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[quote=Anonymous]There's a prestigious 9-month fellowship overseas for mid-career government professionals. I have an employee (an attorney-advisor) I think would be wonderful for it. She has a bright smile and a magnetic personality. She is always an early and immediate adopter of our office and agency initiatives. She is always first to sign up for our office potlucks, and is sure to make a delicious AND healthy dish each and every time. She is a terrific help at our conferences, helping me rebook travel when I have a networking opportunity crop up. She also is a terrific note taker; any memo she writes about a meeting is sure to capture [b]verbatim[/b] who said what. I also love dropping in on her and chatting about who knows what. She's just a team player, through and through.

So what's the problem? Well, I learned of this fellowship from one of my division chiefs. He in turn learned of it when one of the members of his team approached him for support in pursuing the fellowship.

Now, the issue is not whether I would sign off on this other employee participating. I have no problem shutting him down. He's technically very skilled, but he has a Master's in Public Policy rather than a JD. He also asks a lot of questions about why we work as we do, and will even critique MY drafts. He's not nearly as respectful as the attorney-advisor. He forgets that his asking questions of me undermines my strong leadership, which is critical to our program's success.

No, the issue is that if I guide the attorney-advisor to get this fellowship, it will be obvious I sandbagged the MPP. Unfortunately there are people jealous of the attorney-advisor, and the MPP has some fans (including his supervisor). I also have a mild concern the union would get involved.

Ideally I'd fire the MPP tomorrow, but I can't get that through (b/c his manager won't give him bad reviews). One might say it'd be great to get the MPP out of my hair for nine months, but I can't bear to see him get such a prestigious honor.

Has anyone BTDT? Am I stuck just refusing to support the MPP? Or is there a good way to clear the deck and push my star through (the attorney-advisor). I'm only in my second year as Head of our Office, and I'd like to navigate this without throwing up in the process.

Thanks![/quote]

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