HomeMy WebLinkAboutItem 3. Engage in Governance Strengths ExerciseGetting to Great: Defining the Roles of the
Governing Body and Local Government
Manager
Understanding the various roles of elected officials and how the CAO and staff can best
support them.
By Julia D. Novak, ICMA-CM; Tanisha Briley, ICMA-CM; and Dr. John Nalbandian | Aug 01, 2022 | PM
MAGAZINE - ARTICLE
Management is a supporting and essential role in local governance. Management
supports the organization, the community, and, of course, the governing body. There is a
dance that managers must do with their elected officials as they navigate the curved and
blurry line between politics and administration, but this symbiotic relationship is built on
the foundational premise that management is a supporting role.
Just as a manager’s role changes with each situation they encounter, the role an elected
official plays also shifts and changes. In 2016, we began working to define the various
roles that local elected officials must play and identify how those roles relate to effective
governance. Since that time, we have worked with dozens of elected bodies to
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understand these roles, the activities associated with each role, and how elected officials
envision enhancing their own effectiveness.
These insights can be valuable to managers as they fine tune their “support role” and
understand what can be done to help their elected body in governing effectively
together.
The Roles
Through our work, we identified six council governance roles : Strategic Vision –Big
Picture Thinker, Trustee–Steward, Representative–Constituent Advocate, Community
Builder–Bringing People Together, Decision-maker, and Oversight.
• The Strategic Vision–Big Picture Thinker role focuses on decisions that can have
significant impact on the community, both long- or short-term. This role often
concentrates on the future and what might make a significant difference, while seeing
possible connections and relationships and thinking beyond present data and
constraints.
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• The Trustee–Steward role involves listening to and respecting constituent views. The
Trustee–Steward feels responsible to the community as a whole and to future residents
and will make uncomfortable decisions that may run counter to constituent wishes if t he
decision is in the interest of the greater good.
• When operating in the Representative–Constituent Advocate role, an elected official
acts as a “customer service representative.” In this capacity, the elected official is a
conduit between residents and local government services. Often, residents see this
elected official as most responsive to their individual concerns.
• In the Community Builder–Bringing People Together role, an elected official focuses
on relationships and consensus-building. The Community Builder fosters relationships
and can work through differences. Community is not just a casual word to the elected
official who gravitates to this role.
• The Decision-maker sees their role much like a judge, wherein information is
presented and the Decision-maker votes it up or down. This is not an easy role, but often
it is a more passive role in contrast to that of the Community Builder.
• In the Oversight role, the elected official may retain a measure of distance from the
staff. The focus of this role is on the accountability of staff to the elected body.
Since the development of the six governance roles roles in 2016, conversations about
the roles have been incorporated into retreats with governing bodies across the country.
During these retreats, the groups discuss the activities associated with each of the roles
and then individuals are asked to rank for themselves the roles that come most naturally.
The percentage of respondents ranking each of the corresponding roles as where they
gravitate toward the most is shown in Figure 2.
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It is interesting to note that none of the more than 200 elected officials we have worked
with identified Oversight as the role that they naturally gravitate toward and yet this is
the role that creates distance and tension between staff and the governing body.
Once we understand how each individual ranks and identifies with the six roles, we are
able to provide an aggregate ranking or group profile. The following is the collective
distribution of which roles governing bodies naturally gravitate toward:
1. Representative–Constituent Advocate.
2. Strategic Vision.
3. Trustee–Steward.
4. Decision-maker.
5. Community Builder.
6. Oversight.
Then they are asked to discuss what roles they feel they should focus more on to
enhance effectiveness. The following is the collective distribution of which roles
governing bodies feel they should focus on to be (even) more effective:
1. Strategic Vision.
2. Community Builder.
3. Trustee–Steward.
4. Representative–Constituent Advocate.
5. Decision-maker.
6. Oversight.
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The challenge for managers is to support the governing body in each of the roles to
enhance effectiveness. Figure 3 allows us to see the juxtaposition of a few key elements
of this ranking. Generally speaking, Representative–Constituent Advocate is the
number-one role that elected officials naturally gravitate toward and Community Builder
is number five. When asked where to focus to enhance effectiveness, Community
Builder jumps to number two, and Representative–Constituent Advocate moves to
number four. Finally, the Oversight role is the lowest rated role in both scenarios.
The Activities
A quick summary of activities associated with each role is shown in Figure 4.
