In 30 years of working in corporate America in C-suites, restructurings, acquisitions, etc., I saw my fair share of turnarounds and employee turnover. But when things settled, when a company was humming along, I learned one ironclad truth: when an executive loses a single high performer over time, that’s a transition.
But when an executive consistently loses members of their team, and new hires are gone over a short period of time, that only means one thing. They are either a toxic person or a woefully bad manager.
Here’s an example. I worked in PR at a global digital agency for one of the best Chief Marketing Officers there is. When he left, the company hired a total disaster. She was cruel, had zero people skills, was insecure and arrogant, and no idea what she was doing.
In the first six months, 11 of my fellow team members left. I hung on a little longer. However, the CEO loved her because she blew so much smoke that he was blinded by the turmoil she created.
I started thinking about her yesterday after the sudden firing of Navy Secretary John Phelan. He was dumped “effective immediately” while the Navy is in the middle of a war with Iran and a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
When an exit happens “immediately,” it’s never good. And when it is one in a string of chaotic exits, the problem lies at the top of the professional food chain.
Pete Hegseth, at the top of the pyramid at the Pentagon, is someone who clearly is cruel, has no people skills, and no idea what he’s doing. In other words, he’s about as horrible a boss as they come.
Phelan is only the latest entry in a list that should alarm every American who cares about whether the United States has a functioning military. And just like in my experience, leadership above Hegseth does nothing to address the chaos.
If this were a Fortune 500 company, that manager would be gone. HR would be frantically dealing with multiple complaints, and legal counsel would be called in. And I, as the PR lackey, would be feeding trade media a bunch of nonsense about how everything is just fine.
I’ve seen this scenario before, and when a bad manager isn’t addressed, it never ends well. At the Pentagon, where nothing is being done about Hegseth, his management will likely have serious consequences.
Here are some top brass who have left the Pentagon within the last year, creating vacancies, holes, and a toxic work environment:
Gen. C.Q. Brown Jr., Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Fired February 2025.
Adm. Lisa Franchetti, Chief of Naval Operations. Fired February 2025.
Adm. Linda Fagan, Commandant of the Coast Guard. Forced out 2025.
Gen. Randy George, Army Chief of Staff. Ousted April 2026.
John Phelan, Secretary of the Navy. Fired April 22, 2026.
Based on my years of experience, there are several glaring attributes that every inept and inefficient boss has, and Hegseth checks every box:
Arrogance: When the boss is arrogant and full of themselves, there is no room for dissent. Hegseth’s arrogance is well-documented and rooted in insecurity around those more qualified than he is.
Out-of-Line Demands: When Pentagon leaders reportedly refused to carry out potentially discriminatory orders, Hegseth forced them out. When your own team pushes back on moral grounds, the problem isn’t them. It’s you!
Zero Respect for Experience: Gen. C.Q. Brown, a decorated four-star general, had his qualifications publicly questioned. Decades of service vanished. There were also accusations of racism.
Teacher’s Pet: Minority officers were singled out for removal from promotion lists while comparable white male officers were left untouched. In Hegseth’s case, that’s not a leader. That’s a racist.
Lack of Trust: Phelan was reportedly pushed out for going around Hegseth to speak directly with President Donald Trump — what in the corporate world is called “managing up.” In Hegseth’s Pentagon, it’s a firing offense.
My Way or the Highway: Reports describe a “woke list” of officers targeted for removal. That’s not reform. That’s intimidation. It replaces professional judgment with political loyalty.
Bad Impulses: Firing a Navy Secretary “effective immediately” in the middle of active operations, with no transition plan, isn’t just bad management. It’s a national security risk.
Hegseth considers diversity a weakness, elevates ideological, white male, straight allies, and oversees a leadership purge that aligns less with performance than with identity and viewpoint.
He is not making these changes for the well-being of the military. He’s making them personal, and that’s wildly wrong.
I spent three decades watching executives rise and fall. The ones who succeeded kept strong people close and welcomed dissent. The ones who failed were insecure, dismissive of experience, and weakened their own organizations.
Pete Hegseth is running the Department of Defense like a man who cannot tolerate being around people who are more accomplished or more representative of the country they serve.
And frankly, that’s almost everyone he encounters at the Pentagon. He seems to relate most to new recruits he famously works out with.
In any functioning organization, a leader who lost this much senior talent this quickly would be seen as a liability. The difference is that the military is not a company. The stakes are far higher, and the margin for error is far smaller.
This isn’t about quarterly earnings. It’s about national security. It’s about readiness. And above all, it’s about the lives of the men and women in uniform who deserve leadership based on merit, not ideology or insecure and tyrannical personality issues.
The bottom line here is that Pete Hegseth is the worst boss in America, except, of course, for his boss.
