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In this episode of the LeaderGov Podcast, Matthew Lue from the City of Columbia, Missouri, shares practical insights on the power of delegation in local government leadership. He explains how intentional delegation not only frees up a leader’s time but also prepares team members for future roles by aligning tasks with their strengths and growth areas. Matthew stresses the importance of clear communication, ongoing support, and creating a safe environment where employees feel valued and empowered. His approach highlights delegation as both a leadership tool and a path to stronger, more confident teams.

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:00
Bill, welcome to the LeaderGov podcast, America's premier source for local government leadership and teamwork training. And now your host, Bill Stark,

Speaker 2 0:09
good. It is great to be with you all today. My name is Bill Stark, I'm with lLeaderGov, and with me is Lindsay. Snyder, Lindsay, how are you today?

Speaker 3 0:18
I'm so good. I'm out here in Southern California, where it's sunny and 70 always, okay,

Speaker 2 0:25
okay, well, you're, you're, you're making us a little envious. I'm in Atlanta, and the humidity of like, literally, this morning, the humidity was 98% so it's like, okay, the dog days of summer, you know, whatever. We'll get through it. But it's good to have you. Lindsay, I hope things are going well for you today. We're excited to have this workshop for local government leaders all around the country on this topic of delegation today, and so we're going to do some introductory comments, and then we're going to get into this topic and actually interview our guest, who is from Columbia, Missouri, CFO of the city of Columbia, Matthew Lue. And Matthew is going to share with us some of his stories, some of his experience in delegating to folks on his team, and kind of what the good, bad, the ugly of delegation, you know, from his perspective. So we're looking forward to introducing Matthew here in just a few minutes. But yeah, Lindsay, we love people to let us know where they're from, right? So if you're on the live workshop right now, you can turn your camera on in the in zoom, you can change your name, tell us what city you're from. Maybe you could chat that the chat, so, yeah, please, please do that. Tell us what city you're from. That would be awesome. At LeaderGov, we serve local governments. So we only serve local government. We love cities and counties, special districts, taxing commissions, whatever, if it's government, we love it, and so we're we're glad you all are here, and we want to thank you for your service to your communities, making your cities and counties and agencies better, particularly for your the citizens. Here's our quick commercial. We're going to do this fast, and then we're going to rock and roll and introduce Matthew so at LeaderGov, we we facilitate retreats, off site, retreats, strategic planning, succession planning and professional development. That red box if you're on this live, what we're doing today is professional development, training, equipping that sort of thing. We do have a new program we want to tell you about. It's called teamwork Summit. It is a very cost effective, simple way for you to build a better team. Talk honestly with each other, building trust collaboration. It helps you with collaboration. Helps you listen to each other and grow as a team. Now we know I'd be interesting to do a poll real quick. Lindsay, how many people on this podcast would you say our team meetings just suck? Our team meetings are boring. Our team meetings aren't interesting. We're talking about task project schedules. That's all we do is talk about stuff, right? Like tasks. And our philosophy here at LeaderGov is that, particularly with teamwork Summit, is that let's just take 15 minutes of our team meeting once a month. Now, let's talk about our team, right? Let's talk about building trust. Let's talk about our conflict. Let's talk about holding each other accountable. Let's talk about our strategic goals, our vision, our values, right? So teamwork Summit is a way to build higher levels of Team trust and collaboration during your team meetings, and it's really a short video. Every month as part of teamwork Summit, we send you a short, 10 minute video on a team topic. We send you a workbook that's got questions in it already preset, already set up for you. It's kind of a no brainer. And then you, as the leader, facilitate the discussion around that team topic. So our mantra is, let's make team meetings great. You know, let's, let's make them wonderful and enjoyable. And we think we can do that if we are constantly wanting to equip our teams to be better. So Lindsay, let's see. Tell us about the topics here, and then tell us about the library real quick, and then we'll introduce Matthew.

