Local Government Leadership Questions

In a conversation I had last week with Jay Gsell, he posed a compelling question about Local Government Leadership:

“What has scared you into inertia?”

Jay Gsell, Retired County Manager, Genesee County, New York

This may not directly apply to all local governments, but I have seen my share of Cities and Counties that struggle with even simple changes. It’s a worthy topic for discussion in an upcoming Think Tank perhaps. Here’s a question that came to me while writing this.

How does a local government maintain the public trust when the staff doesn’t trust one another?

A Simple Exercise – Submit a Question

Let’s gather as many local government leadership questions we can. You can submit a question anonymously or you can provide contact information – I will share all of the questions submitted with anyone willing to share their contact information.

Why should you submit a question?

This is a reasonable question in itself, as we will not be providing any direct answers. We WILL share the questions submitted to anyone willing to provide contact information. How would someone benefit from more unanswered questions?

We use questions in the City Manager and County Administrator Think Tanks as a catalyst to help identify the root cause of a problem. Many reported “problems” are actually symptoms, so questions help ensure we have truly identified the root cause BEFORE we attempt to solve a problem.

How do I benefit from having these Leadership Questions?

• Knowledge – know what others are questioning
• Thought catalyst – questions make us think
• Improvement opportunities – questions can lead to actions
• Identify which is most important to you

If there are similar questions submitted by many, the trend could highlight either a compelling problem or at least the one most distracting us as a whole. Are you curious about what the most asked Local Government Leadership Question will be? All you have to do is submit a question yourself to find out.

While not essential to this exercise, but I did write something a while back on how to ask questions –> Executive Skill Development: Asking Great Questions