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.
There’s a moment in the 1936 Berlin Olympics that still gives me chills.
Nine young men—sons of loggers, shipyard workers, and farmers from the Pacific Northwest—sit in a wooden boat, about to race for gold in front of Adolf Hitler and a crowd expecting a German victory. They weren’t the biggest. They weren’t the most celebrated. And they won anyway, not by outworking everyone in the final stretch, but because something clicked in that boat that the other crews couldn’t manufacture.
That story is the foundation of The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown and it’s our second book inside this summer’s series, Stories That Shape Leaders.
Episode 353 of The HaltingWinter Podcast
Brought to you by Tyler Technologies
Ask a room full of city managers and county administrators how they arrived in local government, and you’ll quickly discover there isn’t a single blueprint for ascending to the role.
Some studied public administration. Others came from engineering, planning, finance, public works—or entirely different careers.
Jeremy Scott’s story may be one of the most unconventional yet.
Episode 352 of The HaltingWinter Podcast
Brought to you by Tyler Technologies
What makes someone choose one community over another? It’s a question every local government leader should be asking.
Too often, economic development conversations focus on attracting businesses, creating jobs, or expanding the tax base. While those priorities matter, longtime City Manager Tim Ellis believes the most successful communities start somewhere else: quality of life.
There’s a moment in American history that still doesn’t quite make sense on paper.
In 1860, Abraham Lincoln won the Republican nomination for president over three men who were better known, better connected, and, by almost every measure available at the time, were more qualified for the job than he was. William Seward had been a sitting senator and governor. Salmon Chase was a nationally respected statesman. Edward Bates had a reputation as one of the sharpest legal minds in the country.
Lincoln beat all three. And then he gave them seats in his cabinet.
Episode 350 of The HaltingWinter Podcast
Brought to you by Tyler Technologies
Local government has a leadership problem. Not because leaders aren’t capable. Not because they don’t care. Not because they aren’t working hard enough.
The problem is that too many leaders feel responsible for having all the answers.
And the longer they lead, the heavier that burden becomes.
Episode 349 of The HaltingWinter Podcast
Brought to you by Tyler Technologies
Every community has a story.
Some communities are content to preserve the past. Others are willing to build the future.
It’s not a comfortable question. But it’s the right one.
This week inside the Municipal Leadership Development Circle, we’re working through Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter by Liz Wiseman and it starts with a finding that’s hard to ignore. Leaders who diminish the people around them, often without any awareness that they’re doing it, typically access only about half of their team’s actual capability.
Half. The other half is showing up every day and going unused.
Episode 347 of The HaltingWinter Podcast
Brought to you by Tyler Technologies
In local government, leaders are often judged by results. Balanced budgets. New development. Infrastructure projects. Economic growth.
But what if the real driver behind all of those outcomes isn’t strategy, policy, or even expertise?
What if it’s relationships?
Episode 346 of The HaltingWinter Podcast
Brought to you by Tyler Technologies
Every community faces pressure to solve today’s problems. Residents want housing. Businesses need infrastructure. Roads need repairs. Budgets need balancing. Elected officials face immediate concerns, and staff work tirelessly to deliver services people depend on every day.
But great local government leadership requires something more. It requires the ability to look beyond today’s demands and ask a difficult question:
What kind of community are we building for the future?
Reed Hastings built one of the most studied organizational cultures in the world, not by adding more rules, but by systematically removing them.
His book No Rules Rules, co-authored with INSEAD professor Erin Meyer, tells the story of how Netflix reinvented itself four times over by building a culture rooted in three principles: talent density, radical candor, and leading with context instead of control.