Speaker 3 4:34
Yeah, absolutely. So these are all of the different courses that come in teamwork summit, but they are dripped out per month. So obviously, January through July, those are already sitting inside the platform. But in August, Team accountability, September, change, October, Team feedback. So you'll notice that each course it drops out like if it drops. In July, that that is actually what our free workshop is on as well. So this is kind of a bonus for those that already are doing teamwork Summit, and yeah, and then it's just like an introduction for those that aren't. And then these are the courses that are actually already sitting in the library, so they're ready to go. The moment you turn it on, you have access to all of these and then everything that is up and through July.

Speaker 2 5:26
Yeah, yeah, if you if your team needs to grow in the area of emotional intelligence, and who doesn't you know, that's a outstanding video that you can play for your team and have a conversation about so again, we don't want to bore you with too much product stuff, but we did want you to know this product teamwork Summit is a powerful, simple, inexpensive way for you to build team trust and team collaboration. So thank you for letting us kind of walk through that with you, just for a moment. So today we're going to be talking about delegation, how it can free up your time and stretch other people. We're going to be talking about the need for clarity in delegation. And I know that for Matthew, this is something that's really important to him, is delegating so that people can be ready around succession, like getting people ready for that next role in their career, but delegation also requires the leader to follow up and to be present during the delegation process. So Lindsay, when people registered for this workshop today, we asked them some questions. We asked them three questions. Could you kind of walk us through this? I think the folks listening would enjoy kind of hearing how other people answered these questions.

Speaker 3 6:42
Yeah, absolutely. I'll let you get the front door. Bill folks coming in. Yeah, these are great questions. So one of the first questions we asked you when you signed up was, how often do you delegate to team members to stretch them? And I will say that Bill delegates to stretch me a lot, and I do love it, and it does work. But according to the survey, from time to time for selected employees, so that's the blue part of the pie, which is quite a big group. So that's really great,

Speaker 2 7:16
about 30% for those on the podcast. Yeah, yep, about

Speaker 3 7:19
30% and then all the time for all the members of the team, is red, which is probably about, what do you think? 20%

Speaker 2 7:28
of about 30 about 30% Yeah. Okay,

Speaker 3 7:32
my percentages are off. And then yellow, not much. I delegate mainly to lighten my load, which is yellow, which is probably about 15% and then green, I don't have time to do that, which we can help you with on this workshop. And then orange is, I'm not much on delegation. I like it done, right? So I do it myself. That's just a little sliver.

Speaker 2 7:59
Yeah, this blue about 35% of the folks said, I delegate to my team members from time to time, to selected employees. And I think that's an important point. We sometimes have our go to people with delegation, like we have two people on our team that'll do anything we tell them, Well, that's nice, that's cool. But you know what? We need to develop everybody on our team right now. We can't give inexperienced people the most important task, right? We've got to be smart about delegation, but we can't get into this rut of only delegating to the people that are our friends or our whatever top employees easy to do, we want to stretch to other people. So what about this next one? Lindsay, what would you say on this one? So

Speaker 3 8:49
this is, does your manager delegate stretch goals or tasks to you? And yes, frequently is the blue, which looks like about 40% of you said that. And then red is very little, which is maybe, like 15% and then sometimes it's about right, which is the yellow, it's another like, 40% maybe,

Speaker 2 9:17
yeah. So this is a pretty good, I think this is a good distribution. Basically, the question says, Does your does your manager delegate to you? And and like, like you said, you know, Lindsay, about 40% like, yeah, my boss delegates to me. And then about 40% said, yeah, sometimes, right. And then about 20% said, my boss, my manager does not delegate to me. And we don't know why they answer that way, but it's a reality, right? So it's, it's, we got to deal with reality. And then I love this question, Lindsay, do you feel encouraged or taken advantage of when you're delegated to

Speaker 3 9:55
a good question? Yeah, I love the answers, though. You know the. First one is my manager positions delegated tasks as a way for me to grow and learn. And I really feel like that's what you do, Bill, when you delegate to me, I can tell you're stretching me, and it does work. So I love that. And that's probably what do you think? 75% Yeah, yeah, right, right, yeah. And then red is my manager gives me assignments, but they seem like busy work, not tied to strategy, and that looks like about 20%

