Stop blaming acting leadership without the facts

Disclaimer that this does not apply to any political appointees who are in acting positions.

TLDR or BLUF or whatever you like: instead of assuming acting leaders are somehow colluding with the T administration, consider that they might be trying to protect YOU.

I am talking about the people tapped by your previous political leadership to see this transition through. The people trusted by your previous secretaries or directors or whatever to be a stable guiding hand. Ostensibly, for a reason.

People are coming here to smear them for sending out messages to the workforce that acknowledge the Dept of You Know What without condemning them, that relay the orders to remove DEIA and “gender ideology” etc.

I am pretty shocked at the illiteracy going around in this sub towards FELLOW federal employees who are career civil servants.

If they stand out as resisting the new administration, they will be targeted and booted immediately. For all the people telling us to hold the line, how does that work? OPM and the White House are WRITING SCRIPTS AND EMAILS that they are told they MUST use when speaking to the workforce, then they have to confirm and provide proof that they did by COB. I have seen this firsthand these past two weeks.

What would you do in that situation, particularly if you felt that your job was to try and protect the workers and the mission that you have?

I interact with our acting leadership very frequently. I know their values and what they’ve promoted from years of working with them in their old roles. The exhaustion, sadness, and tension is visible when they turn off the cheery facade determined to convince employees that we will all be okay. In my organization, they are explaining to small groups of senior leaders all of the exemptions and protections they are asking for to minimize a potential RIF, to try not to lose good remote workers essential to our mission, etc.

How can they relay what they’re fighting for to the employees they fight on behalf of without getting on the admins’ radar? How can they pull off meeting with them frequently to convince them of the need for these things so our mission continues, if they are visibly seen as non compliant?

I’m sure there are acting leaders out there who are fine with the new administration and some of the stupid things like forced RTO. But the vast majority are in an impossible situation trying to keep our agencies going.

This is THEM holding the line and frankly in their position I could never do it. One of them told me recently that there will be a line some day that they can’t cross, but as long as they think they can protect our workforce, they are sticking it out.

I was nervous to post this but I realized there is no way my agency is the only one with good people, who spends decades on our mission and ascended to leadership during the last admin, stuck in a hellish situation.