Municipal Leaders: Develop Faster, Lead Stronger, Build Better
Every week, you’ll get insights and actionable steps to help you navigate personal growth and professional success.
You wake up at 5:30 AM to clear your inbox before the chaos starts. By 9:00, you’ve already solved problems for three different department heads. Your afternoon is back-to-back meetings where everyone looks to you for answers. You leave at 6:30 PM, exhausted, knowing your team will need you just as much tomorrow.
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: you’re not struggling because you’re bad at your job. You’re struggling because you’re too good at solving everyone else’s problems.
Your instinct to immediately provide solutions—that reflex that makes you jump into problem-solving mode the moment someone brings you a challenge—is creating three patterns that are slowly destroying your effectiveness:
First, you’re building a team that’s completely dependent on you. Every decision flows uphill to your desk because you’ve trained your organization to expect you’ll provide the answers.
Second, you’re drowning in other people’s problems while your own strategic priorities sit untouched. You’re working harder than ever but feeling less effective.
Third, you’re losing touch with what’s actually happening in your organization. You’re so busy fixing symptoms that you never understand the root causes.
The question isn’t whether these patterns exist. If you’re a city manager, county administrator, or department head, you know they do. The question is: what are you going to do about it?
This week in the Municipal Leadership Development Collective, we’re exploring Michael Bungay Stanier’s “The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever”—the best-selling coaching book of this century, based on research with over 10,000 managers.
Stanier reveals something counterintuitive: the right question at the right time is more powerful than even the best advice. When you learn to stay curious just a little longer before jumping into solution mode, everything changes.
The book presents seven essential questions that can transform how you lead:
But here’s what makes this week different: we’re not just talking about the theory. We’re diving into exactly how these questions work in real local government situations. Budget conflicts. Personnel challenges. Community engagement. Crisis management. Strategic planning.
The practical application. The specific language. The real-world challenges of building these habits in high-pressure environments.
Listen to this week’s episode of The HaltingWinter Podcast where I introduce “The Coaching Habit” and explain why the instinct to immediately provide answers might be undermining your leadership effectiveness:
In this episode, I explore:
Want to move beyond theory to practical application? This week’s Municipal Minute Podcast series breaks down “The Coaching Habit” into five focused episodes, each addressing specific local government leadership challenges:
Episode 1 (Monday): Breaking the Advice Trap – Understanding why your problem-solving instinct creates the patterns that overwhelm you
Episode 2 (Tuesday): The Power of Three Simple Questions – How “What’s on your mind?”, “And what else?”, and “What’s the real challenge here for you?” transform any conversation
Episode 3 (Wednesday): Clarity Before Solutions – Using “What do you want?” and “How can I help?” to eliminate assumptions and provide the right kind of support
Episode 4 (Thursday): The Strategic Power of No – How “If you’re saying yes to this, what are you saying no to?” and “What was most useful for you?” create sustainable leadership effectiveness
Episode 5 (Friday): Building Your Coaching Habit – Practical strategies for implementing these approaches when everything in your environment rewards quick answers
Each episode delivers 5 minutes of focused, actionable content you can apply immediately in your leadership context.
MLDC members also get access to:
Deep-Dive Blog Posts (Tuesday-Thursday): Exploring each set of questions through specific local government scenarios—budget discussions, personnel conflicts, community engagement challenges, and strategic planning situations.
Friday Implementation Guide: A practical roadmap for building question-asking habits in high-pressure environments, complete with strategies for overcoming resistance from staff, council members, and your own instincts.
Conversation Guide: A structured framework for discussing these concepts with your leadership team, including reflection exercises and practical application strategies.
You didn’t become a local government leader to be everyone’s problem-solver. You became a leader to help your community thrive, to develop capable teams, and to create lasting impact.
But you can’t do that if you’re drowning in everyone else’s problems. You can’t develop your team’s capability if you keep solving their challenges for them. You can’t focus on strategic priorities if you’re the bottleneck for every operational decision.
“The Coaching Habit” offers a way forward. Not by abandoning your expertise, but by applying it more strategically. Not by avoiding decisions, but by making better decisions based on better information. Not by being passive, but by being more effective.
The shift from advice-giving to question-asking isn’t about doing less. It’s about creating more impact with the same amount of effort.
The Municipal Leadership Development Collective isn’t just about consuming content. It’s about connecting with peers who understand your challenges, learning from leaders who’ve faced similar situations, and having a community that supports your growth.
Your leadership effectiveness is too important to leave to chance. The right tools, the right community, and the right support can transform how you lead and the impact you create.
This week, we’re exploring “The Coaching Habit.” Next week, we’ll tackle another critical leadership challenge. The question is: will you be learning and growing with us?
The Municipal Leadership Development Circle (MLDC) is a professional growth community exclusively for city managers, administrators, and local government leaders. Each week, we explore insights from transformative books and apply them specifically to the unique challenges of municipal leadership. Join Seth Winterhalter, President of HaltingWinter Municipal Solutions, and leaders from across North America to build stronger cities through stronger leaders. Learn more at HaltingWinter.com.
