2022/05/27 - Walter's Blog: Leaders At All Levels
May 27, 2022
The City Council and staff recently completed an 18-month process to develop a Master Plan for O’Fallon. We received feedback from residents, businesses, and elected officials about what they wanted O’Fallon to be and do over the next 20 years. The Master Plan includes goals, visions, and dreams for O’Fallon as a “connected, caring community where residents’ needs are met with exceptional amenities that are both easily accessible and inclusive.”
The City’s Leadership Team (consisting of all department heads) recently held a day-long retreat to align our operations with the Master Plan’s vision. The organization must be a high performing organization in order to achieve the Master Plan’s ambitious goals. National research indicates that the key to be high performing is to build workforce capacity through employee engagement. Engaged employees are more productive, happier, and more likely to be loyal to the organization.
Therefore, the Leadership Team retreat focused on building capacity within the organization to be a high performing organization. Building capacity involves developing leaders at all levels of the organization that can solve problems, improve operations, and improve service to our residents. All City employees are essential and should be valued as leaders in their service to the O’Fallon community.
The Leadership Team defined the following City’s Vision and Values to develop leaders at all levels:
WE…
Build an inclusive, caring and connected community.
Lead with integrity, honesty, and compassion.
Serve with dignity, respect, and pride.
Inspire future generations.
Additional training is needed as we seek employees’ ideas on how to implement these vision and values. We believe the Vision and Values Statement will be effective for us to be a great community and an effective organization. Public service is the core of our identity as City employees, and we will be leaders to build the community and inspire others to leave a legacy for O’Fallon to be better than we found it.