THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | SEPTEMBER 2024 21 those conditioned to be “serial staffers” to thrive. Staff work is essential, of course, and good staffers are necessary; but they should not occupy such a pervasive share of the senior ranks in an organization. Ask a serial staffer to define and model leadership, and you will detect a serial stammer. It’s not in their nature. 3. Value Locally Employed Staff The hallmark of a weak body is its inability to protect its backbone. At State, locally employed (LE) staff make up 70 percent of our workforce: they are our “backbone,” and yet they are given a sliver of the attention, resources, and pathways for development they need. We underscore our derision for them every time we ask officers during the bidding process, “How many Americans have you supervised?”—as if to suggest that FSOs are some rarefied species that requires an entirely different set of management skills that don’t apply to LE staff. Every geographic bureau should create an office dedicated to LE staff issues. These offices should produce public reports and recommendations for the Secretary and Director General based on constant feedback from the field. Even if these recommendations are not all implemented, we could at least say that the voices of our institutional knowledge, our LE staff, made it to the seventh floor. Today the best we can do is offer the usual platitudes about how much we value LE staff, without putting up the requisite resources, time, and attention to prove it. b This article opened by exposing our vulnerability to bullies, one striking characteristic of organizational weakness. The bigger issue, however, is that we have the power to shape, strengthen, and defend our institution—and yet we relinquish it. Put in place the recommendations above, and the bully problem will recede. And you’ll see us all succeed— no matter who is president. n
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