McGee

Leadership is a funny thing. I’ve often contemplated, even second-guessed, what it should be — what is the right way, how do you move groups of people with varying viewpoints toward a goal, and are those goals what’s best for the community? It’s a lot to think about and even harder to execute. As this will be my last Council Corner article, I thought I’d at least share with you some of my experiences and a few lessons learned along the way.

First, there are varying styles of leadership. Some come in with what they would perceive as a mandate, count the votes, push the initiative through, check the boxes, and are happy to declare a mission accomplished at the end of the day. Then there are the consensus builders, those who take the time and effort to do deep dives into the feelings and details that make up the opinions of those in the room. They’ll typically land and happily accept partial wins — everyone walks away with a piece of what they really desired at the onset. Both styles have their benefits and their drawbacks.

Second, I learned that opinions vary widely and deeply held beliefs are difficult to overcome, even if the facts indicate the opposite of one’s opinion. I’d also point out that there are many times where you find out that your opinion on a subject matter isn’t as fully mature as you believed it was. Details are often glossed over in public articles, and many of those details greatly impact one’s ability to achieve certain objectives. State laws, federal laws, regulations and legal precedence can often make clear and mutually agreed-upon objectives near impossible to achieve. It’s a tough lesson to learn on the local level.

Third, effective communication will, and will always be, the No. 1 thing any leader can point to as the cause of their success, or the reason for their failures. In the absence of clear and effective communication, distrust and misinformation is allowed to spread. Correcting misinformation is infinitely more difficult than clearly communicating facts from the onset.

It has been incredibly humbling and an honor to be selected to represent Scarborough. Even more so when your colleagues place a great deal of faith in you to act as their leader. It comes with some heavy responsibilities and is quite surreal in many respects. At the end of the day, I’ve come to the conclusion that what is needed from our government and the people we elect to represent us is balance. Some would argue that this could be construed as a compromise of deeply held principles — which I agree are incredibly important, but for me and what I’ve learned, perhaps the principle we should all be looking to uphold is that we need each other and that we need to learn how to advance our community together.

We have five meetings left before a new council is seated. Currently, there are three seats up for election, one 2-year term and two 3-year terms. This November has the potential to become a pivotal moment for Scarborough and the direction of this community. If the momentum from this current council is to be maintained in the areas of reducing the pace of growth, keeping the municipal budget in check, further advancing land conservation efforts and advocating for educational excellence, we’ll need help from some new faces this November. Hopefully they will be the leaders who believe in balance. Are you one of them?

Nick McGee is chair of the Scarborough Town Council.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Scarborough Town Council.