Stop Managing Time. Start Leading with Purpose.

It’s 7:30 AM. You’re already at your desk, coffee in hand, reviewing the stack of reports due for tomorrow’s council meeting. Your calendar shows back-to-back meetings until 5 PM, including a sensitive personnel issue, a budget review, and a community group presentation. Your phone buzzes – the public works director needs an urgent decision about equipment repairs. Welcome to another day as a city manager.

In this constant whirlwind of demands and decisions, one question becomes critical: Are you being effective?

Peter Drucker, in his landmark book “The Effective Executive,” offers insights that speak directly to your challenges as a municipal leader. While written decades ago, his principles are surprisingly relevant for today’s city managers who must balance multiple stakeholders, limited resources, and increasing community expectations.

Here are three key insights that can transform your effectiveness:

1. Know Where Your Time Goes

As a city manager, your time is your most precious resource – and it’s under constant assault. Drucker argues that effective executives first understand how they actually spend their time, not how they think they spend it. 

Try this: For one week, log your activities in 15-minute increments. You’ll likely discover surprising patterns – perhaps too much time in reactive mode, or insufficient time on strategic planning. This awareness is your first step toward better time management.

2. Focus on Contribution

In municipal government, it’s easy to get caught up in problems and deficiencies. Drucker challenges leaders to ask instead: “What can I contribute that will significantly affect the performance and results of the institution?”

For city managers, this means looking beyond daily firefighting to focus on initiatives that will have lasting impact – whether that’s developing future leaders, improving organizational processes, or building stronger community relationships.

3. Make Effective Decisions

Drucker emphasizes that effective executives make fewer decisions but focus on the ones that matter most. They understand that a decision is a judgment that requires:

• Clear definition of the problem

• Specification of the boundary conditions

• Testing of the validity of the decision against actual results

In your role, this might mean spending less time on routine operational decisions (which can be delegated) and more time on strategic decisions that only you can make.

Your Next Step

Choose one area – time management, focusing on contribution, or decision-making – and commit to implementing it this week. Start small, but start today.

Remember: Effectiveness can be learned. It’s not about working more hours or moving faster. It’s about working smarter and focusing on what truly matters for your community’s success.

*The next four blogs in this series, working through “The Effective Executive” by Peter Drucker, is a member-exclusive deep dive for the Municipal Leadership Development Circle (MLDC). To join a community of city managers and leaders from around the nation, dedicated to making 2025 a substantial year of growth and impact, learn more here: –> Experience a Year of Transformation

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Seth Winterhalter is President of HaltingWinter Municipal Solutions, dedicated to making stronger cities through stronger leaders. Through executive coaching, results-based consulting, and the Municipal Leadership Development Circle (MLDC), HaltingWinter helps city managers and municipal leaders transform their leadership impact and their organizational culture.