for me.
5:12
My boss at the time, who said to me, "I'm supporting you because you're doing the right thing. You're staying at home at least half-time with your family." That was kind of the mentality.
5:23
But he, he said, "Take a three day... Take as much time as you need off of work. This is devastating. I understand."
5:28
So I took a little bit of time off, and I came back, and I decided, you know, this shouldn't happen, and I had a lot of support from mentors who were older women than I was.
5:39
And I decided to form a network for women or men, we had men too, later on, who were part-time, and we would just get together and not complain, but try to think of ways forward.
5:50
And, you know, I learned from a lot of people in that we- network. There were some older women, and they would say the most important time was to be home with your teenagers.
5:59
It's wonderful to be home with your babies, but your teenager's only gonna talk to you once in a while, so [chuckles] if you have some time to be home when they come home from school, that kind of thing, that's important.
6:09
So I learned that. We formed this network, and a director, a high director, created a policy. He had Worked with HR that no one, performance should not be based on tour of duty, which means how many days you work.
6:22
And so that changed the policy, and that was really cool. The head of HR was our sponsor for this network, and eventually
6:31
this network was part of other women's groups at the organization, and we were able to pilot flex time, which meant, you know, you work nine days and get every other Friday off. You work longer hours. Just things that
6:46
the population coming in really wanted flexibility in their lives for their family and one of the people that pushed back on us, again, was an older person, a man, and he said, "I don't understand why people want a Friday off to just go ride their bikes."
7:00
But everybody needed, didn't matter, you didn't have to be married or have children to, to qualify for this. And eventually those men who were against it realized they were having elder care issues,
7:14
and their wives were, said, "Hey, over to you. I'm taking care of the family here." And I think that some of those people started to realize, "I can see why flexible time would be helpful."
7:26
So some of those things were really important. I don't take full credit. Other people helped, and, uh, it continues today. That network is still alive and working today. That's incredible.
7:38
You mentioned earlier that you had different distinct, different distinct roles while you were there, and eventually you landed in a place that you were really passionate about. Can you talk about that?
7:50
Uh, my first job there was to catalog documents. Boring, boring job having to put little number codes on them. Uh, it was all about production.
7:58
My boss put me in a corner at one point and said I wasn't producing fast enough. "You have to work in this corner." And her boss, who was a male, came to me and said, "Why are you sitting in this corner?"
8:07
[laughs] And I said, "Well, I've been told that my production is not..." And he marched me out to my immediate boss and said, "This is wrong. She's new. She's working hard. You do not get to put her in the corner."
8:18
[laughs] So nobody puts baby in a corner. [laughs] That's what I was gonna say. [laughs] But that was my first experience. Uh, so you know, I worked my way up from those kinds of jobs and had all kinds of things.
8:33
I ended up being a leader of a small team for people who indexed these documents, and that was where my first leadership experience was. I was an executive assistant to s- some pretty senior leaders over time.
8:47
I spent half of my career in the analysis part of the CIA, where they analyze the information that comes in and pass it to the policymakers.
8:58
Second half of my career as a history major, I supported the technology directorate with professional development, career training, project management training, and eventually I, I was asked to be a coach.
9:12
Being a coach was the last thing I thought I wanted to do. The director of one of those six organizations asked me to if, see if I would consider getting coach certification
9:23
because the organization was paying outside coaches $1,000 an hour, and they decided if they had inside coaches, it would be other duties as assigned, no extra pay, but serving the organization. And I was...
9:39
And they sponsored me for my certification. So that was wonderful. I was happy to make extra time to coach people.
9:46
Yeah, it worked out really, really well, and I ended up doing that when I left, but I did it for about five years when I was with the organization.
9:53
Can you tell us what it was like or what were some of the trends or themes that you, uh, used or talked about when you were coaching senior leaders at the agency? Rachel, great question. They ranged.
10:07
I would say the biggest theme that I was able to discover, as a coach we really just listen and create a safe space for people to kind of dig deep and discover within themselves.
10:18
Most leaders don't know how they're showing up, and that was my experience, and it continues to be with the work that I'm doing now. And so we would work really hard on, you know, what do you think your strengths are?
10:30
How do you think you're showing up? What are you hearing back from your, the people who work for you? Do you ever ask them for input on how things are going? Those kinds of things.
10:41
And I'll just give a couple of examples.
10:42
One was we did 360-degree assessments of leaders, and they got the feedback, and we as coaches would facilitate giving the, you know, walking them through the feedback 'cause it could be hard at times.
10:55
And I had one woman who was convinced that sh- no one liked her. No one liked her. And she came into the session just bawling, just in absolute tears, saying, "They actually like me. I had no idea."
11:11
So those kinds of things were really, really cool.
