Leading in local government

Leadership is the ability to influence, guide, or lead others, whether that's an individual, group, or organization. Many leaders are servant leaders, working in local and state government to provide services for their residents.

We recently asked one local government leader about what that means. Kelly McCullough considers himself an accidental leader. His main job and the one he thinks of as his career is writing: novels including the WebMage and Fallen Blade series, humor, essays, etc. Kelly's side gig, which has turned into a second job, is serving as a local politician and chair of the Dunn County Board of Supervisors. That makes him the elected executive authority for a county with about 45,000 residents and a government with around 500 employees and a $100,000,000 budget.

You've been a county board supervisor since 2010. What is the role of a board supervisor?

The main job is twofold: policy and oversight, both at the supervisor level and as board chair, though the latter does come with some executive functions. As a Supervisor, you are normally assigned to a standing committee or sometimes two, by the board chair. In my case I started on the Highway committee which votes on things like pavement and major equipment bids and keeps an eye on the budget and the progress of major projects. I was also a member of the transit commission when the county created a bus system, and later the committee overseeing the county nursing home. I eventually chaired both Transit and Highway. The biggest distinction that people need to understand is the difference between policy & oversight and management. It’s the 500-foot altitude picture, not day to day operations or line item budgeting.

From your perspective in government, what does "leadership" mean to you? How do you define "leadership" in government?

I’m going to make a distinction between the supervisor role that I talked about above and my work chairing committees, and the leadership involved in chairing the whole board. As a supervisor, you are absolutely involved in leadership, but it’s much more as part of a collaborative process where you’re working in the interface between citizens, your committee, and the larger role of the board. As a committee chair, it’s pretty much the same, but with a higher degree of responsibility. At that level leadership is all about communication, understanding what’s going on, making good choices about handling public funds, and being a voice for the needs of the county.

Board chair is a much bigger role and leadership there carries a lot more weight. In my county, the board chair is solely responsible for the appointment of every member of every standing committee and the committee chairs and vice chairs. I also appoint members to other boards and committees, but with the advice and consent of the board. This is probably the most important role over which I have sole ownership, and I see my role as a leader in that space as being one of identifying people with the talents and strengths to do the job and then giving them the freedom to do it their way.

What I tell my chairs is that I trust them to handle their committees and to solve the problems that come to them in that space. In that capacity, I let them know that if they need my help or want my input, I will absolutely be there for them, including attending their meetings if they need me to, but I won’t be looking over their shoulder. I want them to have ownership of their roles, and I promise that if they come up with a solution to a problem I will back them up on it even if I don’t like the solution or would have solved it differently myself.

As a leader of a large organization, you can’t and shouldn’t micromanage or do all the jobs yourself. Your job is to keep a finger on the pulse, make the choices that rise up to the top as necessary, and support and empower your people to do their jobs. I’m also big on taking responsibility/blame for the hard or unpopular stuff and giving credit and praise for things that are popular and where people shine. Part of the job of a leader in government is knowing that sometimes you have to make decisions that are going to make people unhappy and to make sure to be the person they are unhappy with.

One thing that is personal to my leadership style as someone who is a professional communicator—novelist by vocation, actor by education—is to serve as a translator between content experts within government and the citizens and other non-expert constituencies. I sometimes refer to it as translating between people who think they’re speaking the same language. A lot of my job as a leader is mediating and extending communication.

Finally, my job as a government leader is understanding. I need to be the person who can take in a lot of different streams of information, synthesize the data, and make decisions or delegate processes as needed.

The quick list: delegation, empowerment, take responsibility, give away credit, synthesize, communicate and facilitate communication.

As a board supervisor, what's your approach to looking ahead to the future?

I’m a process person. One of my core focuses in my time as chair is to help us get to a place where we have better processes. In that space, I’ve looked at board education, board rules, committee education, succession planning for senior management, etc. You can’t process-proof against malice, but if you create better processes you can make it easier for everyone who comes after you to accomplish good things and harder for bad things to happen in the gaps.

Big picture prediction is hard, both because of the enormous number of outside variables, and because every two years there’s an election and that changes who is making the decisions. So you try to break it down into a lot of smaller picture predictions and make sure the people who are best positioned to make them are empowered to bring that stuff forward. Which buildings are likely to need new roofs and when? What should your pavement replacement cycle look like, what kind of housing needs will we have, and what can we do to facilitate answers to that problem?

Finally, always work on the basics. Make sure you have a sound budget so that you have a cushion for emergencies. Don’t let things fall into disrepair. Maintenance is cheaper than repair. Don’t do things just because they’ve always done them that way. Keep interrogating your processes and priorities. Is there a better or cheaper way to do something? Or things we shouldn’t be doing because we can’t do them well or because some other entity might be better positioned?

Part of working in government is bringing people together, getting people from different viewpoints to agree. How do you get people to compromise?

Listening and education. At the local level probably 90% of what we act on gets a unanimous vote. Much of it is simple, these are our resources, these are our mandates, these are the available choices. If you lay that out and make sure to give people the chance to be heard and to ask questions, and you give them honest answers, most reasonable people will come to a consensus. On the more challenging stuff, you need to do the same thing and accept that the majority wins. I’ve been the sole “no" vote on something a time or two. It’s not fun, but if you accept it with grace and work to see the will of the majority done, you’ll have a lot more credit with people on the losing side of some vote you won later. You build relationships and trust over time and consensus through education, communication, and active listening.

What qualities do you look for in future leaders?

In my electeds, the ability to be practical, willingness to listen, understanding the difference between management and policy & oversight, the ability to shut up and let people agree with you. In my staff, that plus delegation and empowerment on the one hand and initiative on the other. You need people who will take ownership of the problems and tasks that are appropriate to what they do, but let go of the ones that can be handled by someone further down the chain or in another area.

What advice would you give to folks who want to step into a leadership role?

Listen. Watch. Learn. Figure out how the leaders that you respect get things done. Learn the ins and outs of the organization or system where you want to be a leader. Step up. Take ownership of the things at your level to demonstrate that you can do the work and you have initiative. Don’t be in love with the sound of your own voice. Speak when it’ll make a difference and not just to show that you can. Be willing to accept that you’re wrong sometimes. Be graceful about that and be willing to admit error.

Know that you can’t know if you’ll be a good leader until you’ve tried it. I was very dubious about my own leadership potential. I know I’m smart and willing to work and a fast learner, but none of that makes a leader. I tend to have authority issues and I like to be in control of my own work experience. That could easily have made me into a micro-manager if I’d let it. That it didn’t is down to two things. First, it turns out that I really enjoy seeing other people take control of a situation and succeed, and you don’t get to do that if you never give them the chance. Second, I just don’t have that kind of time, and recognizing that and making a virtue of necessity is a good skill for a leader to have.

One final note from someone who has found great satisfaction in the opportunities for leadership and making my community a better place. Please, if you have the time and energy, look into public service roles in your local government and community organizations. I have been a county board supervisor, a city councilor, a board member for my local library and my historical society, as well as a student government rep and a speaker at various public hearings over a public interest career that is approaching 45 years in the making. You can make a huge impact by doing something as simple as calling your electeds and letting them know about the issues that matter to you. I know that from personal experience on both sides of that phone.

Thanks to Kelly McCullough for sharing his insights with us! As a County Supervisor, Kelly represents District 17 in Dunn County, Wisconsin. As an author, Kelly writes fantasy, science fiction, and books for kids of varying ages. His novels include Numismancer, Winter of Discontent, the WebMage series, and the Fallen Blade series. His short fiction has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. He lives in Wisconsin with his physics professor wife and a small herd of cats.