The Foreign Service Journal, February 2004

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 4 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 57 t is the last day of my visit to a post as regional psy- chiatrist. As the ambassador had requested, I am having an “out-briefing” session with him to share my observations about his post’s morale. I tell him his management style — characterized by verbal- ly abusing his officers in front of their colleagues, often reducing them to tears — has been identified as the main factor dampening morale. He looks me squarely in the eye and says: “So, what else is new?” After we discuss some other issues, the meeting ends about 15 minutes later. On a visit to the post 10 months later, not much had changed. The ambassador con- tinued to humiliate officers in public, even those he had praised for good performance. (Imagine what he does to those he considers under-performers!) Obviously, he had made no attempt to change his management style. Morale remained low. In a different region, visits to a post consistently yield high ratings of morale, ratings attributed to a great extent to the ambassador’s management style and to his obvious interest in the welfare of the embassy community. Several years later I run into the same ambassador at a different post. The situation is quite similar. These observations are the sort normally made in the course of regional visits by a Regional Medical Officer/Psychiatrist. They illustrate how specific factors affect morale at post. “How are we doing?” or “How is the post’s morale?” are almost stan- dard questions at the end of my regional visits. A desire to give objective answers to those ques- tions led me to develop a consis- tent approach to assess morale. In this article, I give a brief out- line of the “system” I have used for the last 12 years. What Is Morale? Defining morale is difficult, though many of us are confident we know good or bad morale when we see it. Webster’s Dictionary gives this succinct definition: “Morale is a strong sense of enthusiasm and dedication to a commonly shared goal that unifies the group.” Morale can be viewed as the attitude of an individual, group or organization regarding the function or task at hand. A work group with high morale has a strong sense of shared direction and a commitment to peak performance. Harry Levinson, Ph.D. (of the Levinson Institute), consid- ers morale “the expression of a work group’s emotional health,” and says it depends on how well certain shared needs and expectations are met by being a member of that group. The difficulty in defining morale lies in the fact that some of those needs and expectations are unconscious. Dr. Jaime Suarez is Regional Psychiatrist at Embassy London. He has been a Foreign Service specialist since 1990. He has served in Mexico City, Bangkok, Pretoria and London, from where he has provided mental health services to 97 posts in 60 countries. B Y J AIME S UAREZ , M.D. “H OW A RE W E D OING ?”: A SSESSING FS M ORALE M ANY FACTORS AFFECT THE MORALE IN ANY ORGANIZATION , BE IT AN EMBASSY OR A CORPORATION . B UT TAKEN AS A WHOLE , MORALE IS A STRONG INDICATOR OF HOW WELL AN ORGANIZATION IS MANAGED . I It is interesting that some of the highest ratings have been obtained at hardship posts and posts with danger pay.