The Senior Executive Service has been at the center of its fair share of conflicts, agency scandals and congressional probes, but for some GS-13s and 14s, past crises aren’t deterring them from the prospect of one day joining the SES.

They’re looking to the future and the skills and relationships they can build now to succeed as rising leaders.

“It’s all about relationships across all dimensions — male, female, black, white, cleaning people, SES,” said Rita Sampson, chief of equal employment opportunity and diversity at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Sampson told her audience of aspiring leaders gathered Sept. 15 at the African American Federal Executives Association’s SES Training Workshop in Bethesda, Maryland, that they “need to have relationships everywhere; strong, genuine and authentic relationships.”

Those relationships, current members of the SES said, helped them better understand their agency’s missions and solve conflicts.

Maj. Gen. Linda Singh, adjunct general for the Maryland Military Department, said the relationships she built with her colleagues helped her when the state deployed military resources to Baltimore in the spring.

“When you are at a time of crisis, trying to build [a relationship} at that point in time is not when that should occur,” Singh said.  “You can’t do it. It will fall apart.”

When State Department Ombudsman Shireen Dodson first got to the agency, she said she interviewed all 26 executive directors and asked each of them about their offices and roles within State.

“That’s how I learned the department,” she said. “I have a network of people from my first year at the State Department that I can draw on.”

Setbacks will happen, but Dodson said leaders and managers need a plan.

“It’s just recognizing it, dealing with it head on and using conflict for all the positives, because it does create some creativity and some great solutions as you begin to discuss options for resolving issues,” Dodson said.

Even though the path to leadership can be a challenging one, it’s the possibility to move up — and the dedication to service — that rising leaders find intriguing about the SES.

For Janelle Johnson, a GS-14, earning a Senior Executive Service pin is one of her next goals.

“I need to be around people who know the rules, and have got the bumps and bruises and have been rather resilient and successful,” Johnson said. “So let me sit at their feet and glean from their wisdom and learn from their mistakes too, and apply that wisdom into how I move in my career.”

She just finished AAFEA’s Fellows Program, which pairs African American federal employees with a current member of the SES. She said she gained some perspective on her career from experienced federal employees outside her agency, and their advice was invaluable.

“You [can] have those tough conversations with someone who can give you great advice, who has your best interest at heart, who wants you to succeed, who wants to see you climb the ranks of government employment,” she said.

Engagement and morale among top leaders in the federal workforce have steadily declined over the past few years. Federal employees’ opinions of their leaders dropped to a five-year low, according to the 2014 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey. A Federal News Radio survey found more than half of senior and mid-career professionals said they wouldn’t join the SES if they had the chance.

But there is still interest to join.

“They are striving to become SES,” Dodson told Federal News Radio. “It’s the goal. You have some of the best and brightest, and when you do, they want to be leaders because they want to have an impact on controlling their own destiny, making an impact on the government. There will always be an interest and a dedication and commitment to strive for excellence and make it into the SES.”

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