The strength of your executive team may be the biggest factor in whether you are successful as a chief executive. Skill, synergy, and alignment are essential for an effective executive team, which, for the purposes of this article, includes assistant or deputy city or county managers in the organization, as well as department heads. This is sometimes easier said than done. Feeding and weeding the executive team is essential to your success as city manager or county executive.
Even in the smallest cities and counties, the executive does not have the bandwidth, time, or expertise to manage all departments. Highly skilled, professional directors are selected to lead these departments and are responsible for the services, projects, and activities provided by them. Attracting, keeping, supporting, and developing these key executive managers is essential to a well-run organization. They can also make your job satisfying.
Importantly, a high-performing executive team is critical for effectively addressing the adaptive challenges that cut across department silos and often have no right or wrong solutions—but rather the need to find the right ones for that organization and community at that time. Some of these adaptive issues include homelessness, affordable housing, traffic congestion, racial tension, climate protection, changing employee expectations, and evolving financial constraints.
Know What Is Important to You
As the chief executive leading the organization and head of your executive team, you first must know what you stand for. What are your values? Do you practice the ICMA Code of Ethics? Do you state what you expect of your executive team members? Are you an “each department head for themselves” chief executive or a “we are fully one team and I expect us all to act that way” leader?
If you are the “one-team” type, then what are the behaviors you expect of your executive team? For your team to function as a unit, all team members need to understand your values and expectations. Can you state what they are?
Assess Your Team
Upon accepting a position as a city or county manager, whether being promoted from inside or coming from another organization, one of your first tasks is to get to know your department heads. This means spending significant time learning what is important to them, their aspirations, experiences, current challenges, support needs, leadership and communication styles, and a bit about their lives outside of work. As you start, assume good intent of all and expect that they are competent professional executives. The reality may be that you are probably dealing with a mixture of competencies and leadership abilities. But first, see for yourself and expect everyone to shine.
Over time as you work with your team members and hear observations about them from others, you will begin to develop a sense of each of them. Where do they excel and what are their limitations? Individuals who comprise an executive team are often one of three types:
1. Top Performers
Top directors who have the drive, expertise, and skills to operate their departments with little of your involvement while consistently delivering strong results. These are also ones who work well with others, do not only think about their own departments, and tend to be the “go-to” directors with whom others wish to work.
These department directors just need your focused listening, encouragement, and general support. They will perform at high levels consistently without requiring much of your time.
2. Adequate and Growing
These are directors who possess basic competency, yet need coaching, guidance, and significant assistance to generate good results in their departments. This group is comprised of people who want to do the right thing, have potential, and need more development.
Directors in this group may benefit from more check-ins than the first group, additional training, and occasional course corrections to get acceptable results. Some may become top-tier managers over time with support and coaching. Some may not but will continue to perform sufficiently in their role.
3. Multiple Problems
This group is comprised of department directors who are poorly suited for their positions for any number of reasons. These are the ones you find delivering subpar performance and may even be causing turmoil within the organization. They often do not get along well with others, typically demand a disproportionate amount of your attention in cleaning up their problems, and do not lead their departments in a way that delivers results.
When you find that coaching, training, and clear instructions do not change behaviors, it’s probably time to acknowledge the individual is not a good fit for the job. Your responsibility, as difficult as it may be in the moment, is to put the organization first and move the person out.
Making the decision to let a department head go can be easy to postpone. It is far better for all involved to make the hard decision and move ahead. Time doesn’t make it any easier and prolongs the negative effects of poor performance on the staff and community. If you don’t take action, your ability to lead is likely to suffer. Keep in focus the question, “Will the organization be better off without this person?” If so, act with compassion and clarity and move on.
Recruit Great Talent
The wisdom of surrounding yourself with people smarter than you can serve you well as you build and assess your team. Recruiting or promoting a high performer into the vacant department position is your chance to strengthen the team for years to come. Get it right. Don’t settle for any applicant who doesn’t appear highly likely to thrive and succeed in your organization. Recruit again if necessary.
As you recruit and promote, be intentional about what sort of executive team you are building. It is rarely wise to have all people who think or look like each other. Rather, having diversity on your executive team brings a variety of viewpoints and experiences to the table. Decisions and solutions that are informed by a wider range of perspectives can lead to more lasting results. As the chief executive, you can lead with the intention that divergent views are valued and that “group think” is not going to solve the emerging problems our local governments are facing.
Underrepresented groups see a diverse team as proof that hard work and skills can result in promotion to influential positions, thus expanding the talent pool. The community sees reflection of more of its diversity in the city leadership, which conveys legitimacy and builds trust. Who you hire reflects your values in many ways.
Teamwork Is Nonnegotiable
Having an all-star team of individual performers may sound great, but it is not the best benchmark. To truly get big things done, what is needed is the championship team that functions as a whole—the team that plays best together. Set this as an expectation.
