This post is a reflection on a conversation I had recently with a local government client. Although the genesis of this post might have been the challenges faced by one particular Victorian municipality, the issues described below are widespread. In fact, I believe this to be a global issue that spans sectors and industries – it’s just that in politics, and especially local politics, the issue can become particularly pronounced.
The conversation
In this conversation, my client was concerned about the emerging dynamic between councillors and staff. On one hand, the new councillor group was incredibly enthusiastic and had indicated a desire to make meaningful change, but they were caught up in operational details and struggling to get out of the weeds.
This was causing two issues. First, the leadership team was expending significant resources reviewing low-level operational decisions with councillors. Second, those same councillors weren’t spending time on the bigger strategic challenges local councils are grappling with*. They didn’t have capacity for both, and they were choosing the operational over the strategic.
*These include questions like: How do we achieve and maintain fiscal sustainability in a socially equitable way? What is our long-term strategy for integrating AI into council services? What are our obligations in terms of both climate change mitigation and climate change preparedness? What is our role in supporting social cohesion within our communities? And how do we balance housing growth with environmental protection and the need for green space?
The questions my client had were: “Why are the councillors acting so operationally?” and “Can anything be done about it?”
Promoted to a point of un-confidence
There is a well-known adage in business known as the Peter Principle. Named after its author, Laurence Peter, the adage states: “In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.”.
The premise being that if people are good at their job, they’ll be promoted – and they’ll only stop being promoted once they’re not very good at it. It’s one of those sayings that makes us laugh because we recognise the truth in it.
But apart from being an interesting paradox, there’s more to the Peter Principle than first meets the eye. It’s not just that higher roles in the hierarchy demand greater skill – it’s that they require a different set of skills.
Entry-level roles tend to be technical and task-based, but as people move up, supervising, managing, and planning skills become essential. By the time you reach the top – CEO or board level – the role is fundamentally about strategy, oversight, and relationship-based decision making.
So according to the Peter Principle, if you have preference for technical work, and you’re good at it, you will most likely get promoted out of the lower levels of the hierarchy. Which means that over time you spend less and less time doing the work you’re good at and love – and more and more time doing work that’s outside your wheelhouse*. Work where you ultimately feel less capable and less confident.
* This is often reinforced by the promotion and reward systems used by organisations, which tend to do a much better job of measuring technical performance over social performance.
Figure 1: The Peter Principle as a career trajectory. As an individual moves up the hierarchy, roles shift from being technical and operational to strategic. As people are promoted, they are also given access to more training, which allows their capability to increase. As soon as an individual’s capability doesn’t meet the requirements for the next role in the hierarchy, they will no longer be promoted – and will experience a gap between confidence and competence.
Micro-managing is a symptom, not just a problem
The Peter Principle is less about rising to “incompetence” and more about being pushed into roles you don’t have the skills, desire or confidence to perform. This can be confronting to an individual’s sense of identity and control. Research suggests that in such situations, it’s unsurprising that some people will choose to reassert their capability and confidence in other ways.
One way this often manifests in business is through micro-managing*. If someone lacks confidence as a people manager but has strong technical skills, it’s entirely natural they would want to reaffirm those skills to their team. From the outside, this might look like the leader doesn’t trust their team – but it’s likely driven from a need to establish confidence and authority.
*Micro-managing can also be a symptom of other factors, such as genuine concerns about a team’s capability or a change in circumstances that requires a more hands-on approach.
But just like the councillors in the story above, when a leader becomes too focused on technical detail, they may neglect the aspects of the role they were engaged to perform.
Sink or swim
The situation above won’t be news to some of you. Most organisations understand that role requirements change as people are promoted, so they offer ongoing training and development as staff move up the hierarchy*. In corporations, this transition might happen over years, or more likely, decades.
*I would argue this is a good solution, but not necessarily a great one. It acknowledges the different skill set required for leaders and seeks to close the gap. At the same time, you’re still constantly taking incredibly competent technical people out of the roles they excel in and asking them to do something else. Research has shown this tends to have a negative impact both on the performance of the leader and the performance of the staff they are leading.
On the other hand, people elected to council are expected to make this transition very, very quickly. Councillors don’t have years of learning and development to prepare them. Instead, they get a six week induction program, after which they’re expected to immediately start work on a four-year council plan with a $100m+ annual budget. Councillors are thrown in the proverbial deep end and expected to either sink or swim.
The safety of shallows
It’s unsurprising that if someone lacks confidence and you throw them into the deep end of the pool, they will head for the shallows. Being able to touch your toes on the bottom gives a sense of safety and control.
During the conversation I had with my client, this was one of the themes that emerged. They shared the story of one particular councillor who was a retired engineer. This councillor had become particularly focused on some of the engineering decisions related to an upcoming project. While this might have been framed as oversight, I have no doubt it would have felt reassuring for that councillor to swim in some waters that felt safe – knowing they could touch the bottom of the pool.
The truth is, we all have a tendency to keep ourselves preoccupied playing in the shallow waters. Doing the work that feels easy and comfortable, even if it lacks meaningful impact. This is the stuff my friend Dr Jason Fox calls the delusion of progress. We can check our emails, attend meetings, read reports, or write long articles (like this one) and post them on LinkedIn. And although some of these activities will have an incremental impact on our confidence to head for deeper water and undertake deeper work, much of it is just a distraction.
Some pools are deeper than others
It’s worth stressing that the deep end of the pool that councillors get thrown into is deeper than most. Councillors regularly make decisions that impact 100,000 or more people, cost tens of millions of dollars, and have intergenerational impact. Not only are these significant decisions, but they are expected to make them in collaboration with a group of diversely opinionated peers under constant public scrutiny.