11:14
The other things people got to pick what they wanted to work on, but if they said their people above them, beside them, and below them were saying they needed improvement in a certain area, we would just collaborate and partner to work on what's something you feel that you can do to increase engagement in this area with your people.
11:33
Always work-life balance was a theme at the organization. Trying to deal with the bureaucracy sometimes and the culture was a theme. And also, I'm, I call myself a ali- a values alignment coach.
11:46
Often, uh, we would talk about people's core values, and they would realize they weren't aligned with the work they were doing.
11:52
And as a professional development officer, we would think about, okay, what would it mean to change, and where would you want to apply those values and your strengths in another place that you'll be much happier at work?
12:04
It's really interesting. It sounds like leadership across sectors and agencies and is, you know, the, the same themes kind of bubble up to the surface. They do. They do.
12:15
And you would think there are, there are definitely unique things about our organization, but I think the things specific to what the work they were doing, we didn't necessarily talk about.
12:26
Sometimes they couldn't tell me But they're colleagues, it was such a close network, they had people to talk about those things with. That makes sense. Yeah.
12:33
Can you share an example of an experience or an event that changed how you led? You've taken me back down memory lane.
12:41
It was my first leadership position, again, where people were indexing documents, and I really was brand new and not at all refined as a leader. I followed my values, connection is my core value.
12:57
And I had a young man who came in and was in training, and he, he's super smart, but his... He had someone co-training him, and that person, the trainer, discovered that he was just stashing...
13:11
That we were rated on how many documents you get, you, you complete, that he was just stashing them in his drawer and saying that he finished them. So that was a tough call.
13:21
I knew it was gonna be a difficult and crucial conversation. And I had taken some leadership training that really made a difference for me,
13:31
and so I tried it, and I experimented and just said, you know, with- to the c- the employee, "Let's go somewhere private and talk." I asked him, "What's going on?
13:40
I've, we- I've learned this, and it's really important to the organization that these things be processed. People are gonna be missing out on the intelligence."
13:48
And we talked, and I think he, he was very nervous and felt like he was not up for the job. He was, he was new to the workforce and, and so we talked a lot about that, and I just listened a lot.
14:03
And I believe, and I continue to as a coach, that if you can meet people where they are and really find a way to connect, he talked about his family too and how they were raising young kids, and that was pressing on him.
14:19
We came up together, we co-partnered, co-collaborated a process, and what we decided to do was take the stuff in the drawer he hadn't looked at and divide it among the team.
14:28
They never knew where stuff was coming from, I just gave them the stuff to do. And that he could start over, 'cause I think he was overwhelmed that he was- had dug himself in so deep.
14:38
And that he and I would meet once a week and talk about the progress he was making. Just that one little thing, listening to him, helping him get out of that hole he had dug himself into,
14:49
worked amazingly, and he became one of our highest producers.
14:53
So I think every leader would tell you, if you can meet your people where they are, recognize potential, and also call them when they're not being accountable on that, it's, it's really valuable.
15:05
If you were speaking to women today who are in a workplace culture they were trying to change or make more flexible for themselves or others in their organization, what advice would you give them? It's really hard.
15:17
Let your work show, is what I would tell them. Let it shine. N- you know, make yourself really valuable.
15:23
And you probably are already, but women tend not to showcase themselves or, you know, to somehow emphasize that or assure that's in a performance report or whatever. I think my
15:35
career opportunities came from working for men and women who recognized that I worked really, really hard. And so they were willing to invest and try to...
15:49
My- a few times it was, "We'll try this out part-time and see how it goes." My work ethic was such, and most people's is, and, you know, women wanna get stuff done and get home.
15:57
I shouldn't, I don't wanna, you know, genderize it, but, uhm, parents wanna get home to be with their families.
16:04
So you- just making those connections with managers, and it happened to me multiple times where they would come to me, people would come to me, and I'd be in a job and they'd say, "Can I convince you to work for me?"
16:16
Even though they knew I worked three days a week. One manager got down on his knees [laughs] and asked me to work for him. Um, I really think it's showing your stuff. Having the courage to ask.
16:29
I tell my daughter in the federal government, she wanted to have every other Friday off, and I said, "Ask. It's something you want, it's something you need."
16:37
Her husband and she don't ever overlap in hours except on, to be together, except on Fridays. And they were like, "Yeah, sure. Talk to your team. If they're okay with it, go for it."
16:46
Don't be afraid to ask as long as you have the evidence that you'll work hard and do what you need to do. And I did have a m- I worked for a manager for 10 years, three times. You're not supposed to do that.
16:58
It's kinda career suicide in our organization. But she used to say, "You get more done in three days than the people who are here for five." And it's compressed time, right?
17:07
It's you're, you're working really hard, and you don't waste time.
