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.
Charles Darwin changed how we understand the world. Nineteen groundbreaking books. Discoveries that shaped modern science. Meticulous experiments and global correspondence.
He worked about four hours a day.
Not because he was lazy. Because he understood something most municipal leaders have forgotten: work and rest aren’t opposites. They’re partners.
This week in the Municipal Leadership Development Circle (MLDC), we’re exploring “Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less” by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, a book that challenges everything local government leaders believe about dedication, public service, and what it actually takes to serve your community well.
When was the last time you made a major decision while genuinely well-rested?
Not functional. Not caffeinated. Actually well-rested, clear-headed, energetic, and capable of creative thinking.
If you’re struggling to remember, you’re not alone. Exhaustion has become the baseline for municipal leadership. You signal dedication through constant availability. You prove worth through visible busyness. You wear fatigue as a badge of honor.
And it’s destroying the quality of your decisions.
Your budget allocations affect millions of dollars and thousands of people. Your personnel choices shape organizational culture for years. Your strategic direction influences community development for decades. Those decisions deserve your best thinking, not your exhausted thinking.
This week, MLDC members are getting daily insights, podcast episodes, and practical tools exploring how the most effective leaders actually structure their work:
Why your brain can only sustain 3-5 hours of high-quality cognitive work daily and what happens to your decision quality when you push past that limit. (Spoiler: Research shows scientists working 20 hours weekly published MORE than those working 35+ hours.)
How to protect strategic thinking time when your calendar feels impossible to control and your council evaluates performance through visibility rather than outcomes.
Why “performance busyness” undermines actual effectiveness and how to communicate differently about your time without appearing disengaged.
What deliberate rest actually means (hint: it’s not collapsing on the couch scrolling social media) and how practices like walking, strategic naps, and “deep play” restore your capacity for excellent work.
How to start building sustainable practices this week that serve both you and your community without overhauling your entire life.
Your community doesn’t need you at every ribbon cutting and chamber breakfast. They need you making excellent decisions about their future. They need you thinking strategically about complex challenges. They need you modeling sustainable leadership that attracts and retains talented people to public service.
The martyrdom culture in local government isn’t serving your community. It’s undermining your capacity to serve your community well.
This week, we’re exploring a different way. One that’s backed by neuroscience, proven by history’s most productive people, and adapted specifically for the realities of municipal leadership.
The Municipal Leadership Development Circle explores one leadership book each week with daily insights, podcast episodes, conversation guides, and a community of peers navigating the same challenges.
This week, we’re diving into “Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less.” Next week, we’ll tackle a new book with new insights, always translated specifically for local government leadership.
Ready to work smarter instead of just harder? Ready to make better decisions instead of just more decisions? Ready to build a sustainable career serving your community?
Join us at HaltingWinter.com/MLDC.
Your community deserves a well-rested leader making excellent decisions. And you deserve a sustainable way of doing this work you care deeply about.
See you inside the Circle.
The Municipal Leadership Development Circle (MLDC) is a professional growth community exclusively for city/county 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/MLDC.
