Frank Leonard & Associates

High Profile Doesn’t Mean Approval I was elected Aldermen in 1986 by only a few votes and immediately worked hard at trying to increase my profile.   Not proud to admit that I’d ponder ‘one liner’s’ prior to a Council Meeting hoping to catch a headline – even choose to enrage a colleague so as to give a reporter a confrontation to report on.   My name in a headline would help my profile – a picture would be ideal. When you are starting out in politics, it seems anything that raises your profile is worth it – even controversy - but as time goes by this isn’t the case.   I noticed a couple of high profile defeats during my early days in office.   First there was a Mayor in the region who ran in a provincial election, was known far better than the other candidates but would finish second.   Seems his negatives were so strong that a lot of voters would rather vote for someone they didn’t know than for him.   Another example was when a radio personal...

Chapter – Mental Health and Public Life I’m an introvert.  I’m physically sick before trying new things or hopping on a stage. I want to be in charge.  I want to get things done and most often think I can get it done if I move to a leadership position. These two traits don’t fit.  I’ve hidden this struggle.  Then I crashed.  Now I know how to manage it.  Maybe. The stress of trying something new has always haunted me.  My dad took eight year old Frankie with him to a company golf tournament and I was ill in the car going there.  My dad came to a ‘father/son’ dinner at Cubs and I spent most of the time in the washroom.  I went to 9 schools in 12 years yet shook in fright every first day of school.  At every new school I just wanted to run home, and one time in grade 4 I did only to have my mom walk me back again. Grownup Frank is the same.  I teach a small business course at UVic and for the very first class in ...

Write down your Bucket List The emergency room surgeon said “we’re going to stop your heart and let it restart.”   I had two thoughts: one was a quote from Monty Python; and the other was that I still had things I wanted to do.   The IV went in; my brain heard my heart slow down – like the sound a record makes when the turntable is turned off – and then silence.   And then, restart and all is good...and I tell myself to write down my bucket list. Let me fill in some blanks.   On the medical front, I had the first episode with my heart in 2012.   I’d been battling another sinus infection but my heart rate increased so I went to the local clinic – booked in, waited my turn, and then told the Doctor my heart seemed fast and I was short of breath.   Boom – all hell broke loose.   Ambulances arrived and during trip to the hospital the paramedic kept reporting ahead for our arrival with ‘he’s the Mayor, and he’s 58.’ – Neither of which I thought w...

Want a Solution? Sometimes you have to get out of the room. My uncle managed retail operations and would tell me he’d respond to an employee with a problem by saying ‘that’s interesting; let me know how you work it out.’   In teaching small business management at university, I follow a similar theme with the ‘One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey’ – where problems are personified as monkeys and managers delegate while still maintaining oversight. As I’ve held various governance roles in the public and private sector I’ve adapted this approach to problem solving.   Other than issues with the CEO/CAO, most other problems belong to management.   A board or council role is not to create or find solutions but to choose and approve one.   I cringe when I hear that a local government council is going to hold a workshop to solve a problem – none have the expertise in the particular field – they have employees who do.   I believe their role is to hold those man...

No Surprises I had a brown ceramic easter egg in my Mayor’s office to remind me about my ‘no surprises’ rule.  Visitors would ask about it and I’d just say it was a bit of décor but for me, it was a great deal more. When I assume a leadership role in governance of a public or private sector organization I go through the briefings and hear all that senior management want me to know.  As it starts to wind up, I do work in a few rules that I like to have in place – one of them is ‘no surprises.’ If something has gone wrong, I want management to tell me.  In fact if something is going wrong or they think something might go wrong, I want management to tell me.  Under no circumstances do I want to be ‘out of the loop’ about an issue, incident or something much worse that is within my oversight. Most often there is nothing for me to do – and in fact, doing something might even be inappropriate but I still need to know…..in case there is.  I will choose...

Governance and Workplace Culture My wife and I were visiting her family at their village in southern China when I would slip away for walks.   I’d find women cleaning laundry in the river, merchants preparing chickens for sale and farmers tending to their fields of rice and peanuts.   One day I came across a soccer game: men in their twenties; a somewhat organized game with lots of shouting; and on a field with more gravel than grass surrounded by scooters rather than spectators. At one point a young man approached me and said: ‘Why you here?’   I often consider this question to be profound but in this case it was quite practical as I was the only spectator and likely the only ‘white dude’ for a hundred miles.   I replied in mandarin who my wife was and he stared back and shrugged before returning to his game. Years later I was appointed to lead a public agency and the employees were gathered on short notice to meet me.   I said a few words about m...

When to lead, when to follow Most of the posts to my blog are about leadership – often they are lessons I’ve learned and practices I use.   This post will address an issue I struggled with: knowing when to lead and knowing when to follow. I’ll admit that in my early years I wanted to lead for the sake of leading – executing a coup at recess to take over the grade five book club is hard to be proud of.   I wasn’t very good at sports or music so never had illusions of grandeur with those pursuits but when I grew up and found my passions – business and politics – I was always looking to take charge. Yet wanting to take charge is very different from knowing when to lead.   Taking charge and marching off in a new direction will likely teach you the difference between leadership and arrogance – such as when you look over your shoulder to notice that no one is following you. Leadership requires credibility, trust, skill, experience and particularly a sense of...