Listening to Your Team: Leadership Philosophy

Since leaving the City of #Hemet and #SanBernardino, many colleagues continue to reach out asking for my opinion and advice on their career, projects, or just overall feedback. One individual recently reached out over the weekend and I couldn't help but appreciate the message.

I'll rewind a little bit and talk about what prompted the message, but I'll first mention a couple things about my philosophy.

As a #CityManager I am a firm believer in providing and receiving feedback, and I always maintain an open door policy. I try and create an environment with employees and associations that fosters communication and where recommendations and ideas are always worth discussing. As a result, I provide my cell phone number to all employees, businesses, and the general public to encourage this environment.

Now, back to the message. In 2020, an employee reached out to me wanting to talk about a few ideas but he didn't really know where to start. We coordinated a call and we talked about his ideas. One stood out; it was a fire training center for fire employees to learn about various techniques to put out fires and utilize their skills in real life. The agency lacked one, and he felt it would be great to develop employees, offer specialized training, and serve as a regional training facility.

I thought it was an amazing idea and thought it was the perfect concept to put the city on the map.

I told him he should do a little more research, provide real life examples of the center at various agencies, and do surface level research on the costs. Since we were in the middle of budget season, I told him that one of my top priorities was employee development primarily in public safety operations since they had about $10M in fund balance specifically for their operations. I told him that he should run it up the flag pole through his department after he did the initial work and that I would support an allocation in the budget once he had the work done.

Within a couple weeks, he completed the work and when I met with Fire Department leadership they provided a proposal for this concept and I said it was a great idea.

We included the budget allocation in the proposed budget and it was recently completed and built.

I couldn't have been more proud of the employee who spoke up, did a little leg work, and exemplified leadership.

It was a perfect example of empowering employees and what happens when you foster an environment where ideas are discussed and that improvements can happen even when things are going well. This #growth mindset was the backdrop for this success.

Great job #Hemet Fire.