DEVELOPING LEADERS IN US CITIES
There’s a “brain drain” at the top levels of local and state governments, which is leaving many entities with a shortage of people equipped to hold leadership positions.
In fact, according to a new national study of state and local government by Government Leadership Solutions “Less than 18% of respondents rated their leadership pipeline as "Very Good" or "Excellent," and only 39% reported having a defined budget for leadership development.
As Maria Church, CEO of that organization says, “Without deliberate investment in culture, talent, and leadership development, local governments will continue to face mounting pressure with fewer tools to respond."
Michelle Crandall, Chief Member Services Officer of the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) explains that “It’s extremely important to grow and develop the next generations of local government leaders.”
Crandall and others who have studied this issue point to retention as one of the primary reasons why leadership training is critical. “There are a number of studies proving that people who have the opportunity to grow their careers through employer supported professional development programs will stay longer,” she says. “They’re more engaged and are more likely to move within the organization and become the next group of leaders.”
That’s not the only way that better leadership helps with retention. One of the primary reasons that people leave their jobs is because they’re unhappy with their supervisors. And yet, when people rise through the ranks and are unprepared to be supervisors, managers or even agency heads, the Peter Principle can come into play which indicates that many people rise through the ranks until they reach "a level of respective incompetence"
Fortunately, a growing number of cities are awakening to the need for leadership pipelines, which they can run internally. They vary in design, but many of them involve the availability of leadership training programs, which can be used by employees at various levels.
McKinney, Texas is a national leader in leadership development. Its work in that area improved the organization in countless ways, according to Joe Mazzola, its Director of Organizational Development.
Eleven years ago, the city’s culture got off the rails. “Over 18 months or so, a dozen executive staff were let go or left the city for various reasons, including the city manager, deputy city manager, two police chiefs, the HR director, and more,” he explains.
With that kind of turnover, coupled with poor staff morale, the city council took the time to hire the right person as city manager, Paul Grimes. He quickly charged staff to implement guiding principles of the “high performance organization” (HPO) framework, a key of which is leadership at all levels. Mazzola, who was involved in bringing HPO to life in McKinney, explains, “therefore, we began to build out programs that focused specifically on leadership development at all levels of the organization.”
Toward that end, McKinney’s holistic approach to leadership development includes:
An emerging leaders course. “It’s for employees who are not yet in supervisory roles,” Mazzola says, “but staff who exemplify the city’s core values, are doing great work in their departments and have the potential to do more.”
A new leaders course. As Mazzola explains, “We didn’t want to promote high performing employees into their first supervisory role and just throw them into the deep end of the pool with no leadership training. Instead, we helped to prepare them for success.”
The Leadership Academy is for seasoned supervisors and managers. The goal is to ensure they flourish as leaders in their current positions or beyond. “McKinney’s City Secretary went through the Leadership Academy course and was promoted into that role,” says Mazzola, “along with several other executive-level staff across the city.”
Executive Leaders. McKinney also focuses on regular leadership development for its most senior staff.
Staff selected to participate in these training programs are nominated by their department heads. “It gives them an opportunity to let excellent employees know they’re doing great work and shows that the city is committed to their ongoing professional growth as leaders,” says Mazzola.
Bluffton, South Carolina is another place that has begun to focus on helping its employees to be prepared for leadership positions. “The first year we offered it, I concentrated on employees who were in supervisory roles,” explains Anni Evans the city’s director of human resources. “And then the second year, I concentrated on employees that are interested in moving up into a supervisory position, but maybe we just don't have a role for them to go into yet. And so this year, I’m going to do recently promoted supervisors as well as staff that's interested in moving up into supervisory positions.”
The process utilizes a consultant who works with individual employees for three sessions of three hours apiece “It's not so much about compliance things, explains Evans. “It's handling employees; it's delegating communication; doing performance evaluations; having difficult conversations; the importance of one on one.”
The consultant holds regular online meetings with participants, and “she can check on their progress.”
In Fort Collins, Colorado, “Twice a year, we have all 440 managers meeting together,” explains Teresa Roche, chief human resources officer there. “One of the most beautiful things about it is networking. People get to connect with one another. We focus on what is most important for the community and our organization and we always have a major development component. So, for example, last year, we had sessions around navigating change. We just had our fall all-managers meeting a couple weeks ago, and (it focused on) business acumen, which is one of our stated leadership competencies. We take our competencies, and we constantly keep providing development connected to an outcome.”
For business acumen, the city developed an interactive board game to teach all its leaders, regardless of what service area they're in, about the tradeoffs that any city makes to have a budget that meets the community's needs and keeps trust.
Finally, New York City has a management academy designed for current managers or senior professionals responsible for the design and implementation of city programs. According to the city’s website, “The rigorous three-month journey delivers strategies, skills and acumen needed to meet the unique demands of managing within a city government environment.” The program runs one full day a week for three months. Like most other cities with similar programs, those days count as workdays and so they don’t eat into the free time an employee may have.
“This is a part of their job,” says Kadian Outar, Assistant Commissioner for Workforce Operations at the department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS) “and this is why we get the commissioner and their manager signed off, so that they know that this individual will be totally focused on this program for one day a week.”
One of the benefits that Outar has found is that the members of the cohorts who participate find themselves in connection with peers who they can commiserate with and learn from in months and years after the course work is done. This benefit begins with breakout sessions during the actual training, but the relationships formed there can help serve public sector leaders well.
“They have a community that they’re building,” says Outar. We encourage them to have communication outside of work. Go meet up for lunch or have a cup of coffee, and that continues long after our 12-week courses are done. They become support groups for one another.”
This article is supported by the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA). The article, by Barrett and Greene, is also available in the December issue of GFOA’s Women Public Finance Newsletter.
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