Model your value of excellent group work, with plenty of opportunity for people to disagree with each other in coming up with solutions to complex problems. Don’t be in a rush to offer the answer to a question in the executive team meeting. Let the team work it out. You will be amazed at what you learn. Also, do not let one person dominate the discussion and exclude divergent views. The best results often come from challenging the easy answers or the first ideas in getting to the solution that will actually make a difference.
Meet regularly with your department heads as a group to debrief after governing body meetings as well as to discuss priority issues that cross multiple individual departmental missions. Get the team comfortable with everyone offering suggestions on policy and program areas for the benefit of the whole, regardless of individual responsibilities. Work against the silo effect.
If you value a “one team” approach, then that also means that all team members should welcome their colleagues’ opinions offered in good faith about each other’s department’s efforts—in the spirit of doing important things for the organization. No department is an island, and the team should reflect the spirit of the collective.
Your department heads are smart people with considerable life experiences and knowledge of the community served. Use the team as your brain trust. They will enhance your decision-making if you let them.
This is particularly true at budget time. While it is understandable that each department will wish to advocate for the maximum resources or minimum cuts for his or her department, remind them that they are all stewards of the organization and the community as well as subject matter experts. Ask the executive team to grapple with the various budget options to come up with a recommendation that can be supported by the whole team for council/board policymaking. This can be difficult, but it builds muscle memory for better group decision-making and strengthens the team.
Encourage the department heads to attend training, conferences, and professional organization meetings to keep up with best practices and new innovations in their fields. Support their leadership in professional organizations. Use the department heads in internal training offerings for staff. Build the bench and invest in new knowledge for multiple collateral benefits.
Nurture team spirit by providing avenues for the department heads to work together and get to know one another. Task forces and special committees are good platforms. Holding a lunch once a month of just the department heads and yourself with the rule that no government business can be discussed is a good way to build ties amongst the team. Research indicates that high-performing teams spend 25% more time talking about personal non-work topics than lesser-performing groups.1
Celebrate successes together and be generous with praise and encouragement. Buffer your department heads from governing body politics as much as possible to allow them to focus on their jobs. Stick up for them publicly when they are attacked. Be supportive when they are struggling with work or life issues. You will be well rewarded. Their success is your success and vice versa. Take care of the team and the team will look out for you.
Develop a First-Team Mindset
Earlier we discussed the “one-team” approach: all members of the executive team viewing the organization as one team, and they as department directors modeling that for their staff.
The “first-team” mindset takes it one step further. Often, department directors come to the executive group with a “second-team” mindset. They regard their department as their first team and thus advocate for the needs of their department and the resources desired by their units. A first-team mindset is when department heads arrive at an executive team meeting, and everyone sees their primary affiliation as a member of that higher-level management group. With a first-team mindset, department directors view issues through the lens of the chief executive and are leading the whole organization.
First-team members at the executive level suspend their primary advocacy role of stressing the needs of the groups that they represent and take on a big-picture view and larger strategic role for the organization.
By presenting adaptive challenges cutting across separate functions and creating an environment conducive for the executive team to grapple with developing collaborative approaches, you can slowly help develop a first-team mindset for the executive group.2
The True Test of Loyalty
Loyalty from our department heads is not just about them saying yes. Avoid having people on your team who operate just on the surface, keep their head down, or are flatterers. As a chief executive, you need team members with character and courage to tell you when they think you are about to walk off a cliff. Department heads who do not do that are actually not doing their entire job. They have a responsibility to come to you, close the door, and directly tell you when they think you’re making a mistake. These department directors are priceless.
Your Executive Team Is Your Legacy
The measure of success in your career is not the number of plaques on your wall, service awards, balanced budgets, or capital projects with your name displayed on them. Your legacy is the strength of the teams you build along the way. How the department heads work together, especially in your absence, tells the tale of what kind of leader you are.
Use every chance to strengthen and support the team you lead. Express your appreciation to them. Building your team is likely to be your greatest contribution as a city or county manager.
ROD GOULD, ICMA-CM is chairman of the board of HdL Companies, a former ICMA Executive Board member, retired city manager, consultant, and supporter of all those who toil in local government service. (rodgould17@gmail.com)
DR. FRANK BENEST, ICMA-CM is a retired city manager and currently serves as a local government trainer and ICMA’s liaison for Next Generation Initiatives. He resides in Palo Alto, California. (frank@frankbenest.com).
JAN PERKINS, ICMA-CM is vice president of Raftelis, a local government management consultant and facilitator, retired city manager, and a believer in good government and in the city management profession. (jperkins@raftelis.com)
RESOURCES AND ENDNOTES
1 https://hbr.org/2021/10/5-things-high-performing-teams-do-differently
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