The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2014

50 JULY-AUGUST 2014 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL AFSA NEWS I n August 2013, a month after AFSA’s new Governing Board took office, AFSA President Robert J. Silverman asked me to chair a working group that would formulate a set of guide- lines for successful performance by chiefs of mission. Having served twice as an ambassador during my three- decade Foreign Service career, I know just how vital it is to ensure that each chief of mission is well-qualified to serve as the president’s representative to a foreign government or multilateral institution. As the face and voice of the United States, he or she sets the tone for opera- tions within the mission. Indeed, it is not going too far to say that a chief of mission’s performance can often spell the difference between success and failure of U.S. policy in the country of assignment, and can affect bilateral and regional relations long after the incumbent has left post. With that in mind, our goal was to produce a resource to inform the process of selecting the leaders of our diplomatic missions around the world. Earlier this year, after vigorous debate, the AFSA Governing Board formally adopted the docu- ment our working group produced. Given the sensitivity of the subject, and the magnitude of the task, it is understandable that not every AFSAmember agrees with all our recommendations. (Indeed, the same could be said of our committee, and of the AFSA Governing Board.) The purpose of this Issue Brief is to explain the process we fol- lowed, in hopes of dispelling any confusion or misconceptions. The Role of Leadership To facilitate the development of guidelines that would be widely accepted by everyone involved in the selection process, our working group consisted of retired ambassadors from the career Foreign Service, as well as non-career appointees from both major political parties. We also reached out to people out- side the working group, many of whose suggestions influenced the final document. (You’ll find the full text on AFSA’s website; or see the article about the COM Guidelines in the April issue of The Foreign Service Journal .) We all agreed that keeping the number of criteria to three or four made for a document that would be relatively easy to understand and apply in assessing COM nominees. The chal- lenge was to agree on that list of criteria, and decide whether to prioritize any of them. In addition, the guide- lines needed to be rela- tively simple, and crafted so they could be used to assess any nominee, regardless of background. My research for preparing the initial draft used the Foreign Service Act of 1980 as its foundation. However, it turned out that a trait I view as essential to success is not listed there; nor has it ever been formally considered in the ambassado- rial selection process. That is leadership ability. To be sure, that skill is mentioned in some operational documents, but nowhere could I find any indication that it has been part of the formal review process for potential nominees. In addition to managing bilateral relations, the COMmust lead the country team, ensure the security of mission staff, and manage the mission’s budget and other resources. While it is true that there are professionals within each diplomatic mission to deal with these issues, the ultimate responsibility for proper management rests with the person at the top. That, then, became the central thesis of my draft. Achieving Consensus Bringing 10 former chiefs of mission together was the easy part of the job. Getting that many strong-willed, experienced Charles A. Ray retired from the Foreign Service in 2012 after a 30-year career that included ambassadorships to Cambodia and Zimbabwe. Ambassador Ray also served as deputy assistant secretary of Defense for prisoners of war/missing personnel affairs, deputy chief of mission in Freetown and consul general in Ho Chi Minh City, among many other assignments. Prior to joining the Foreign Service, Ambassador Ray spent 20 years in the U.S. Army. He is the outgoing chair of AFSA’s Professional- ism and Ethics Committee, and does freelance writing and speaking. Our goal was to produce a resource to inform the process of selecting the leaders of our diplomatic missions around the world. ISSUE BRIEF Evolution of the Chief-of-Mission Guidelines BY CHARLES A. RAY