case Study

Professor Presentation

So this week we're going to talk a little bit about leadership at the, specifically at the state level. So even though we're using statesmen as our terminology, we're going to think very specifically of sub-national levels of government. So whatever state you particularly live and just think from that level of government. And so one of the things I wanted us to think about is in this era of distrust of government, citizens distrust government. There's this call for greater transparency and accountability. There's also this increase in federal mandate. So if you think back to the recession, there was a lot of things that were put on the states and localities from the federal government. Of course, there's always the promises that come with that, the idea more discretion and autonomy for governors, for local managers. But there's also this sense of newer responsibility and maybe not all the resources necessary to be able to handle those. So what I wanted us to think about is how in light of all of these challenges, can we find some opportunities? And so one of the things I want you to think about is this concept of evaluation. So one of the first things to do is find a mission. What is the particular focus or mission of your state? Was the focus or mission of your locality? And so from that mission statement and you're going to draw some ideas about priorities. What do we want to accomplish, what our focuses? These are going to be things that, you know, obviously the citizens. I'm going to give you some feedback through elections or possibly through referendum or initiative if those are things you have in your particular state. So then you have this idea working with your particular organizations or agencies that you work with within your state, coming together and figuring out what do you value that education? Is it health care, transportation? What are the things that you want to focus on? And so then specifically how they, each agency do this sense of assessing what are your priorities, right? And then from there, so having the leadership inventory, what their gifts are, what are you, what are you, what's the leadership within your locality or your state good at? And so evaluating those particular strengths and then also inventorying the things that you're not as good at. What are some things that you could improve on? What are some areas that you could use, either more training or it's just something that is an area that you have some need to improve on. And so evaluating those things. So the first step would be again, organizational priorities. What are we prioritizing within our organization? Evaluating the organization then two from huh, how you're planning on getting there. So here's what we've done. This is where we want to go, right? And we've talked a little bit about outcomes and outputs, and we're going to discuss that later in the course as well. How do we evaluate ourselves on a continual basis? And then again, the leadership is going to evaluate themselves as far as what they need to do. And it's fine to do this evaluation once a year where every five years, but it has to be something that's done on a continual basis. And there needs to be some sense of a measurement of how you're accomplishing this were the steps that you're going to use to accomplish it. Because if you don't measure a goal, it's not going to happen. So you can think about your own educational goals or your own vocation goals, whatever those tend to be, you're going to have to find a measurement. So one of the things I think is going to help, obviously evaluating those, your organization's strengths, the leadership strengths is going to help with some of these mandates from the federal government. But the other thing I think it does too, is it creates more of a sense of accountability and transparency with your citizens. The idea that you understand that it's not good to be complacent or status quo. The need for constant re-evaluation is incredibly important. So maybe in your particular vacation you have evaluations once every six months or once every year, right? So this helps you to understand what are your strengths or weaknesses coming both from yourself. Personal kind of inventory, but also from someone who's like your supervisor, right? And so I think this transparency, this is going to create with this, this better idea of priorities of an organization or a particular state is going to help the citizens understand that you seek efficiency and effectiveness, that you want to be more transparent. And I think that will go a long way in dealing with the distrust that can be inherent these days, right? In this era of social capital being dismissed or not is plentiful as we once had, right? If you're interested in social capital is really, really interesting topic. Putnam does some good work on this. You can find out that, you know, building this relationship across citizens, that across localities incredibly important. And so when we lose that, we lose some of the civility that we hold. And we also lose the potential that there's going to be more distrust if we don't understand something or someone, it's harder to trust them. And so I think this accountability that I'm discussing is incredibly important, right? I think it helps us to understand how things can work better and in the future. So I think that this evaluation process again is going to create greater transparency and trust. Again, hopefully that would help in the distrust that we're feeling from the citizens. So as a Christian, I want you to think we're called to be equipped to handle all the things that the Satan can handle at us, right? Equip ourselves with all the things in the Bible that help us prepare for his attacks. And I think too, as a statesmen, as part of our vacation, we need to be well-equipped. And that equipment can mean this idea of evaluation and priorities and focus that will help, again, create better trust in the citizens that we hope to serve. God bless.