Harris staff escaping their abusive boss
One of Joe Biden’s first decisions after getting enough delegates to guarantee he would be the Democratic candidate for President was picking the VP candidate Kama Harris. After inauguration day, the word from the President was, “Call it the Biden-Harris administration. In short months, the words “Call it the Biden-Harris administration” disappeared. It was dropped when the parade of people leaving Harris’ employ seemed to be as big as the parade of illegal immigrants crossing the southern border— that’s the one Harris was supposed to fix.
From the beginning of the Biden administration’s time in the White House, there has been a chaotic reality about the VP boiling beneath the surface. This week the symptoms of the tumult came to a head once again.
After reports of bullying behavior surfaced within the East Wing, the nation has watched the departures of many staffers tied to Vice President Kamala Harris. The turmoil has now continued in the second year of her term as more aides abandon ship.
Vice President Kamala Harris is losing two more top aides, the latest of a growing list of departures in her office since she assumed the vice presidency in January 2021.
Harris’ domestic policy adviser Rohini Kosoglu announced she would be leaving the office in August, and director of speechwriting Meghan Groob is also reported to be leaving after serving in her role for just four months, Politico reported. Groob had taken over for Kate Childs Graham, who announced her departure in February.
And these weren’t transient Harris helpers, either.
Kosoglu’s work under Harris dates back nearly six years ago to her time in the Senate. She would serve on Harris’ presidential campaign followed by a job on the transition team before moving to the vice president’s office. Kosoglu said she is resigning so she can spend more time with her family.
“Spend more time with family” is political speak for “Get me the hell outta here.”
Harris’ domestic policy adviser Rohini Kosoglu announced she would be leaving the office in August, and director of speechwriting Meghan Groob is also reported to be leaving after serving in her role for just four months, Politico reported. Groob had taken over for Kate Childs Graham, who announced her departure in February.
Kosoglu’s work under Harris dates back nearly six years ago to her time in the Senate. She would serve on Harris’ presidential campaign followed by a job on the transition team before moving to the vice president’s office. Kosoglu said she is resigning so she can spend more time with her family.
Insiders within the Harris administration have complained about the Vice President’s leadership style, claiming that her immediate orbit is a bit of a hostile work environment. People shouldn’t be surprised it’s nothing new.
On June 30, 2021, Politico reported that the VP’s office was dysfunctional:
Her presidential campaign operation imploded in a painful maze of finger-pointing and leaks. Harris jettisoned nearly everyone from that campaign and returned to the Senate in 2020 with her government staff and a small outside political operation in tow. When she was put on the presidential ticket, she was given a staff of mostly handpicked, trusted aides from Bidenworld. It did the job. The team avoided the spiral of internal backbiting.
(…)The morale level for current Harris staffers is “rough” and in many ways similar to the failed presidential campaign and her Senate office, according to the former Senate aide, who is in touch with current Harris staffers.
“People are thrown under the bus from the very top, there are short fuses and it’s an abusive environment,” said another person with direct knowledge of how Harris’ office is run. “It’s not a healthy environment and people often feel mistreated. It’s not a place where people feel supported but a place where people feel treated like s—.”
In December 2021, the very liberal Washington Post published its report on Harris’ management skills based on interviews with 18 people connected to Harris:
Critics scattered over two decades point to an inconsistent and at times degrading principal who burns through seasoned staff members who have succeeded in other demanding, high-profile positions. People used to putting aside missteps, sacrificing sleep and enduring the occasional tirade from an irate boss say doing so under Harris can be particularly difficult, as she has struggled to make progress on her vice-presidential portfolio or measure up to the potential that has many pegging her as the future of the Democratic Party.
Gil Duran, a former Democratic strategist, and aide to Harris who quit after five months working for her in 2013. In a recent column [for the San Francisco Examiner]he said she’s repeating “the same old destructive patterns. “Who are the next talented people you’re going to bring in and burn through and then have (them) pretend they’re retiring for positive reasons,” he told The Post.
The Post story also reported:
Staffers who worked for Harris before she was vice president said one consistent problem was that Harris would refuse to wade into briefing materials prepared by staff members, then berate employees when she appeared unprepared.
“It’s clear that you’re not working with somebody who is willing to do the prep and the work. With Kamala you have to put up with a constant amount of soul-destroying criticism and also her own lack of confidence. So you’re constantly sort of propping up a bully and it’s not really clear why.”
During my three decades working in corporate America, I learned that bosses who managed the same way Harris supposedly does, do so because they were in a position way over their heads. In other words, as lousy Joe Biden is as President Kamala Harris would probably be much worse.
Some of this post was first seen at Flag and Cross
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Harris staff escaping their abusive boss
