Bonners Ferry, Idaho

Note: The opinions I’m about to express are my own and do not represent the agency I work for.

May 18, 2011

As I near retirement following 33 years working for the U.S. Forest Service on two Forests and two Districts in Idaho, I feel that I have been blessed by being able to work as a caretaker of our Nations’ forests. I hope that I’ve made at least a small contribution to maintaining the health of our forests while serving the public needs for forest products and services.  I have many fond memories of my time with the agency and the people who work within it.

When a 2009 survey of federal agency morale and ranking of the “Best Agencies to Work” came out (http://bestplacestowork.org/BPTW/rankings/detail/AG11), I was dismayed, but not surprised to see that the Forest Service was ranked #206 out of 216 agencies.  The same survey conducted in 2010 raised the ranking to #203.  Leadership was among the largest reasons for the low morale among employees.

I’d like to provide my thoughts about what causes low morale.  I’d also like to offer real life examples and suggestions on how leaders have created high morale and also how they can improve agency morale.

Over the course of my career and to the best of my recollection I have worked under the leadership of at least six Chiefs, five Regional Foresters, five Forest Supervisors and ten District Rangers.  From my own perspective, some of these leaders excelled in their position and commitment to federal land management while many were average and a few, my opinion, should never have been put in a leadership position.

What I’d like to do is provide a list of leadership qualities and actions that I believe makes an excellent leader.  I have either worked directly for or witnessed individual leaders that have displayed at least some of these excellence attributes. I can personally attest that working for these kinds of leaders helped to boost my confidence in agency leadership and made me proud to be a part of the Forest Service team.  In honor of one of my favorite rangers, I’ll do this using “bullet statements”.

• An excellent leader focuses on the Forest Service Mission of Caring for the Land and Serving the Public.  This requires a strong commitment to actively manage our forests, and a true leader understands that they will have to overcome both internal and external barriers to accomplish this mission.

• An excellent leader supports the people that work for them and gets to know them on a personal level.  “Family meetings” don’t count.  Excellent leaders take the time to visit their employees one-on-one in order to understand what their job really entails and what they need from you as a leader to make them successful in accomplishing the agency mission.

• Excellent leaders provide guidance to their employees in how to do their jobs effectively and efficiently, without wasting taxpayer dollars by allowing them to conduct excessive analysis and report writing.  Excellent leaders lead by example whenever possible.

• Excellent leaders don’t micro manage.  They trust their people and empower them.  Excellent leaders let employees think outside the box and allow them to try new ways to accomplish work.  Excellent leaders embrace failure as adaptive management but don’t allow employees or themselves to repeat the same mistakes.

• Excellent leaders get to know the community they live in and work for.  Attending public meetings don’t count.  Most leaders have access to a government vehicle and a license to drive, and excellent leaders load up and drive into their community and visit the forest products businesses that are located in their community.  Excellent leaders ask to tour these facilities so they can better understand what is needed to keep them operating in their community.  Excellent leaders use this knowledge to formulate a management plan for their district, forest or region that meets the needs of their community and the piece of national forest that they are the caretaker of.

• Excellent leaders don’t compromise when it comes to forest management.  Some public “stakeholders” have ideals about public land management that oppose the agency mission that has been mandated by laws.  Excellent leaders do the right thing for the land, not what they think they can get away with without being appealed or litigated.  In my opinion, collaborative groups have been created as a need to discuss the terms of surrender to those environmental groups that are holding communities welfare and the forests health surrounding them hostage.  These groups are not on equal footing with all other collaborative members due to their penchant for appealing and litigating projects when they don’t “get their way”.  I believe that leadership and Congress need to equalize this imbalance.

• Although lobbying Congress is not a permitted activity for employees and leaders while they are representing the Forest Service, excellent leaders inform Congress and the Administration that natural resource management laws have grown into a malignant morass of conflicting rules and regulations that have killed the ability of the agency to perform it’s mission.  Agency leadership needs to continuously request help from Congress to provide legal solutions that will restore the agency’s ability to actively manage the public forests once again.  If leaders can’t accomplish this when they are “on the clock”, they need to do it on their own time by writing or calling Congressional representatives and by writing letters to the editor in their local newspapers or online websites.

• Start a national public education program that shows new forestry at work.  Don’t be afraid to display loggers and logging equipment cutting down trees and making forest products, including renewable energy from biomass.  The agency can utilize existing forestry education websites such as the Evergreen Foundation to submit public education articles.

• Ranger Districts are the engines of the agency.  When it comes to budgets, fund the districts first and make sure they have the personnel needed to accomplish on-the-ground work.

• To save taxpayer dollars, eliminate Supervisors Offices and restructure into a Washington Office, Regional Offices and Districts.  With today’s communications technologies, I believe the need for Supervisor Offices is obsolete. However, the need still exists for District Offices to remain in order to manage our forests and provide services to the communities, such as maintaining roads, campgrounds, trails, issuing forest product permits, etc.  Savings from closing down Supervisors Offices can be transferred to District Offices that can use the funds to more fully staff the districts.

• Hire more foresters, forestry technicians and interdisciplinary resource specialists needed to support forest management.  These are the folks that actually help generate money for the taxpayers through timber sales and at least help to reduce the cost of management.  If we actively manage more acres we will generate more money, increase fire resiliency of our forests, reduce the level of fire suppression costs and increase fire fighter safety.

• Without strong land management leadership, the health of our communities and our forests will decline, along with agency morale.

These are just a few suggestions of how I think morale and leadership within the Forest Service could be improved.  My hope is that people in leadership positions will take these suggestions to heart and take actions that will result in raising our current rating from #203 to #1.

Barry Wynsma,
Forester