Speaker 2 10:28
of you. Yeah. Lindsay, you know what? While you're while you're sharing, I do want to say, just for you and me, sometimes I give you things to do. I ask you to do things that are on the spur of the moment. And I and I know that you like to prepare, right? You like lots of time to prepare for things that you're responsible for. And I actually give you things on the spur of the moment for a reason. I

Unknown Speaker 10:59
know. I guess, Bill,

Speaker 2 11:03
because I want you to grow in this area of thinking on your feet. Okay, yeah, and, and I think as a leader, if you learn that skill of thinking on your feet, being flexible, right, being nimble, you're going to be a better leader. For leader gov, and for all the folks in local government. So I say that just to encourage everybody on the podcast today, on the Zoom, sometimes you actually need to give people things to do that they don't like that make them feel a little bit uncomfortable, because that's what we call stretch goals, right? We're stretching the person. So that's a good I'm glad you brought it up, Lindsay, and I wanted to just make the point that you're sometimes my guinea pig for a stretch goal. So sorry.

Speaker 3 11:54
No, I like it when you first made me like talk on this workshop, I was very awkward and nervous, but I've gotten better. So it works. Bill, your strategy works.

Speaker 2 12:04
Well. We are excited to have Matthew with us today. Matthew Liu, a CFO, City of Columbia, Missouri. Matthew has been in local government for a good while, you know, about 15 years or so. And Matthew, we're glad you're with us today. About 15 years in public and private accounting, really recognized for his work in fiscal transparency. We know that's important local government optimizing investment strategies and delivering savings, lots of savings through restructuring and debt, debt management and things of that nature, things of which Lindsay and I have no knowledge, right? Lindsay, Matthew, has a bachelor's degree in finance with an emphasis in accounting from University of Central Missouri and an MBA from Avila University. So Matthew, it's great to have you with us. Man, welcome. I'm glad you're with us.

Speaker 4 13:04
Thank you for having me. I'm glad to be here.

Speaker 2 13:07
Yeah, well, we want to have a conversation with you about this topic of delegation today. And I just had a couple of questions and wanted to ask you about get your thoughts on share some of your experiences with the folks on the on the podcast today, tell us why is developing people important to you, like, Why do you give a rip about this? You could just do the work. You're smart guy. You could you could just keep plugging along.

Speaker 4 13:39
I think it has a lot to do with with how you take your job, and how you value your job, how you value your employer, because none of us are going to be here forever. You have to. I feel like it's my job to leave the city in good hands when I do leave or in better hands than than I found it. So that is a big part of delegation, making sure, making sure your people are ready to step up into those next roles.

Speaker 2 14:14
Yeah, I know you have a particular interest in developing the next generation, those that so that their succession ready, I guess. Question for you, how do you, how do you use delegation to grow the skills of the people on your team? Like, what are some of the things you delegate and how do you, how do you go about matching up the right item to the right person? Like, what? What is that like for you? Sort of regular day in and day out.

Speaker 4 14:44
So I do it a few different ways. I've talked with my employees on a daily basis, so I pretty much know what they're interested in, what their strengths and their weaknesses are. A lot of them have interest. Used in a certain type of thing, like, say, for instance, my assistant director has an interest in doing tax levies, and so this year, I will be delegating our tax levy preparation to him. Of course, I'm going to show him how to do it. You know how, how it should come out, what it should look like, but, but that is one of the things that I'll be doing this year. So I usually try to figure out what they need or what they want to learn, delegate some of those items and then things that they need, because not all the time is, can you delegate something that someone wants to do? You know, sometimes it's what they need to learn or to grow within their position.

Speaker 2 15:47
Yeah, you know, I skipped something very important at the beginning. And I like this. I want to go back to this idea of finding their strengths and what they need to work on. I like that comment. I'd like to drill down on that in just a moment. I skipped over something very important, Matthew, in the very beginning here, would you mind just telling us quickly, like, how big is the staff at Columbia, Missouri, that the city staff? And then how many people are in your finance department? And then I guess the third number would be, what's the population of Columbia?

