Integral City Managers

Integral City Managers develop leadership capacities in themselves and in others. In order to deal with the stress and pressure of external demands from staff, elected officials and the public, City Managers need inner strength–to develop leadership from the inside out.

Leadership capacities arise from the experience of the City Manager's personal life. (See QOL Citizen "Motivate Intentions"). These include self-awareness, self-management, other awareness and other management.

Leadership competency in the professional arena is developed as the leader becomes able to lead progressively more responsibilities, larger accountabilities, more people, more complex situations, and more complex organizations (see QOL Citizen "Work for QOL"). Today's City Manager arrives in their role from more than one path. They can progress up the chain of city command; enter public life from the private or NFP sector; seek mentorship and/or coaching from senior managers; obtain formal leadership credentials from Universities (Schools of Public Administration or Business or Leadership or Organization Development); seek peer support from other City Managers; study through professional association training; and invest in individual self-development.

The Integral City Manager's competencies make possible a progression of leadership practices as shown in Figure 1. Any and all of these practices are used appropriately as the situation requires.

Integral City Managers develop leadership capacities in others. The demands of today's city require City Managers to be excellent collaborators, delegators and team leaders. They first assess their own competencies and capacities and then apply the same kind of framework to the managers who report to them. Integral City Managers self-evaluate that they can:

• Identify and evaluate their own capacity to lead and apply leadership theory, style and preferences to self leadership

• Act as self-directed leaders, selecting and creating a leadership self-development plan focused on realistic assessment of leadership requirements and changing life conditions.

• Understand their own belief system and use this self-knowledge to identify and interpret ethical considerations.

• Identify and evaluate capacities to lead others within multiple contexts and leadership paradigms.

• Use leadership capacities to help others see big picture views, to accept differences and to resolve conflicts.

• Apply ethical considerations to one's role as a leader of others and work with others to find higher levels of ethical reasoning.[ii]

 

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