In partnership with the Mayors Innovation Project, re:power hosted a two-day training in August 2019 in South Carolina called High Road Governance: A Workshop for New Mayors – Helping Mayors Build the Skills to Transition from the Campaign Trail to City Leadership. This training was focused on enhancing the skills of participants around governing and the agenda included the following topics:
- Leadership Style Mapping
- Understanding there are multiple leadership types, what their own leadership style preference is and why others are still needed for a strong team
- Reflecting on ways to seek out and support other styles of leadership in work
- Governing as a Progressive
- Transitioning campaign priorities into governing priorities
- Reviewing different leadership styles and how those can be put to best use while moving policy
- Developing an effective message
- Learning how to develop a message around an issue to be effective in achieving their objectives
- Communicating an effective message
- Best communicating an effective message: Surround Sound, Effective Messengers, Message Discipline, and more
- Overviewing different ways and avenues to get our messages out
- Power Mapping
- Identifying and mapping power dynamics involved in moving their agendas
This training included nine mayors from cities in several different states with populations ranging from 8,000 to just under one million. All mayors in attendance were in their first term and in terms of demographics, 55% of participants used he/him pronouns, 45% used she/her, 55% identified as Black, and 11% identified as LGBTQ.
This work was led by Mackenzie Taylor, former re:power staff member.
