Great Organization, Poor Management - Anonymous employee PILPG Employee Review

Though I only spent a short time at PILPG, it was abundantly clear that upper level management does not value or even respect mid-level management or the operations staff. Paul Williams, the President, prides himself on developing young, dynamic professionals and yet does not include any of their names on the publications that they drafted, instead choosing to take 100% of the credit for something that he lightly edited. He speaks poorly of the staff behind their backs while never giving feedback or scheduling performance reviews. He tells everyone to “read his mind,” which is impossible given his many mood swings throughout the course of a single day. His comments about the staff also betray his opinion that staff are easily replaceable, and voices this opinion if they disagree with him on anything, including operations, hiring, program management, or even the news. In addition, Paul Williams has shiny object syndrome. He often takes on new initiatives at the suggestion of an intern or one of his many volunteers from American University’s Washington College of Law and implements them in a half-baked way. His favorite initiatives are those in which he is portrayed as an all-knowing expert on international law as well as a benevolent mentor to young professionals (for example all of PILPG’s Facebook Live posts). All of his strategic communications initiatives, which he sells as professional development opportunities for volunteers, are undertaken solely for his own self-aggrandizement. Paul Williams’ management and communication styles are disorganized and he often plays favorites, choosing to believe that this tactic incentivizes better performance from his staff and volunteers. Instead, this engenders resentment among mid-level and operations staff, and encourages poor management practices from the rest of the senior staff. The rest of senior management has never worked outside of PILPG and has therefore normalized and internalized his demented way of thinking. Adding to this dynamic is the fact that most of the senior staff is spread out across the United States, and very infrequently communicate with each other directly. Many of them use their subordinates to communicate indirectly with each other, leading to many miscommunications and passive aggressive emails that pummel the unfortunate middle man. Unsurprisingly, there is a huge rate of turnover and nearly all of those who leave depart resentful of the organization and their time spent there. As a temporary employee with a fixed end date, I had the unique opportunity to see the dysfunction of the organization without having to feel the full effects of working there long-term. I would caution anyone looking for employment opportunities at this organization to come in with an exit strategy.