Speaker 4 16:18
Okay, so I guess I'll start from the back. The population of Columbia is around 130,000 people. Our organization, it teeters around 1600 to 2000 people. In the summer. We have more individuals than we do in the winter because we have parks and rec department, and so it's a lot of part time people in parks and rec, the finance department here, we're a team of about 80 people. I have about 20 people doing utility customer service of 20 and accountant, 20 accountants, not all accountants, some accounts payable, things like that. We have a budget team. We have a economics division, purchasing treasury and paper. Okay,

Speaker 2 17:10
wow, good. Yeah. So pretty, pretty good sized city. We would say that's a medium sized city for sure. I want to go back to this topic. This, this thing you mentioned about finding people's strengths. So how do you know the strengths of your team? Like, how do you know that? And what do you like, make little mental notes about things you might want to delegate to them that kind of line up with their strengths. How do you do that?

Speaker 4 17:35
So I watch them a lot. I'm a people watcher, so I do watch my team. I watch I'm big on mannerisms, on body language, and so you can usually tell when someone is uncomfortable with something and when somebody's really enthusiastic, and they can jump right in and they start talking. They're very comfortable with something. So I sort of use a lot of that. Like I said, I talk with my team a lot. We have weekly meetings. We have I have weekly meetings with them, like one on ones. We have bi weekly team meetings where I get there's nine based division heads in my department, and so we all get together and kind of talk bi weekly on issues, things that may arise. I give them time to just vent. You know, that helps out a lot. And so you have to get to know your people before you can really tell what their strengths are.

Speaker 2 18:37
Wow. I just want to put an exclamation point on that for everybody that's on the podcast or this live workshop. As a leader, you gotta know the folks on your team, and that means you gotta spend time with them. And I love the idea that you're curious, you're observant, you're watching them. You're watching from for what they shrink back from, and you're watching what they sort of lean into, and then you're using delegation based on what you've learned about them. I like that. Tell me now about the other part of your comment, which was, sometimes I can't delegate to them based on their strengths and what they want to do. Sometimes I have to delegate things that they need to work on. So tell me a little bit about that. Kind of like my story with Lindsay. Maybe you know, maybe, you know, tell me about that.

Speaker 4 19:25
Well, I got, I guess I gotta. I have a good one. We have a, alright, we're going through budget right now, and we sort of have a, it's not an issue. It's something that happens. Probably, I would think in every city, when you dealing with the budget, and when you're dealing with this many people, position control, how do you make sure we have enough people, or you have the right people in the right places? Things change throughout the year, and so our budget, our budget officer is not she's not the. Most comfortable with that, and so that was one of the things this year, is like, hey, we just take it head on. Let's get it let's knock it out. You know, the one thing I did learn about that delegation is I probably should have put a timeline on it, but it is what it is. But she has gotten those things together. I think she's learned things about position control that she probably didn't know before, and, and, and she's going to be a better budget officer for those things.

Speaker 2 20:31
Yeah. Okay, so again, this is another great lesson that you're sharing with us, and that is being observant about what our teams need to grow in and then applying delegation, tasks, projects, whatever, to those folks. Now, you said something interesting there. You said, I probably should have provided a little better timeline conversation to so delegation. You know, we can't just throw things over to people and then say, good luck, and then we turn our backs they see you later, right? So we got to give them some details. We do need to even check in periodically, right? How you doing without micromanaging? Can you tell us about some of those experiences where you've maybe messed up and not been real clear? Or just, what are your thoughts on that in terms of clarity, what would your message?