I point this out because most of the people who grumble about local government will never be asked to make decisions like this in their lifetime. The capabilities and knowledge requirements to be an effective councillor are quite unique. Not only do you need to understand the diverse responsibilities of local government, but you also need sound financial skills, group decision-making acumen, be a good negotiator, build strong interpersonal relationships, understand sound land-use planning principles, and have the ability to think strategically.
At the same time, the people who get elected to council aren’t necessarily qualified in any of those domains. They are environmental scientists, retailers, small business owners, retired servicemen, public servants, activists, plumbers, accountants and teachers… and that’s just my local municipality*. For most first-term councillors, there is a significant gap in both capability and confidence, and although I have never been a councillor myself, from what I’ve heard, the overwhelm is real.
*At face value, this might appear to be a claim that they are unqualified to do the job and that what we really need is skill-based councillors (similar to a board), but this isn’t what I’m suggesting. The primary qualification to be a councillor is “to care so passionately about the local community that you are willing to take on the impossible task of balancing their competing and diverse requirements, and in doing so, open yourself up to public ridicule and slander.” You can find my extended musings on the issue of replacing councillors with a board of directors here.
Figure 2: The Peter Principle as it applies to Councillors. The strategic skill requirements for a councillor are significantly higher than most commercial roles. In addition, these skills would be developed over years or decades in most organisations, yet councillors require them immediately. This can lead to a significant competence and confidence gap.
The unimaginable R.O.I. of effective councillors
It’s disappointing but also unsurprising that training is more often than not seen as a cost rather than a source of value. The way organisations budget and put money in different buckets means the cost is often incurred in one part of the organisation (learning and development), while the benefit accrues elsewhere.
What this means is we don’t always invest money in the right training. It also means we sometimes look at training through the lens of ‘what’s the minimum level required’ rather than ‘what would have the biggest impact’.
But if local councils were to align training budgets with value creation, I would strongly argue the Return on Investment (ROI) for supporting councillors in strategic thinking and collective decision-making is an order of magnitude better than any other training you can think of*. I appreciate this is a bold claim, so here is my rationale.
*The only exception I can think of is certain types of occupational health and safety training that have life or death implications. Though you might be able to think of other examples.
- Councillors are responsible for all the biggest financial decisions within the council (in my municipality, this means any contract over $1.1m)
- Councillors are responsible for all the biggest strategic decisions within the council. I know one regional council where councillors are currently debating whether to build a new $30m library. Beyond the financial impact, this is a project that will have intergenerational impact.
- Councillors aren’t engaged on a skills basis. This means there is often a notable proficiency gap, and significant improvements could be achieved if the right support is provided.
- The cost of doing nothing is also substantial. As noted by my client, an operationally focused councillor group consumes significant time and resources.
In fact, the potential ROI of councillor training is so high that it’s ludicrous to stick just to the mandatory training guidelines. Although there is some value in establishing a compliance-based floor, I would argue there is significantly more value in raising the performance ceiling.
Let’s be realistic: nobody’s got time for that
I genuinely believe that investing in a councillor group to become more proficient strategic thinkers and decision-makers should be a no-brainer. The biggest issue, though, is that the time required to build those skills is not insignificant. As noted above, this is the type of training and development that private enterprise might invest in over decades before their people were considered “ready”. This means there will be an ongoing gap, with all the associated risks, until the relevant skills are developed.
In addition, councillors tend to be heavily time-constrained. Not only are they constrained by a four-year term, they are also constrained by the role of councillor being considered a part-time job. Many councillors put in significant additional hours, and spending even more of “their own time” on training isn’t necessarily appealing, regardless of who’s footing the bill.
Is coaching the middle ground?
If it’s acknowledged that the strategic and decision-making skills would be valuable, but we are also aware we don’t have the time (rather than money) to invest in training, then what should we do? The answer is: we do what we can.
As pointed out to me by another local government leader, we already have a model for this. We don’t expect our councillors to be experts in all aspects of the law, so they keep suitably qualified lawyers on retainer, ensuring they are available when (not if) needed. It would make sense to treat strategic thinking and decision-making in a similar way. Rather than expecting councillors to be experts immediately, just make sure they have access to a suitably qualified coach who can support them when (not if) required.
There is a reason why many executives retain the services of external coaches, and for councillors, the advantages are numerous. First, councillors don’t have to go through years of learning and education before they are proficient – they can access proficiency immediately. Second, learning can be incremental, delivered in short sessions, or even over coffee or phone calls as required. Third, unlike formal training, which tends to be generic, every coaching interaction is specifically aligned to a real-world need. Fourth, councillors will develop strategic thinking and decision-making skills that will serve them well in their work outside of council. Finally, and most importantly, a coach is there to provide independent support and advice, not to dictate or even shape an outcome. A good coach will only ever add to the integrity of the decision-making processes councillors undertake.
Where to from here
I’ve been working on this post for so long it’s sometimes hard to know where to end. Good blogging practice would tell me to end with a ‘call to action’, but perhaps a ‘call to reflection’ is more appropriate.
- Does the challenge identified at the beginning of this post resonate with you? Do you have leaders (either inside or outside local government) that are spending more time on operational tasks than they should?
- If so, is this a trust problem whereby they don’t trust others to do their job properly, or is it potentially a case of compensatory control?
- What are the important skills gaps that your leaders might be facing, and what is the value of helping close them (in the case of decision-making, I often talk about “what’s the value of one good decision”)?
- How does coaching stack up against other training options in terms of time, cost, and efficacy?
Simon
