THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | SEPTEMBER 2024 19 SPEAKING OUT John Fer is the deputy public affairs officer at U.S. Embassy Moscow. With the State Department since 2009, he has served in New Delhi, Managua, Moscow, Riga, Tbilisi, and Washington, D.C. Prior to joining the Foreign Service, he worked as a firefighter/EMT for Montgomery County, Maryland. He is an Air Force veteran and a returned Peace Corps volunteer (Nepal). He and his wife, Victoria, have two sons. W e lionize bullies. Contrary to our stated policies, regulations, and op-eds in the FSJ, we put those who bully others on a pedestal. We leave them unchallenged. We wait them out. The depth and persistence of the bully problem at State is a stark measure of the department’s organizational weakness and the institutional weakness of the U.S. Foreign Service. Like groups who have resigned themselves to being abused, we’ve created language that excuses the bully’s behavior. We describe them as “tough.” We cast them as those who know “when to break china.” Or we make the Faustian bargain, conceding their foibles in exchange for their foreign policy “expertise.” You don’t have to look far to prove my point. Enter the Harry S Truman building via 21st Street, and you pass by a display celebrating Richard Holbrooke’s career as a diplomat. Through it, we tacitly condone his demeaning, philandering behavior in favor of celebrating his skills as a negotiator. He’s not the only one. Another officer, known as a “stapler thrower” (who once tossed one at a subordinate, also an A-100 classmate of mine), is still writing op-eds and influencing the dialogue. Other bullies had the gall to sign their goodbye letters, “Be kind,” when in their career they were anything but, and will probably have a few rooms named for them. It doesn’t have to be this way. Bullies in top positions, after all, are not much different than the Biff Tannen–like characters we see in movies and television. In the context of Foreign Service officers (FSOs), our bullies are usually fakes. Take Holbrooke, for example, who grew up a neighbor of Secretary of State Dean Rusk. We should never accept the illusion that he went through the same processes we did. He picked and chose the administrations he wanted to work for, hobnobbed with journalists instead of his fellow State colleagues, and existed as a soldier of fortune, somewhat endearingly nicknamed Bulldozer. Bullies also surround themselves with serial staffers. I once asked a mentor how a certain high-ranking bully was able to be so successful, and they told me: “[X] is a risk taker who surrounds themselves with the risk averse.” Sure enough, you can see many of those risk-averse staffers now reaping the benefits of their fealty, having been given positions leading missions. And how many times have you heard deputy chiefs of mission described as “good shock absorbers,” meaning those who can endure the abuse of chiefs of mission and shield subordinates from them? At a recent roundtable for mid-level officers, when asked what the organization could do to combat toxic bosses, a senior department official acknowledged the problem and said: “Unfortunately, accountability has never been a hallmark of this department.” While honest and accurate, that’s like me telling my spouse: “Fidelity has never been a hallmark of our marriage” and thinking that puts the onus on my spouse to adjust to that grim reality. Again, we create language that enables us to be bullied. Pre-Election Homework: Build Our Institution BY JOHN FER Strong organizations, those with an established culture of leadership, are not as susceptible to bullies.
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