The Foreign Service Journal, September 2016

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | SEPTEMBER 2016 31 Would you say that shift has occurred? RAD: The State Department has come a long way on the training front since the establishment of the School of Leader- ship and Management. I will never forget how astonished Secre- tary of State Colin Powell was when he learned of the negligible amount of time that Foreign and Civil Service personnel in the department spent on training compared to their military colleagues. The value that Powell placed on training was key to instituting basic, intermediate and advanced mandatory leader- ship and management training. Consequently, now multiple generations of both Foreign and Civil Service personnel have received leadership training, and others expect to be properly trained and given the tradecraft skills they need to be successful in new jobs. So I would say that there has been a cultural shift in the expectations of the depart- ment’s workforce and in the value accorded training. However, the personnel gaps incurred, especially during lengthy language training, frequently cause pushback from supervisors and receiving posts. FSJ: FSI’s School of Leadership and Management, which you established in 1999, is a significant legacy. What has that school accomplished and what remains to be done? RAD: While the School of Leadership and Management has brought about a cultural shift in the expectations of the depart- ment’s workforce and in the value accorded leadership training among department personnel, challenges remain—namely, to rebuild a personnel float to assist with vacancies caused by training-related absences, and to have supervisors give the same priority to leadership skills as is given to analytical, operational and programmatic skills. Being Director General FSJ: You closed your first State magazine column as DG (Sep- tember 2001, “Seizing the Moment”) with this very optimistic line : “While I don’t expect to see you doing handsprings of joy in our long hallways, I hope I will soon see a bounce in your step and a gleam of excitement in your eyes, because it’s such a great time to be serving the people of the United States of America.” The Diplo-