17:10
I, I mean, of course I talk to people and things, but I think you're inclined, I know I'm gonna get to have Monday and Friday off, so I'm gonna work really hard. And I believe in what I'm doing.
17:19
I think that that's a really useful formula. Promote the work that you contribute. Yes. And don't be afraid to ask. No. No. Absolutely.
17:29
I think sometimes we're s- women, I mean, again, not to genderize, but we typically don't ask. We're not, we're not inclined to ask for what we want. We're not inclined to self-promote or aggrandize. Yes.
17:44
But that's all pa- that's all part of the process and the- It is... the more comfortable we can become with these sort of, these scenarios, these conversations, the more we get. Absolutely.
17:55
And if, and if you don't get it, you tried. Yeah, or you try somewhere else. Right. I really believe in that, and I apologize to my girls.
18:06
I said, "I w- our generation did this too, but be more fierce than I ever was, and just ask." Okay, we have one more question about what you're up to now.
18:15
I know in retirement from the agency, you are still helping a lot of people. I am. Can you talk to us about what you're up to?
18:22
I have been working with people who had to leave the organization because they had diversity, equity, and inclusion in their job titles. They were not permanent job titles.
18:33
Their work was, for instance, in software, but they took a-... this assignment to give back to the organization. Unfortunately, they were walked out.
18:43
And so I did coach in the beginning, I think it was more just being there for them. It was devastating.
18:50
Young people, mostly women, who, um, you know, had 10 years in, but their family depended on their income, or others who had close to retirement age but weren't gonna get to make that retirement age because they got walked out.
19:04
So I really just sat and listened and let a lot of people emote. This is probably true to a lot of organizations, but in our organization, felt like the skills were so unique that they couldn't be applied anywhere else.
19:16
And I would work with them to talk about their strengths and how they possibly could apply elsewhere. The biggest question I learned to ask, and I ask many of my clients a lot of times when they...
19:30
You know, there is the Gartner Strengths Assessment, but that's very different. What are your unique strengths that you bring to the table that people would value, is really what I work toward.
19:38
And I ask them the question, "What are you the go-to person for? What do people come to you for?"
19:46
And that opens up a whole range of, "Well, I'm this," and then we get talking about it and they get motivated and more confident. Very often they're gonna say, "I, I don't have anything that's gonna work on the outside.
19:59
You know, I don't, I don't have strengths that can apply." But I really believe that that helps people to give hope that if this all doesn't work here, I can go somewhere else, and let people know about those strengths.
20:11
I think that's a phenomenal starting point. It's helpful to back up and go higher- Yes... um, and make- That's a great way of putting it.
20:19
It takes you out of your, your work identity, which so many of us pull in- We do... to our, to our personal identity.
20:28
Once people can pull themselves out, identify their strengths in a vacuum outside of wherever they were previously, are there any sort of tactical pieces of advice that you could give to folks who are moving from, uh, the public to the private sector in terms of equivalency and titles or things like that?
20:48
That's a really, really good question. First of all, I will say that I believe public service opens doors.
20:54
There are companies that really value that in their peripheral companies if, if you wanna go private or even, you know, a nonprofit, all those things. I do a lot of work.
21:04
I also coach for the Army, and I coach for women's exec leadership program. I, I do several things right now. A lot of people have just put together a resume that's the what I do every day, this is what I do.
21:15
And we really go through that after doing their strengths kind of inside work to create a resume that highlights those strengths with examples. I manage 50 people.
21:28
You know, that kind of thing can be a big deal, or in the Army I helped the PACOM with the battles that were going on.
21:36
Just some things like that that really resonate and you highlight, well, I had to be a leader, I had to pivot, I had to take initiative. One of my favorite leaders, the one who asked me to be a coach, she used to say...
21:48
And she was very high in the organization. She used to say to all of her thousands of people, "Assume 50% more authority than you think you have."
21:56
So if you think about that question and what have you done to take leadership, to lead something when maybe you really weren't in a position to lead, and I think most people do that, they just don't realize that's what they did.
22:08
What are your accomplishments? What were your impacts? That helps. And then to really put those on a resume, give more, further examples in an interview, that really helps.
22:20
We're based in DC, so there's a lot of people going through this transition, and I, I know you've thought about it, so thank you for sharing that advice. I know you've been helping a lot of people through. Yes. Yes.
22:31
This has been so fantastic. Cathy, thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate it.
22:37
If anybody wanted to reach out just about maybe being a coach or if they would like some thinking out loud together and for deep discovery, uh, they could reach me at my email, which is C-A-T-H-E @ and numeral 8, so X8solutions.com.
22:59
I coach all over the world with the Army, for instance, so I am available. Thank you again, and we hope to talk to you soon. I've been humbled. Thank you so much.
FemmeFactor
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