Whether or not you agree with the assertion that the US federal government should be shrunk dramatically because it is bloated and inefficient, the attempt to do so by Elon Musk and his team at the Department of Government Efficiency has been chaotic, confusing, abrupt and publicly contemptuous of federal agencies, their employees and the work they do.
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Musk has bragged about feeding USAID into the “woodchipper” and “deleting” agencies. In front of a crowd at the 2025 Conservative Political Action Conference, he delivered an impromptu performance with a chainsaw given to him on stage by Argentina’s libertarian president, Javier Milei. “This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy!” he yelled. “Chainsaw!”
In some ways, his approach seems to echo his heavy-handed moves when he took over Twitter in 2022.
But will the DOGE attempt at a breakneck-speed transformation succeed in turning the federal government into a lean, efficient organization?
Almost certainly not, say two leadership experts who advise top executives and organizations on big turnarounds and strategy.
Here is how Navalent co-founder and managing partner Ron Carucci, who works with CEOs pursuing transformational change, put it based on the publicly available reports he’s seen: “If you were looking to leave your organization in shambles, unable to perform after downsizing, leaving workers in a paralyzed state of fear, resentment and sabotage, (Musk’s) doing a marvelous job.”
The lessons here for corporate leaders tasked with restructuring a company are many, even for those people who are highly critical of the approach Musk and DOGE are taking.
Acting quickly is okay. But only after you’ve done your homework
There have been a lot of reports of federal workers being fired then quickly rehired once agencies realized people with critical skills had been let go. (See, for example: Those managing the US nuclear arsenal, and those working at USDA on the response to the bird flu outbreak, and on Ebola prevention at USAID.)
Had DOGE, with assistance from the agencies, done its research beforehand, those kinds of sloppy, dangerous errors would be far less likely.
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“Most companies are methodical and reflective about this,” said Cindy Wahler, who helps organizations with leadership assessment, executive coaching and identifying needed leadership competencies. “There are usually months and months of analysis before any recommendations are made around restructuring.”
By doing an extensive diagnostic of your enterprise beforehand, Carucci added, “you know where the opportunities for reductions are. You don’t just go slicing through.”
Once a tailored assessment is done, act quickly to execute, but be truthful about what will happen and why changes are needed, he said. And when delivering the bad news, he added, “compassion is critical.”
If you don’t take the trouble and time to do all of this, any turnaround attempt will be undercut, Carucci warned. “I tell leaders all the time that how and where you cut is going to make a profound, almost irreversible statement about your culture. Likely in a damaging way. Can you do it in a way you can recover?”
How you treat people matters … a lot
In an unsigned blast email from the Office of Personnel Management last Saturday afternoon, Musk ordered government workers to pop off five bullet points listing their accomplishments the prior week — posting on X beforehand that failure to do so would be viewed as their resignation. It caused mass confusion and worry. And it elicited a stream of mixed messages from the actual agency leaders to whom the employees report, raising questions as to who is actually in charge.
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A second email from OPM early Monday evening told workers they were not required to reply, which didn’t clear much up. And the warning included at the end of OPM’s letter to those who chose to respond was also worrying: “Assume that what you write will be read by malign foreign actors and tailor your response accordingly.”
Then, as if all this hadn’t been fun enough already, Musk at Trump’s first cabinet meeting on Wednesday explained that his weekend email was not meant as a “performance review” just a “pulse check review.” “(W)e’re literally trying to figure out, are these people real, are they alive and can they write an email?” Musk said.
This kind of justify-your-existence threat is yet another way Musk on behalf of the Trump administration has expressed a blanket disregard for federal workers.
“Elon Musk’s philosophy and approach to employees and their work is diametrically opposed to every organization I work with in the public and private sectors,” Wahler said. “They value preserving employees’ dignity and respect, making them feel that they’re making an important contribution and can feel safe in a collaborative environment.”
Ego is fine, but humility is also needed
Being the world’s richest man with the backing of the US president and more than 200 million followers on the social media platform he owns is not an obvious recipe for humility.
But Wahler, a psychologist, said she’s found the best leaders typically have egos but also are humble enough to understand when they’re wrong and don’t know enough about an issue.
Of course, while speaking to the press next to President Donald Trump in the Oval Office earlier this month, Musk did acknowledge he isn’t perfect. “Some of the things I say will be incorrect and should be corrected. So nobody’s going to bat a thousand … We will make mistakes, but we’ll act quickly to correct any mistakes,” he said.
The tone of his comments, however, was more like “‘naturally I’ll break some glass, but it’s not a big deal,’” Carucci said. “(As if) he feels impervious to error.”
No corporate leaders, of course, share Musk’s net worth or network. But that doesn’t mean they might not share some of his attitude or behaviors that may undercut their aims when trying to push a whole organization to change.
“You might be tempted to confuse speed with efficiency. Or to confuse fairness with across-the-board cuts,” Carucci said. “These approaches may be more tempting than you think.”
At the end of the day, how you execute a restructuring sets the tone for an organization’s future.
And Musk’s approach so far has been read by many of those most immediately affected as antagonistic, demoralizing and callous.
“An organization’s reputational integrity is its greatest currency. When you compromise that, you have lost the loyalty and trust of your employees,” Wahler said. “His approach is going to increase inefficiency by creating an environment marked by instability, a lack of trust and divisiveness.”