Introducing: The Municipal Leadership Development Circle (MLDC) - Save 50% During Launch Phase
Every week, you’ll get insights and actionable steps to help you navigate personal growth and professional success.
This week, we’ve explored powerful tools for saying “no” while preserving relationships. But what does this actually look like in real municipal leadership? Let’s examine how three city managers have transformed their effectiveness by implementing these principles, and how you can do the same.
It’s budget season. Department heads are fighting for resources, council members are pushing pet projects, and community groups are demanding increased services – all while your finance director insists on maintaining healthy reserves. Some days, it feels less like city management and more like referee duty at a championship wrestling match.
Welcome to what I call the “municipal pressure cooker,” where competing interests collide and conflict seems inevitable. But what if conflict wasn’t the enemy? What if it was actually your gateway to stronger relationships and better solutions?
Your parks director just proposed an ambitious new project. It’s innovative, community-focused, and completely impossible with your current budget constraints. You know you need to say no, but you also need to maintain the enthusiasm and creativity that sparked the idea. What do you do?
Enter the Yes-No-Yes formula, a revolutionary approach from William Ury’s “The Power of a Positive No” that transforms how we handle these delicate situations. Let’s break down how this framework can revolutionize your municipal leadership.
The Scene: It’s 8:00 PM on a Tuesday. You’re finally sitting down to dinner with your family (your kids ate hours ago) when your phone buzzes. A council member wants your thoughts on a new policy proposal – right now. Your fork hovers halfway to your mouth as that familiar tension rises. You know you should protect your personal time, but saying “no” to elected officials feels like a political minefield.
Sound familiar?
Contrary to popular belief, statistics show that the average tenure of city managers isn’t shrinking as fast as your neighbor’s waist on Ozempic. But what if this seemingly positive trend masks a brutal reality?
In this episode of The HaltingWinter Podcast, Seth Winterhalter discusses the topic of personal boundaries and why we need them. Your boundaries determine the access people have in your life. The larger your circle of people and relationships becomes the more access they will ask for. If you don’t have healthy boundaries and consequences for those who break your boundaries, you’ll be in for a life of burnout and frustration.
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