Speaker 4 21:23
Yeah, I can definitely share, I think I share this story with you before, but early on in my career, I had an issue with my boss, and so he was actually the director of finance, and I was, I was in the person being delegated something down to a row. And he, we had a, I think it was a yearly, some sort of yearly report that we had to get done. And he, he just told me, Hey, we need to get this done. Didn't give me a timeline, didn't tell me how important it was. And so at the end of the day, I went home, and I came back the next day, and he called me into his office, and he started yelling and screaming, you know, you left me here by myself, and I'm trying to get this report out like you never told me that we had to get it done today. You didn't tell me the importance of it. And so we had, we both. I mean, we, we were good friends anyway, and so we had a big shouting match, and opened the door, people were outside looking like, what is going on? But when it came down to it, once, once, we both cooled off, and we both came back together. We understood that he, he did not give me a specific directive, and he didn't give me a timeline, and yeah, the same thing could be said for me. I didn't ask specifically, when does this need to be done? So I think delegation to delegate effectively, it has to be the give and the take. So the person delegating has to make sure that they're speaking all of the they're they're letting that person know all of the points that they need to hit, and then the person being delegated to needs to repeat that to make sure that they understand what is being asked for them.

Speaker 2 23:14
Yeah, I love that. I think that's a really good point. In fact, in our teamwork summit video this month, we we talk about the fact that the employee has a role to play in delegation. Yes, and, and as you say, part of the employee's role is being sure they understand what the dates are and what's expected, and how often we need to check in on the project, daily, weekly, whatever. That's kind of on me, the employee, as well as my manager. So really, really like what you're saying there. It's kind of a, kind of a two way street. Well, I'd like to kind of shift this maybe last question and next and last question, Matthew is like, how have you seen this pay off? You know, for maybe people five years ago, 10 years ago, three years ago, where you've invested in them. You've helped them stretch their goals, stretch their skills, and have they, have they responded? Well? Have they grown? You know what? What's transpired? What has this done for your team over the years? Do you think

Speaker 4 24:16
it gives them confidence? You know, because a lot of the time when you delegate something that is very important to someone and you let them know how important it is, it makes them feel proud in the work that they can do. When you have good employees, you know it helps them to grow. It helps them to be able to establish themselves within their own career and to be able to step up when, when the time comes. And so I've, I've been fortunate to have three or four people under me that I've been able to kind of bring up and and help them to learn the importance of certain things. Why of. Um, look sort of like position control, something like that. Why? Why it's very important for us to get right, why this matters to us, but not only us. It matters to HR and to the city manager and things like that. So,

Speaker 2 25:17
yeah, hey, uh, last question here, and then I want you to leave us with some final advice. Matthew, so some employees are happy just doing the same thing every day, and they don't want to learn and grow. They're just happy showing up at eight, leaving at five. And in a way, that's okay, right? But at least while you're here, you need to bloom where you're planted, right? You need to, you need to be the best at what you're doing. You not everybody wants to be the boss. That's fine, but, but how do you deal with employees, team members, who are resistant to doing new things? They're putting up that wall. They they're maybe they're afraid, I don't know. But how do you deal with resistance? Because that's got to be real. For a lot of people on the podcast, on this workshop today, that they have to deal with too. How do we how do we convince them? How do we inspire them to to want to do something new? Any any thoughts there?

Speaker 4 26:19
When I usually do, they have to see the end goal. So if you can, if you can clearly state the end goal or letting them know the reason why they are doing something, the reason why it's important, the reason why they would need to break out of their shell, usually when you're dealing with people that you are delegating to, they are going to be those type of individuals. They're they're normally, normally. What I've seen is the the type of person that sort of that you explained, the person just want to do that nine to five job, they usually aren't in those roles that will be delegated into, like management or supervisory role, or high level analyst or something like that. They usually more of the the maybe a bad word, but like the grunt workers or people who are doing that, that same that same task, over and over and over and they and they're fine with that. And so a lot of the time you'll find that people find those positions, and people kind of settle into those positions when they understand what they want in the workplace. Yeah,

