The Foreign Service Journal, January-February 2017

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2017 23 Policy crises and human crises in faraway places—the stuff of diplomacy today— offer compelling lessons in leadership. BY PRUDENCE BUSHNE L L Prudence Bushnell’s career in the Foreign Service in- cluded leadership positions as deputy assistant secretary of State for African affairs (1993-1996), ambassador to Kenya (1996-1999) and Guatemala (1999-2002), and dean of the Leadership and Management School at the Foreign Service Institute (2002-2005). She now promotes the practice of leadership through talks and workshops among a range of people, including senior executives and college students. In 2012, Ambas- sador Bushnell founded the Levitt Leadership Institute at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. W elcome to the new team. Whatever hap- pens under your leader- ship and on your watch, you can count on policy crises and human crises in faraway places. Dur- ing my own career, the 1994 Rwanda genocide and the 1998 al-Qaida bombing of our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania left compelling leadership lessons that may be useful to you. I witnessed the genocide from a policy chair as a deputy assistant secretary in the Africa Bureau and experienced the FOCUS NOTES TO THE NEW ADMINISTRATION bombing when I served as U.S. ambassador in Nairobi, Kenya. Neither event provoked congressional hearings or interagency after-action reviews. The political imperative is to move swiftly past failure, and the Department of State lacks the tradition of appreciative inquiry. It took the 9/11 attacks to reveal national security and law enforcement weaknesses that could have been addressed in 1998. Echoes of the report of the Accountability Review Board’s limited scrutiny of the East Africa bombings can be found in the Benghazi Accountability Review Board’s 2013 report, including the need for better leadership at several levels. I joined the Foreign Service with a background in manage- ment training and left as a leadership practitioner with strong field experience. I continue to promote leadership in federal government and refer to Rwanda and Nairobi as events that shaped me as a leader. Here is what I learned. • 1 Leadership is not about you. From a top spot in a hierar- chical organization known for its “kiss-up, kick-down” cul- ture, it was tempting to think I was practicing leadership by showing up and issuing brilliant commands. Especially as ambassador, it was easy to make the job all about me. However, if I wanted an effective team capable of applying individual and SEVEN LEADERSHIP LESSONS One Story, Two Events,