Improving Team Decision-Making in Local Government: Insights from Perla of Brownsville, Texas

Effective decision-making is crucial for any organization, and this is especially true in local government. In a recent episode of the LeaderGov Podcast, we had the privilege of hearing from Perla, the Director of Organizational Development and Human Resources for the City of Brownsville, Texas. With nearly a decade of experience in HR and organizational development, Perla shared valuable insights on how leaders can make better decisions that benefit their teams, organizations, and the communities they serve.

Learning from Mistakes: The Power of Reflection in Leadership

When asked about the toughest decision she’s made, Perla was open about the challenges she faced in the past. She recalled times when the pressure to fill vacant positions led her to make rushed hiring decisions. These quick decisions, made with the best of intentions to support her team, ultimately resulted in hiring...

LeaderGov published a poll on LinkedIN recently about how to best build trust on teams.   We provided four answer options as to how to build trust.  Two answers of the four were far and away the most valued.   The chart below shows the results of the poll. 

Listen to their concerns / ideas

The largest poll response on building trust had to do with listening to employees' concerns and ideas.   Here are some examples and ideas on that important topic. 

Listening to employees' concerns is an important aspect of being an effective leader. When employees feel that their concerns are heard and valued, it can lead to increased job satisfaction, higher trust, better performance, and improved retention rates. 

Here are some tips on how to listen to employees' concerns as a leader:

1. Create an open-door policy: In staff meetings or other venues, ensure your team knows that you are available to listen to their concerns, feedback, and suggestions. Encourage them to approach you and assur...

In a recent LinkedIn poll, we asked local government leaders if their teams’ emotional intelligence was above average, average or below average. The results were not surprising in that most people rated their team below average or average. 

So, what does it take to increase and develop emotional awareness on a team? Developing emotional intelligence in an organization can have numerous benefits, including improved communication, increased teamwork, and better conflict resolution. 

Here are some ways to grow emotional intelligence in your local government:

• Invest in training and coaching: Employees can benefit from workshops, seminars, and coaching sessions on emotional intelligence. These programs can help them develop self-awareness, empathy, and effective communication skills. 
• Lead by example: Leaders play a crucial role in fostering emotional intelligence in their organizations. By modeling behaviors such as active listening, compassion, and empathy, they can inspire their ...

We all have natural tendencies in how we lead in local government.  There are four important words that will provide insights into how you lead that all point to your overall DISC personality type.   DISC is a personality assessment that helps you better understand your natural style and how your style can be an asset or sometimes lead to unhealthy leadership. 

The four words are: Problems, People, Pace and Procedure

Problems:  Every leader encounters problems.  But how we approach them varies greatly.  Do you naturally move toward problems to resolve them or do you move away from problems?  Maybe you hope they'll diminish or resolve themselves.   But D-style personality types naturally move toward problems.  They like addressing problems directly.  But if you don't naturally move toward problems (as another style), you may want to consider a more assertive stance toward problems.  As we all know, unaddressed problems usually don't get better.

People: Other leaders move toward peopl...

In local government there is a lot of stress on teams to get more done with less.   This is also true in private industry, but since local governments literally serve everyone in a community, the pressure to get things done is unique. 

Without good listening instructions fall apart, people feel dismissed, mistakes occur, projects fail or are delayed, productivity goes down and frustration pervades. 

Your personality plays a role in how well you listen.   

• If you’re a dominate or driver style personality, you may have a hard time listening to others because you already know the answer….so why even listen!   Strong driver styles are actually often right, so they get impatient with listening, gathering others' input and needless research.

• If you are an inspiring and influencer style personality, you may struggle to listen as your mind can easily get overloaded as you take in the information around you.  This personality style often has so many ideas and projects going, they f
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