Leadership in the municipality: as in, so out

Leadership in the municipality: as in, so out

The playing field of municipalities and the relationship between government and citizens are shifting considerably. In the old paradigm, citizens were often seen as 'difficult' and their ideas were tested marginally. In the new practice, achieving equal cooperation with citizens and other external partners is increasingly central. This also involves facilitating autonomous citizen initiatives ('government participation'). At the same time, not all citizens and partners are equally enterprising and the existing repertoire remains relevant.

This transition requires substantial changes in the municipality. Culture change with new forms of leadership at all levels in the organization is often mentioned as the solution. The municipality should also transform itself from a compartmentalised hierarchical organization into an open network organization. However, that is easier said than done because the practice is often unruly. How do you start this? How do you take concrete steps towards that new culture and organization? What does this ask of the leadership of officials and administration?

On November 26, Synnervate organized a meeting for existing and new customer contacts to discuss this theme with each other. The aim of this Werkplaats Integral Works was to apply Spiral Dynamics Integral to the daily reality of the municipal organization. It was a very successful afternoon, a lot of enthusiasm, a good atmosphere, committed people and great results. Of the 18 participants, who mainly came from municipalities, 8 participated in a flashy SDi introduction workshop prior to this. So everyone started with a basic knowledge of our philosophy. In the introduction we made a distinction between the following four roles that municipalities (can) fulfill:
– the rightful congregation, focused on the task (Blue)
– the performing municipality, focused on the process (Orange)
– the networking municipality, focused on the chain (Green)
– the participating municipality, focused on society (Geel).
Participants then submitted three concrete cases, which groups worked out by applying SDi. It was very surprising to see how deep everyone dived into this and how clear the added value of SDi was. It tastes like more!
Leida Schuringa, CHE Synnervate

For an impression, see the attached graphic recording made by Willemijn Lambert (twitter.com/WM_Lambert / willemijn@creativenatives.nl ).