How a pandemic is changing Local Government - XLP during exceptional times

Chris Kotur, Lead facilitator, Executive Leadership program – April 2020

My reflections on what you have to say help me draw on lessons from the major inquiries I’ve been involved with and sharing these learning will I hope be useful to you as local government is along with all of us, changing during this emergency. 

1. The COVID-19 crisis won’t be over by a certain date. 

It’s false comfort to hope local government will return to business as usual after say, six months.

Thousands of Victorians who contributed to three Royal Commissions have shown us that recovery from trauma can take many years. 

Planning for business continuity for the next six months makes sense but consider too that your work, your workplace culture and many relationships have already changed (many of you say, for the better) and we won’t simply pick up where we left off. 

Right now nostalgia is not a good friend.  
COVID-19 will permanently transform much of local government.

2. Victorians know about resilience 

“After months of non stop anguish (during the 2009 bushfires), I knew the signs of when I had to give myself permission to just stop, say no and make time for myself…I knew when I couldn’t go on without a hug” (Black Saturday) 

It’s not selfish to put yourself first at this time. “We’re sprinting but it’s a marathon”

You’ll need time and find ways to stay well, take stock, restore energy and reflect on what you’re learning.  You can’t support others and stay positive if you’re not caring for yourself.  Right now, making time to be selfish is ok.

3. The next two council terms (at least) are being shaped by COVID-19

Every sector is experiencing the start of a long recession and the effect of multiple shocks and waves of bad surprises.

This has implications for the expertise, knowledge and skills required in local government where you are trying at the same time, to both stabilize operations and adapt to radically new circumstances.  

While the Federal Government is taking a lead right now, consider scenarios where local government will provide ongoing, essential leadership to traumatized communities needing to adapt to major, unwelcome changes over many years.

Councils are already considering induction for new councillors and training for their work force knowing that applying previous approaches won’t do in future. 

It’s not too early to plan the next round of induction, training and development.

4. We haven’t had the training, experience and possibly don’t have the temperament to lead the adaptive challenges required by a crisis of this type, scale and duration.

We all have the impact of COVID-19 in our daily work and home life and now etched into our career story. 

We are all learning on the job and we’ll make mistakes. We won’t get every decision right the first time but I predict local government will be better at leading through this than we think right at this time.

Now is the time to consider what leadership capabilities you will need to get yourself and others safely through to the other side.  More on this throughout XLP.

5. During crisis it’s hard to be tactical and strategic but we need both 

While feeling overwhelmed by immediate pressures we will need to be very deliberate in maintaining a long-term strategic view so we can take forward lessons from the current crisis. 

Try not to be so overwhelmed by daily events that learning becomes ‘something I’ll get to later’.  Leadership during crisis requires the capability to attend to immediate, rapidly changing circumstances without losing sight of long-term adaptive needs.  

6. Now is the time to critically review council plans, services, practices and models.  

Many council plans, service and business models that made sense at the beginning of 2020 are now out of date, inadequate, unrealistic or irrelevant because COVID-19 has accelerated massive change.

For example, Emergency Management Plans should now include actions appropriate for far ranging, long term and successive waves of trauma where recovery relies on making radical, unwelcome and painful changes to the way we live.

Think resources and coordinated actions across regions, (beyond municipal boundaries) and involving multiple jurisdictions.

A crisis can radically advance plans and efforts previously caught up in sluggish processes or procrastination. 

COVID-19 can rehearse us for other crises such as climate change, which is already requiring local government to adapt.  Without learning from the current crisis we’ll scramble with insufficient resources and face massive engineering challenges we won’t be prepared for. 

Applying what we learn throughout the COVID-19 crisis will sharpen our plans, capabilities and actions to face future emergencies with more confidence.

7. Crises affect our ability to stay positive, be creative and listen to communications

Be aware that crises reduce our ability to take in information and our concentration and focus narrows. We listen to leaders (and then only selectively) whom we trust and who deliver information clearly, consistently, empathetically and with authority.  

Messages that cut through are frequent, short, quick, clear and decisive.

Remember messages that are clear to you can sound like gibberish to others who are anxious, uncertain and stressed about what you have to say.  This is really important during announcing changes to work arrangements, staffing and delivering news about jobs that will make people (and you) unhappy.

Now is the time to be really thoughtful about communication content, style and tone in speaking with people especially those working remotely.  

Consider what you have learned about effective, thoughtful communications over recent weeks while you were taking in messages and updates from government. It’s become very clear which communication approaches work and which don’t… 

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