I’ve just spent two days at Mayor School in Wellington, New Zealand - which is exactly what it sounds like: Mayors coming together, to learn how to be Mayors.
They learned about risk, finance, reporting, meetings, team-building, community engagement, media relations, and all that good stuff. We had speakers and experts, panels of current and former Mayors, and lots of super useful conversations.
I’ve spent more time with politicians than the average bear - especially Mayors and Councillors. I started my career in local government 15 years ago and I’ve worked all over the world as a strategic planner, advisor, consultant and speaker.
(In fact, I’m off to Florida, TODAY, to go and speak to thousands more of them!)
In that time, my perspective has shifted - or, dare I say it… matured.
As a policy person, Councillors were a procedural matter - to be incorporated at best, worked around/ mitigated at worst. As a strategic planner, they were cogs in my well-planned, step-by-step system. I felt about my politicians like many other bureaucrats feel about theirs - weary, perhaps a little condescending, but resigned to their existence. Subject matter experts can get like this.
I feel differently these days.
Would you be a Mayor, or run for office? Most people I know give a resounding ‘hell no.’ That’s because we know how tough it is. Even before we think about all the Mayor School agenda items - the learning, legislation and decision requirements, the time investment, at minimal pay, the weight on your shoulders of intergenerational outcomes - we think of the personal cost.
Politicians at all levels of government, are often treated very poorly for their public service. In public, they are lambasted for their choices, outfits, work, and lives. In an increasingly polarised online world, this tips quickly into abuse, especially for women.
They can’t go to the supermarket, or get on a plane without being ‘on.’ We know how shit this is, which is why we don’t do it.
Council officers and government officials are much more sympathetic to that plight than Joe Public, because we see it first hand, but that doesn’t always tip into genuine respect.
And it should.
Councillors and Ministers make decisions, every day, that juggle a huge number of factors - technical advice, community feeling, political negotiation and broader social and economic contexts. Mayors and Councillors have a community intelligence that engineers and accountants won’t always understand, and often it’s powerful. It doesn’t always make sense to the public, or the policy wonks, but that doesn’t make it wrong.
It doesn’t make it right, either, of course. But that’s partly because there is no right answer. Strategic, long-term, political decisions carry extraordinary uncertainty, subjectivity and complexity. There is no such thing as accuracy, only alignment and forward action. It’s a tough gig, and you’ll never please everyone. Sometimes, you won’t please anyone.
Surviving in that environment changes a person. To get up everyday and manage natural disasters, media standups, online humiliation, constant observation and public criticism without falling apart or losing your shit requires a strength of character and a level of self-belief few people possess.
(It also requires a unique set of skills, the likes of which I cover in Local Legends: How to make a difference in local government, and the newly launched Local Legends Toolkit, available to all NZ Councillors and Mayors through LGNZ, and soon through local government associations across the globe.)
Our democracy depends on people being willing to serve people in this way. To act as proxies for our fears and goals. To stand for a position, a ward, a belief system, or a geography, and negotiate with others who are doing the same. To accept ultimate responsibility for the direction of our communities and countries. To do their best, and take the backlash, day in and day out.
This job is unprotected, underestimated, and largely unappreciated. If you want to make a lot of money or have an easy life, you don’t pick politics. Which is all to say: tough gig, but I’m glad we’ve got them.
Now I’ve gotta get these kids sorted and on a plane to America! Wee!
Til next week,
AM
