The Foreign Service Journal, September 2008

Just Say No Thanks for your fantastic June issue on Foreign Service personnel issues. However, I would note that the vari- ous articles that discuss the deficien- cies of the FS personnel system fail to recognize a fundamental truth: as long as the Foreign Service successfully performs its job despite the deteriorat- ing working environment and “bene- fits,” there is very little real pressure on department management to make fundamental improvements. It took me a while to figure this out during my 30-year FS career, but eventually I did — so by the time of my first ambas- sadorship in a small West African post that was chronically understaffed, I knew what buttons to push. When told that there would be a six-month gap in replacing our de- parted consular officer (and that was only half of one position), and that the handful of other employees at post would just have to divvy up the work (in addition to doing more than full- time jobs already), I told the depart- ment, “Sorry, but we’ll just close the consular section from May through September.” Amazingly, the depart- ment then “found” a spare officer at a large European post, and we were able to maintain all consular opera- tions without burdening others at post beyond reason. As long as Foreign Service mem- bers continue to absorb the workload — and it doesn’t matter if they do it with or without grumbling, writing scathing articles and op-eds, etc. — nothing will change. When critical positions remain unfilled, or larger numbers resign from the Service, department management will finally take real notice. Yes, Foreign Service work is among the most challenging and fulfilling around, but it is also seri- ously undervalued. Those same skills are priced much higher in the private sector, especially in today’s globalized system, so members do have other options. If folks are discontented by Service conditions, then they should vote with their feet — which will be a much more effective change inducer than all the articles ever written. Tibor P. Nagy Jr. Ambassador, retired Ransom Canyon, Texas Recruiting for Intellect and Leadership I was glad to read AFSA President John Naland’s column in the May FSJ asserting that ambassadors ought to be grown in the ranks of the Foreign Service as opposed to being political appointees. Absolutely right. Ap- pointing unqualified ambassadors not only damages our nation’s ability to conduct effective foreign policy. It punishes the employees at the ap- pointee’s mission who must work dou- bly hard to do their already tough job, while simultaneously carrying the weight of a diplomatic novice who knows little of what it takes to run an embassy. This is one of the leadership failures of the Foreign Service. Similarly, Shawn Dorman’s article in the June issue (“Who is the ‘Total Candidate’? FSO Hiring Today”) spoke of the traditional recruitment cycle the Foreign Service has utilized for FSO selection. Recruiting has focused primarily on intellectual skills. These traits are essential, to be sure, but what of the practical and equally rare skills of leadership and management? The Foreign Service recruits and promotes people who have an amaz- ing ability to write, report, analyze and discuss foreign policy matters, but have real difficulty when called upon to assume positions of leadership. Many brilliant FSOs have been Peter Principled into jobs where they floun- der. Some of them have no idea how to lead or manage people and resources. They would rather hole up in their offices and write cables than actually walk through the halls of their embassy or sit and chat with some of their employees. This is why a profession with per- haps one of the most highly educated work forces falls so short on organiza- tion, leadership and esprit de corps. Ambassadors and senior officers must wear two hats to be effective: intellec- tual and leader. We certainly have people with bril- liant minds and excellent leadership skills in the Foreign Service, but they are few. A great deal of the morale problem can be remedied by chang- ing the way we recruit and promote our own officers as well as our ambas- sadors. We need leaders to fill leader- ship roles. A move away from ap- pointing political insiders or bookish 6 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 8 L ETTERS