May 2017 - Parks & Recreation - 58

LEADERSHIP

The quality of leadership has profound ramifications for organizations:
People stay or leave because of leadership. Good people want to work for
well-led organizations, which gives
these organizations an edge in the ability to recruit and retain the best and the
brightest. An agency's relevancy in the
community is determined, in part, by
the quality of its leadership.
Critical Skills for Today's
Leadership Environment
There are multiple skill sets that transcend the entire organization. Leaders set the tone and, ideally, model the
desired leadership system. In thinking
about leadership, the skills that have always been, and continue to be, important
include communication, empowering
employees, acting ethically, the ability to
forge effective partnerships, and creating
a trusting environment. Yet, there are
many other significant leadership qualities that are becoming just as important
as these tried and true leadership skills.
In today's rapidly changing times, the
following five qualities can largely determine a leader's success:
* Creating vision and strategic direction
* Managing change

Parks & Recreation

* Driving innovation
* Using data and technology for
decision-making
* Developing cultural competency

Good people want to work
for well-led organizations,
which gives these
organizations an edge in
the ability to recruit and
retain the best and the
brightest.
Creating vision and strategic direction involves risk because it is the pursuit of a solution that, because an organization can only do so much, may be
accomplished at the expense of other
potentially successful initiatives.
If you randomly stopped individual
employees in the office hallways and
asked them to describe their organization's direction, would there be consistent responses? In the absence of direction, the answer is " No. " Employees
gain a level of reassurance from their

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leadership when there is a commitment
to discussing and identifying a purposeful future direction. In addition,
providing employees with the opportunity to provide input into strategic direction is more than reassuring - it's
expected from today's employees.
The creation of organizational strategy is typically regarded with cynicism.
And, why shouldn't it be? Research
has shown that 75-85 percent of strategic planning efforts fail. In developing strategy, organizations emphasize
building rather than deploying a plan.
Plan implementation requires the ability to operationalize the plan through
measurements, sharing of progress reports and the assignment of the plan's
execution to a champion, or team of
champions, who are accountable for
implementation. It also requires gaining commitment from employees in
working toward organizational goals.
Many times, organizations have their
senior leaders involved in establishing
direction. Good leaders understand the
importance of engaging employees at
all levels of the organization.
As leaders of park and recreation
agencies, it's also important to be transparent with the community about the
strategic direction of an agency. What
better way to be relevant in your community than providing its members
with information about your strategic
direction, progress toward goals and
commitment to driving accountability?
There should be an ongoing reporting
system that tracks the plan's progress.
Employees and elected officials should
receive strategy updates on a continuous basis. Consider having a resident
committee that works with the agency
in deploying a plan. This can be even
more important when the result of the
strategy is to pursue a voter referendum that requires community support.
Managing change is another important leadership competency, given the
speed at which it occurs today. There

May 2017 - Parks & Recreation

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