What is a Good Mayor?

The City of South Perth is developing measures to assess our CEO. In the process of doing this there has been discussion about assessing our Mayor and Councillors too. While thinking about this I’ve put together some thoughts about what makes a good Mayor. In the spirit of getting everybody involved, here’s a list that you might like to comment on or add to.

• The Mayor leads community participation in local decision- making, encouraging a spirit of inclusion
• The Mayor effectively manages both long and short term strategy and involves Councillors in Strategic Leadership
• The Mayor encourages contributions by Council members and gets the best out of them
• The Mayor develops the Leadership Team (Councillors and Executives) with energy, motivation and optimism
• The Mayor encourages all elected members to take on a leadership role
• The Mayor clearly takes charge of the evaluation and coaching of members
• The Mayor is effective in managing the technical and emotional components of leadership

• The Mayor demonstrates a sound understanding of the legislative, policy, planning and values frameworks of our City
• The Mayor makes sure that the Council meetings are well run
• The Mayor represents Council effectively at official functions and ceremonies
• The Mayor helps promote a positive image of Council
• The Mayor handles conflict within the leadership team fairly and impartially, to bring prompt resolution or return to a working relationship
• The Mayor chairs meetings impartially and effectively
• The Mayor demonstrates effective influence when dealing with internal and external parties
• The Mayor deals effectively with the media
• The Mayor keeps up to date with political, technical and management issues
• The Mayor is an effective negotiator
• The Mayor promotes ethical and accountable behaviour

What do you think we should expect of a Mayor? I believe that to be useful this list should not refer to any individual, but rather to the post itself.

Next will be a similar question in reference to our Councillors.

Please feel free to have your say; it makes a difference. Just click on “Comments” and log in as Name or Anonymous, or email me and I’ll post your comments for you.