Facilitated Mutual Expectation Setting for Elected Body/Manager Relationships

Strong working relationships between a City Council/Board of Commissioners and their Manager are essential for achieving community goals. While technical skills are important, effective communication and clear expectations are often overlooked, leading to miscommunication and conflict.

Developmental Associates specializes in building these essential relationships. Our experience includes Board/Manager retreats, coaching, and performance evaluations. Through a collaborative process, we gather input from both the Elected Body and the Manager to establish clear "rules of engagement" for their interactions.

Developing successful working relationships is particularly important when …

• A new manager has been hired;
• Newly elected officials join the board;
• Current working relationships are ineffective or deteriorating.

Investment in developing effective elected body/manager working relationships further contributes to efficient policy making, manager and staff performance and community satisfaction and trust in local government.

Effective Elected Body/Manager relationships lead to quality outcomes:

• Clarifying and understanding the roles of the Elected Body and the Manager
• Development of mutual trust and confidence with the Elected Body and with the Manager.
• Consideration of both the individual elected official and collective body perspective
• Establishing/Reinforcing communication protocols – What, How and When
• Agreed upon expectations and holding each other accountable through establishing goals, objectives, and metrics for future performance evaluation, an ICMA best practice.

For more information contact Heather Lee, PhD, SPHR at hlee@developmentalassociates.com.