Time for mid-term checks of political leadership?

Halfway into the municipal and regional term, politicians are in the process of finding solutions to complex societal challenges. This calls for political leadership that dares to carry out a mid-term review, just as they have done in Guldborgsund Municipality. Read here Professor at RUC, Eva Sørensen and Partner in Resonans Anne-Mette Scheibel's recommendations.
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We are now halfway into the municipal and regional parliamentary term, and politicians are well underway to find solutions to a number of the great and often very complex societal challenges of the time. Some challenges are caused by demographic change, others stem from the growth of lifestyle-related diseases, and others in turn are related to the prevention and management of climate challenges and the need to ensure business growth and development in a market characterised by intense competition. Solving these and other challenges of the time calls for strong political leadership.

Complex challenges demand new forms of political work

In a time of change, the strength of political leadership depends not least on the fact that municipalities and regions work purposefully and continuously to develop and fine-tune political working methods. There is an ongoing need to consider whether there is a need to adjust policy meeting styles and processes so that they best support the work of formulating forward-looking political visions, setting realistic strategic goals for governance efforts, and prioritizing work and ensuring the support and energy needed to turn policy into action in practice.

New research experiences from Norway and Denmark — we are experimenting big in DK

Most regions and municipalities have put political working methods on the agenda and are well in the process of trying out different types of committee types and thematic meetings that promote policy development across standing committees, task committees, citizens' meetings and workshops where politicians and citizens develop policy together. The research project POLECO has recently conducted a survey on the extent of experiments with new political forms of work in Norwegian and Danish municipalities.

Politicians want to focus on policy development and civic dialogue

The study shows that experiments with new democratic and co-creating forms of dialogue and participation are well underway in Denmark in particular. Furthermore, the study shows that the changes in political working methods are driven not least by politicians' desire to spend more time on policy development rather than administration, to strengthen cooperation between politicians across the political committees and the municipal council, and to engage in closer dialogue with citizens. Policymakers are also concerned with improving interaction with the administration, getting better at prioritising burning platforms, and avoiding spending as much time on areas where things are going reasonably well as where there is a real need for improvement and change.

The political culture, the challenge picture and the local strength relationships set the stage

Finally, the research results from POLECO show that there is a great deal of variation in the reforms implemented around the municipalities. There is no such thing as “one size fits all”. What works in one place does not work elsewhere because of differences in political culture, strength ratios in the city council, geography, population composition and challenge picture. There is great interest in learning from each other, but in the end each municipality finds its particular path to strengthened political leadership.

Strengthened political leadership in Guldborgsund Municipality through shared visionary and strategic focus

An illustrative example is Guldborgsund Municipality, where municipal politicians have had great pleasure in starting the parliamentary term by joining forces to set a visionary and strategic direction for municipal policy work. Creating a common language about political dreams and strategic priorities has been crucial for the City Council. Municipal politicians feel that they are working towards common goals — and that together they have strengthened political leadership.

Shared chairmanship of committees has strengthened the culture of cooperation internally and with citizens

Specifically, in Guldborgsund they have introduced a model of a divided presidency that goes across parties. This has strengthened the culture of cooperation in the City Council, and it also means that the Presidency stands stronger in its interaction with the Executive Board and the other administration. Furthermore, the City Council of Guldborgsund Municipality has carried out a comprehensive citizen involvement process around planning strategy and municipal plan in dialogue with approximately 500 citizens. The municipality is currently undergoing a mid-term review of the effects of the new political working methods of the City Council, and the assessment is that the new measures, each in their own way, contribute to strengthening the opportunities for politicians to exercise political leadership.

What is the status of your political leadership?

In a busy time in Regional Councils and Local Councils, it can be difficult to find time to take the pulse of political leadership. The fact that we are now in the middle of the parliamentary term could be used as an occasion to carry out a mid-term review of political working methods, as in Guldborgsund Municipality: have we arranged the political work in an appropriate way — or could we usefully do more to support the political leadership?
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This can be done in many ways, and here are 5 of them:
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1. Mid-term evaluation of recently implemented changes in working practices
2. Workshop on the role of politicians and the relationship with administration and the outside world.
3. Discussion of the cross-cutting efforts via economic priorities across committees.
4. Maintaining the link with individual pillars and the visionary strategic policy direction
5. Developing new forms of co-creating dialogue and participation with citizens, business, educational institutions and associations.