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’ve balanced another budget. Completed another major project. Navigated another political crisis. Your performance metrics look strong, your council is satisfied, and your community is growing. By every traditional measure, you’re succeeding.
So why do you feel like you’re failing at what matters most?
If you’re like most local government leaders I work with, you entered public service to make a lasting difference. You wanted to solve complex problems, develop great teams, and create sustainable change that would benefit your community for decades.
But somewhere along the way, the urgent started crowding out the important. Crisis management replaced strategic thinking. Political pressures began driving more decisions than principled leadership. And you found yourself succeeding at things that don’t actually fulfill you while struggling to find time for the work that drew you to public service in the first place.
Here’s what I’ve learned from working with hundreds of local government leaders: The same drive that makes you excellent at hitting targets and managing crises can become the very thing that leaves you feeling disconnected from your purpose and isolated from the relationships that matter most.
You work late to finish “urgent” reports that could have been delegated. You skip family events to attend meetings that don’t require your input. You handle personnel issues personally instead of developing your team’s capability to solve problems. You compromise on small principles to avoid political conflict, not realizing each compromise makes the next one easier.
The result? You’re achieving more while enjoying it less. Your most promising staff members leave for “growth opportunities” elsewhere. Your family gets your leftover time and energy. And you start wondering if this is really the career—and life—you wanted to build.
This week, the Municipal Leadership Development Circle is diving deep into Clayton Christensen’s How Will You Measure Your Life?, a book that applies proven business research to the most important decisions we make about our careers and relationships.
Christensen, the Harvard Business School professor who revolutionized how we think about innovation, discovered something crucial about leadership satisfaction: The metrics that make you look successful on paper often have little correlation with the metrics that create lasting fulfillment and sustainable impact.
Here’s what the research shows:
The things you think motivate you probably don’t. Salary increases, better titles, and improved benefits prevent job dissatisfaction, but they don’t create motivation. What actually drives long-term satisfaction? Challenging work, opportunities for growth, recognition for meaningful achievements, and the chance to develop others. Sound familiar? That’s exactly what drew you to public service.
Your stated priorities aren’t your real priorities: What’s on your calendar is. You can talk about work-life balance and people development all you want, but your actual priorities are revealed by how you spend your time, energy, and attention. Most leaders are shocked when they realize how little time they invest in the things they claim matter most.
Small compromises create big problems. The leaders with the greatest long-term impact aren’t more talented than others, they’re simply more consistent about maintaining core principles. Research shows it’s actually easier to hold to your values 100% of the time than 98% of the time, because absolute standards eliminate the mental energy required to decide when to compromise.
This week’s content will help you answer three fundamental questions that determine both your leadership effectiveness and personal fulfillment:
How can I find genuine satisfaction in my career? We’ll explore why some leaders thrive in public service while others burn out, and how to structure your role around the factors that actually create motivation and engagement.
How can I ensure my most important relationships remain a source of strength? We’ll examine how successful leaders align their resource allocation with their deepest values, even amid constant political and community pressures.
How can I maintain integrity when everyone else is making exceptions? We’ll discuss why absolute principles are more effective and easier than situational ethics, and how to build systems that support consistent decision-making under pressure.
This exploration of How Will You Measure Your Life? launches the final week of enrollment for the Municipal Leadership Development Circle’s newly integrated 9-month Leadership and Culture Development Program.
Starting next Monday, we’re bringing together a cohort of local government leaders who are ready to move beyond just managing their current challenges to building the kind of sustainable leadership that creates lasting impact.
Over nine months, you’ll work alongside peers who share your commitment to principled leadership, receive personalized coaching on your specific challenges, and implement proven frameworks that align your daily choices with your deepest values and long-term objectives.
This isn’t another leadership program that gives you more things to add to your already full schedule. This is a dynamic approach to ensuring that how you spend your time, energy, and attention actually creates the career satisfaction, relationship strength, and community impact you entered public service to achieve.
The question Clayton Christensen posed to his Harvard Business School students on their graduation day is the same question facing you right now: How will you measure your life?
Will you measure it by the projects completed and budgets balanced, or by the people developed and principles upheld? By the crises managed or the sustainable systems built? By the immediate political wins or the long-term community impact?
Your answer will determine not just your career trajectory, but the kind of leader—and person—you become.
Save Your Seat in the MLDC 9-Month Leadership and Culture Development Program
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.
