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.
In 2006, Eleven Madison Park was a forgettable restaurant in New York City. Decent food. Nothing special. By 2017, it had been named the best restaurant in the world.
The kitchen didn’t change. The location didn’t change. What changed was the philosophy of the leader running the front of the house and the culture he built around it.
Will Guidara tells that story in Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect. And while it’s a book set in the world of fine dining, the leadership principles inside it belong in every city manager’s office, every county administrator’s desk drawer, and every department head’s reading rotation.
This week inside the MLDC, we’re continuing our three-month series focusing on organizational culture and Unreasonable Hospitality is the book we should take the most seriously.
Here’s the idea at the center of it all: there’s a difference between service and hospitality. Service is competent, efficient, correct. Hospitality is something else entirely…it’s the experience of being genuinely seen and cared for by an organization that treats you like a person, not a transaction. Local government is good at service. But service alone doesn’t build trust. Hospitality does.
And the only way to produce a hospitable organization is through culture.
That’s what this week and this entire three-month series is about.
If you’re a local government leader who’s ever rolled out a customer service initiative and wondered why the culture didn’t really change, this week is for you.
If you’ve ever had good people who were doing their jobs correctly but something still felt off in how your organization showed up to the public, this week is for you.
If you’ve ever sensed that the gap between your organization and the community’s trust is about something deeper than process or policy, this week is for you.
The MLDC is a community of city managers, county administrators, and department heads from across the country who are doing this work together…reading, discussing, and applying the best leadership thinking to the unique realities of local government. Daily content, a full resource library, and a peer community that understands the world you’re operating in.
This three-month culture series is one of the most substantial things we’ve built inside the MLDC. And it continues this week.
Join us at HaltingWinter.com/MLDC.
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.
