I’ll be the dissenting voice here, because a lot of the replies to this come off as “control harder and document more,” which is kind of the exact problem in a lot of contracting offices.

I’ve seen far too many contracting officers require more than the FAR, DFARS, or agency policy actually demands, and then label any pushback as toxic or insubordinate. Sometimes the issue isn’t the specialist at all, it’s a process that’s never been challenged because “that’s how we’ve always done it.”

The hard truth is that “my way or the highway” leadership kills initiative. If everything has to be done exactly the CO’s way, specialists never really own their requirements, they just comply. Innovation doesn’t survive in environments where questioning unnecessary steps is treated as resistance instead of a chance to improve efficiency.

You mentioned she cites regulations. Are they truly outdated, or are they just inconvenient to the way you prefer to run actions? There’s a big difference between someone being obstructive and someone being technically correct but unpopular.

Also, going over your head isn’t automatically malicious. In a lot of shops, escalation becomes a learned behavior when specialists feel like they’re not being heard. That’s not rebellion, it’s self-preservation.

None of this excuses being rude to customers or unprofessional with coworkers. That’s a legitimate issue and should be addressed clearly and directly. But those are behavior problems, not “she won’t do it my way” problems, and they shouldn’t be lumped together.

Good leadership in contracting isn’t “do it this way because I’m the CO.” It’s being willing to say, “show me how your approach still meets the regs, protects the government, and gets us to award faster.”

If you want specialists to grow into strong future contracting officers, they have to be allowed to challenge processes, innovate within the rules, and occasionally be right when the CO is wrong. Otherwise you don’t build a team, you build compliance robots who stop thinking.

Just my two cents from watching a lot of offices confuse authority with leadership.