5 Ways to Stagnate your Federal Career

Working in the Federal job sector is a calling, but whether or not it is your calling or not, here are a few tips to keep your career from eventually stagnating or taking a toxic downturn.

1. Homesteading. Maybe your military career, or life in general, moved you around from place to place so much that you are truly looking to settle in one spot for a while. However, if you want your career to continue to develop, you can either wait for everyone ahead of you to retire or move on, or you can do like most savvy professionals and move around every few years or so. Moving around, even within the federal government, is the best way to ensure you are adding all of the positions and skills necessary to land your dream job for your high-3 retirement calculation.

2. Promotion beyond your Abilities. You have been waiting a LONG time, and the job has finally come open! You take it and find out that you were completely unprepared for the level of responsibility. You used to be the golden child of your department, and now you are just waiting to get the ax; constantly looking for a new job.

Believe it or not, this happens to a LOT of people. In the federal government, you may indeed have to wait a long time for promotions because of homesteaders, but whether you personally want to go for the carrot or whether managers senior to you are goading you on, be sure you sit down and think through the pros and cons of the promotion and go through a true period of self-reflection to determine if you have the skills and motivation to be successful in that new role.

and never… ever... forgot to talk to your family about it first.

3. Leadership through Policy. John C. Maxwell, one of the greatest leadership speakers and authors of our time, goes to great length to explain his “5 Levels of Leadership.”

The first level of leadership is leading by  title only, i.e. people follow you because of your position; because they have to. At this level of leadership, especially in a very regimented society like the federal government, you can become so entangled in leading by the letter of the law, that you begin to live in the shadows of people’s disdain for your leadership by policy mentality.

Everyone around a Level 1 leader will begin to bypass that leader and reach out to leaders who understand the “spirit” behind policies, i.e. how to use those policies to develop best business practices for the organization. Coworkers, executives and customers don't want leaders that say no to everything because of this rule or that rule, but they want leaders that say "here are your options."

4. Bad Santa. No matter how great you are at anything in life, if you have a bad attitude, you just won't make it very far. Even if you do make it further than expected, you will never reach your full potential. It just won’t happen. (If the old adage is true that it success is 10% hard work and 90% attitude, then someone with a bad attitude is only going to reach 10% of their potential).

Sad to say, there is something that happens to federal employees once they pass their probationary period, and it becomes next to impossible to be fired for performance issues. Employees lose their smiles, they start to act like customers are bothering them, or may even purposefully procrastinate on paperwork and deadlines just to prove they are in charge. 

If you are a shining example of a Bad Santa within your organization, then you need to fix that frown on your face, be happy that you have customers, coworkers or a team to lead. Remember, that your talents may carry you for a while, but one day your bad attitude will make the wrong (more influential) person mad or fed up with your attitude, and they will begin to nitpick at your work so as to systematically get rid of you.

5. The Yes Man. One of the worst aspects of working within the government is its dynamic system of continuously intensifying bureaucracy. That is why working within the government is a calling; it requires people with the certain temperament that is rarely seen in the corporate and private sector. Even worse than that is the "YES" men and women who never stand up to the bureaucracy's monotony. 

If you are going to survive in the federal job sector, you have to learn to say NO. You have to learn to say NO because it is the right thing to do, to say NO because you have higher priorities that require your attention at the time, and to say NO because there is a way to do it better. 

If you are the type of person who is able to work on the small picture while looking at the big picture (organizational mission), then you will be an asset to your organization. Be the type of team member or leader that is committed to constant improvement, and not to doing the bare minimum. Moreover be a leader who knows how to keep themselves, their team and organization on track.

Working in in the federal job sector is a great opportunity to serve one's country, but remember it is a calling. I hope that you will take the points I made here to heart, and that it will help you to reflect on where you have come from, where you are now, and where you want to be in years to come.

Benjamin Moriniere is an entrepreneur, martial artists, musician, songwriter, artist and business consultant currently living in Japan. He has worked within federal HR for 8 years and is an HR leader for the top HR Office within the US Marine Corps.