Today’s Morning Buzz is by Greg LeBlanc, Assistant Town Manager for the Town of Snowmass Village, Colorado. Connect with me on LinkedIn.
- Where I see myself in five years: Celebrating the fifth anniversary of this question!
- Will ICMA let me do my stand-up routine at next year’s conference?: I hope so!
- Which hobby excites me: Printing my photos.
“It’s 5:00—do you know where your employees are?”
It’s a playful twist on the old public service announcement, and in local government, it’s a question with real weight. If the answer is, “still at their desks, waiting for instructions,” we might be missing an opportunity. Ideally, by 5:00, your team is out testing ideas, connecting with residents, or collaborating across departments. Or maybe they’ve clocked out, satisfied with the progress they made on a project they truly owned.
For many years, leadership in government was equated with control: knowing what everyone is doing, when they’re doing it, and how. But today’s public sector challenges are complex, evolving, and deeply human. They call for leaders who build the conditions for creativity, not just compliance. That kind of leadership trusts people to use their judgment, supports experimentation, and accepts that meaningful progress rarely follows a straight line.
Letting go changes the way we lead. The goal is still engagement, just of a different kind. The most effective leaders stay close enough to guide, yet open enough to let others grow. What follows are ideas for how local government leaders can build a culture where innovation thrives without losing accountability.
Trust First: Building a Culture Where Ideas Can Grow
Innovation begins with trust. Teams need to know they’re allowed to think differently, to speak honestly, and sometimes to get it wrong. In many public organizations, that kind of psychological safety doesn’t come easily. Bureaucracies often reward caution, and the fear of failure can quiet even the best ideas.
Yet failure, handled well, is a teacher. When leaders treat mistakes as feedback instead of faults, they help teams see learning as part of the process. Over time, this creates space for creativity and candor, which are the raw materials of innovation.
A culture of trust raises operating standards because it draws out people’s best work. When employees feel ownership, they collaborate more openly and pursue better outcomes for the community. One effective approach is the “safe-to-fail” pilot: a small experiment designed to learn quickly and adapt. These efforts show that the value of a test lies not only in its success, but in what it reveals along the way.
Autonomy with Direction: Setting the Why, Letting Them Shape the How
Trust works best when paired with clarity. Freedom without focus can drift, but clear purpose channels energy toward results that matter.
Strong leaders define the mission and outcomes, then let professionals design the path forward. The “why” and “what” come from leadership; the “how” belongs to the team. That balance gives employees both accountability and agency.
In local government, this might look like a housing division re-imagining how it engages with tenants, or a planning team piloting a new tool before rewriting policy. The details vary, but the principle is consistent: When staff understand the purpose of their work and have the freedom to apply their expertise, good ideas multiply.
Front-line employees often hold the best insight into community needs. Leadership that listens and empowers them brings that wisdom to the surface — and in doing so, closes the distance between policy and people.
Oversight that Enables
Oversight will always matter. What’s changing is the spirit in which it’s done. The best leaders see it less as supervision and more as stewardship.
Think of oversight as coaching. Ask questions that open reflection: What’s working? What are you learning? Where could you use support? These check-ins reinforce accountability without slowing progress. They also strengthen relationships, which are as important as systems when it comes to trust.
Guardrails still exist (budgets, timelines, ethics) but they serve as guidance, not constraint. Teams help define their own measures of success and track their progress transparently. In this model, oversight is a shared responsibility, not a top-down task.
Good oversight doesn’t hover; it orbits. Leaders stay close enough to understand the work and far enough to let their people lead it.
A Shift in Mindset
The challenges facing local governments today are larger, faster, and more interconnected than ever. They demand a new kind of leadership — one that sees empowerment as strength, not surrender.
Control feels safe, but safety rarely inspires transformation. However, trust does, and when leaders invite their teams to take ownership, they trade certainty for creativity and often find something better — commitment.
Of course, this shift takes courage. The public sector’s instinct to minimize risk runs deep. But the greater risk lies in doing nothing — when employees disengage, systems stagnate, and communities miss out on fresh solutions. The leaders who will thrive are those willing to hold accountability in one hand and experimentation in the other.
When trust and purpose align, results follow. Teams gain energy. Ideas reach closer to the people they serve. Leadership becomes less about managing and more about enabling human potential.
Trust, then Lead
So, it’s 5:00. Do you know where your employees are?
If you’ve built a culture of trust, you don’t need to. You already know they’re doing meaningful work — solving problems, testing ideas, learning, and growing. They’re aligned with the mission and confident enough to ask for support when they need it.
That’s leadership evolved: engaged, confident, and grounded in purpose. The best leaders aren’t the ones who monitor every move; they’re the ones who create the conditions where good people can do their best work, even when no one is watching.