Speaker 2 27:32
yeah, we've, I've noticed that, particularly with managers I've had Matthew, were they, you know, there's usually a reason why I don't want to be delegated to it's usually either I'm too busy and I'm afraid to take on anything new, so that's what we call fear, or I'm going to mess it up again, fear or, you know, I just don't care, right? And so the times that I've had a manager say to me, Hey, Bill, we really need your help here. We really need your your your thoughts, your input, and because I think you have something to offer, Bill, I think you have something that you can contribute. And when those managers come to me with that kind of attitude about delegation. It makes me feel valued, it makes me feel important. Makes me feel like they really see something in me that's important. Maybe I can't see it. And also they say, I'm going to be with you as you're doing it, Bill, so I'm not going to, I'm not going to let you fail. Too bad, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to be there with you, you know, I'm going to give you some line, but I think it's just really important for us to encourage people that we're not throwing this project at them and then it's all on them, sink or swim, right? That that's that's not cool, right? Yeah, any thoughts on that,

Speaker 4 28:55
you definitely have to let them know that that you are going to be there with them when you're delegating something out. Yeah, that's a very important one. And being using your words, being appreciative, you know, appreciating or telling them that, I found that comes a long that goes a long way when you tell a employee, hey, I really appreciate you for taking on this task. I needed the help, you know, and it makes them feel good, yeah, yeah, that's right.

Speaker 2 29:31
We we have a workshop on recognition and appreciation, and for those that haven't heard our our little quote, appreciation is actually more valuable than recognition. Yeah, appreciation gets gets a better result. Now we have somebody on our live workshop here who's just texted something, Daniel, I love this. Daniel said, when delegating employees would need to know they are safe and psychological. Safety, right? I'm going to be embarrassed by this. My boss is not going to hang me off to dry. I'm not going to be the bad guy if this gets messed up. That's what we call a safe environment. And so leaders are responsible for building that safe environment, right? That trusting environment. So, Daniel, great, great point. Thank you. All right, Matthew, as we as we wrap up here, leave us with your final, final words here. Here's what I've heard you say. I've heard you say, watch for the strengths of your people. Observe them also. Watch for what they need to grow in. I've heard you say, be specific, give timelines. I've heard you say that you've seen people's confidence bloom. I've heard you say that it's important to share the why, why are we doing this, and connect it back to strategy. So great leadership ideas here, around delegation. What would you say, just as we kind of close here today, for everybody,

Speaker 4 30:56
Matthew, you have to in order to be an effective leader, especially in a in a bigger organization, you have to be able to delegate, because you cannot do everything yourself. I've I've learned that the hard way, but you, you have to be able to trust your people, and you have to be able to know that, know that you can trust your people. There's a book that I always fall back on and the last two places that I've been about this book for all of my all of my people under me. And it's called, if you want to, if you want it done right, you don't have to do it yourself. And it's by Donna Gannett. She's a doctor. Done that. It is, it is a really good book. It's a short read it. It's wrote in a way that you could probably read it in a few hours. But it is really well written on delegating and then also the person being delegated to being able to repeat those things back to the person that and making sure that you have all of gold that you're going to meet all of those goals that are being set.

Speaker 2 32:10
Yeah, love that. Lindsay, would you, Matthew, could you repeat that title? Lindsay, maybe we could put that in the chat for everybody to get. The title of that book.

Speaker 4 32:20
It's called, if you, if you want it done right, you don't have to do it yourself.

Speaker 2 32:26
Okay? I like that. If you want it done right, you don't have to do it yourself.

Unknown Speaker 32:33
It's kind of the opposite of that piece of the pie that we saw. They want it done right, so they do it themselves.

Speaker 2 32:41
Yeah, yeah. Well, man, thank you so much for taking some time and sharing some thoughts with us around this topic of delegation. It's such an important leadership skill. And I tell you, Matthew, we see one of the biggest things that we see in local government is leaders that don't delegate, and they're either too busy, they don't want to take the time, or they think it has to be perfect, and so they're the only ones that could do it perfectly, and it just holds the leader back and it holds the team back. So thank you for taking some time to share with us today some insights around this topic of delegation.

Speaker 4 33:20
Yeah, thank you, and I appreciate you having me on today.

Speaker 1 33:25
Thank you for listening to the LeaderGov podcast. Don't forget to like and subscribe and for more information on leader gov's workshops and programs for state and local governments, visit www.leadergov.com you.