The reality for our elected officials is that there are times when these roles are in
opposition to one another. Residents may be asking the council to vote a particular way
on an issue because of how that decision impacts them in the moment, but the Trustee–
Steward will consider long-term implications and perhaps make a different decision.
When discussing this tension at a council retreat, one councilmember described this as a
mindset they take on when considering important decisions: “If I think of our residents,
the voters, my neighbors as my customers, then I am their customer service; but wh en I
think of them as owners, then I am their trustee.” The trustee is duty bound to make
decisions in the best interest of the community, even despite “customer” opposition to
do so.
The Community Building role deserves special attention since there is noticeable
separation from actual and desired ranking. As elected officials think about moving the
needle on their own performance as a governing body, they see the Community Building
role as a potential pathway. Parks, gathering areas, community centers, an d town
squares are physical spaces we can build and maintain that allow people to gather and be
connected to their neighbors. Programming those areas with special events and
celebrations encourages people to engage directly with the local government and th e
community. Convening conversations about important community issues are also an
opportunity to reinforce that the local government cares about the events and issues
facing the community and wants to hear from residents. The balance, of course, is to
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create an environment for true civil discourse. Many of our traditional methods of
getting public input, such as public hearings where people get three minutes to state
their opinion, are not consistent with community building—or even real engagement.
Community Building is deeper. According to Nalbandian, “win-lose politics have no place
if community building is the goal.”
Given the divergence between the actual role a governing body gravitates toward and
their desired role, the question is, how do we do this ? What can the manager and staff
do in this supporting role to help the governing body achieve the best for their
community?
Our practical experience as consultants and managers suggests the following:
1. Intentionally plan for opportunities for the governing body to fulfill each role, and
create a time at council meetings where councilors can share their recent activities in the
community. This publicly encourages councilors to reach out.
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2. Create systems for efficiently addressing constituent concerns so elected officials can
turn these issues over to the staff and not feel like they must be the ombudsman for the
public, while at the same time, receiving credit for staff responses.
3. Refer to strategic plans and long-range goals when executing programs and projects
to create connections between the daily work of the organization and the priorities of
the elected officials. This could mean connecting agenda items directly to governing
body priorities.
4. Discuss both short- and long-term consequences of action (or inaction).
5. Support the governing body in establishing ground rules for civility and mutual
accountability.
6. Demonstrate accountability to the governing body by updating them on the status of
agreed upon priorities and ensuring a meaningful process exists for performance
evaluations.
In Gaithersburg, Maryland, there is a long tradition of strategic planning, financial
stewardship, civility, and community engagement. When Tanisha Briley became their city
manager, her job was to build on this foundation and “level up” organizational
performance. “The challenge was to take an already high -performing governing body and
integrate new elected officials into the best part of the governance culture,” she said.
“We did that by intentionally talking about the importance of working well together to
achieve results and refreshing the strategic plan so the council was connected and
committed to the long-term goals of the city.”
A Cautionary Conclusion
As was stated in the beginning, management is a supporting role and while their primary
focus is the complexity of service delivery issues, fulfilling that role means supporting the
governing body in each of theirs. It must be intentional and the manager must be in tune
with the priorities of the elected officials and be effective in translating those into
administrative/service delivery decisions. We have facilitated governance conversations
with dozens of governing bodies and hundreds of individual elected officials. Only two
governing bodies felt it was most important to focus on their Oversight role to improve
effectiveness and, in both of those situations, the manager moved on within the year.
Accountability is an important part of being a local government professional and builds
trust between the governing body and the administration. However, it is equally
important to support the governing body in achieving their objectives. This ensures
alignment between “politics and administration” and creates a collaborative mentality
that can foster aspirational goals f or the community.
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JULIA NOVAK, ICMA-CM, is a former city manager and leads the management
consulting practice for Raftelis. She has facilitated hundreds of governance and goal
setting/strategic planning retreats with local governments across the countr y.
TANISHA BRILEY, ICMA-CM, has spent 15 years in city management, including her
current post as city manager in Gaithersburg, Maryland. She is a fellow of the National
Academy of Public Administration, and she currently serves as chair of the Board of
Directors for MissionSquare Retirement.
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JOHN NALBANDIAN, professor emeritus in the School of Public Affairs and
Administration at the University of Kansas, prepared hundreds of students for careers in
local government, and also served for eight years on the city council of Lawrence,
Kansas, including two terms as mayor.
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