Working with City Leaders

Chambers of Commerce are as old as cities themselves, but in the current cycle, as more and more cities are globalizing and pursuing international roles, their ability to achieve their objectives often depends on a more strategic model of business leadership.

This new kind of leadership organisation doesn't just advocate for narrow business interests, but instead thinks about the development of their city beyond short term political horizons, building cross-sector agendas, promoting business solutions to metropolitan challenges, and arguing the case effectively with higher tiers of government.

In the new nexus of collaborative distributed leadership of cities, the role of business is once again to the fore.

City Networking is a public/private activity by which business, entrepreneurs, government or communities meet to form relationships and to recognise, create, or act upon opportunities. In the last 10 years there has been 4 new city networks every year engaging with business to share ideas and to develop joint policy. It is fundamental for city leaders to understand the vast landscape of city networking.

Integrated thinking refers to a big picture mentality in which a person recognises the interconnections between various elements which form larger systems, patterns and objects. Thinking holistically is the opposite of analysing something, which involves breaking down a larger system into its details.

Integrated thinking is important for a city leader who must understand how the different functions of the city work together to achieve shared goals. For example in business; an IT professional is mostly concerned with his department and role, the CEO must recognise how IT contributes to the overall business and profit objectives.

Integrated thinking allows a leader to designate the responsibilities of each department while keeping the big picture in mind.

Negotiation is a method by which people settle differences. It is a process by which compromise or agreement is reached while avoiding argument and dispute. In any disagreement, individuals understandably aim to achieve the best possible outcome for their position or organisation. However, the principles of fairness, seeking mutual benefit and maintaining a relationship are the keys to a successful outcome.

City leaders all around the world face a conundrum of how to meet rising citizen expectations with powers and institutional frameworks that are ill-equipped to do so.

If we set aside rare exceptions, such as Singapore, if city leaders are to address this conundrum they have to negotiate and partner successfully with governments above them at the national and regional level.  This mediation is especially important at a time when cities on the one hand are known to make their national economies more globally connected and productive, but on the other hand they are often perceived to have benefited at the expense of smaller towns and rural areas.

In the coming decades, a fundamental task of city leadership will be to find creative solutions to these rising frictions. In the short term this may mean securing new funding for necessary infrastructure, or protection of national research or education budgets. But in the longer term it requires a fine-tuned leadership intelligence to establish real complementarities with other cities and surrounding areas, gain more legislative and investment autonomy, and find consensus on questions of planning, housing and immigration.

The intergovernmental dimension of city leadership highlights the fact that leaders need much more than to develop good plans and sound policies if their cities are to manage their growth and adapt to the competition. We may live in a century of cities but mayors are certainly no closer to ruling the world, so that makes it essential that they align strategy across multiple layers of government and develop shared responsibilities and platforms to implement it in a way that offers benefits to the city and the wider nation of which it is a part.