Transcript
Narrator 0:04
President, Harry S. Truman once remarked that “men make history and not the other way around, in periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better.” Truman certainly recognize the need for good leadership to achieve good governance. But what is a good leader? At the Richard M Fairbanks Symposium held at the University of Indianapolis on October 9, 2013, Mayor Chris McBarnes of Frankfurt, Indiana and Indiana Senator Richard Lugar discussed the attributes of a skillful leader.
Chris McBarnes 0:41
You have to be the chief cheerleader of your community. You have to be the one just to pick up the phone and just listen. And sometimes you may not have an answer, but someone just needs you to listen to them, someone to care about the situation that they’re going through, someone to plug them into the right department that will aid them in assistance.
Narrator 0:59
Along with listening, Mayor Chris McBarnes recognizes that the road to good government is paved with politics. However, McBarnes does not navigate these politics to achieve good government. He believes that a good leader takes politics out of government altogether.
Chris McBarnes 1:14
I start by taking politics out of it. I believe to move my community forward, I need a volunteer army of 16,500 individuals that wake up each and every single day that don’t feel affiliated to a certain political party. Now, I’m a proud conservative, don’t get me wrong. I’m a proud Republican, and I give all the glory here today to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He’s working through me. He’s doing things through me this morning. But I know that my citizens, when they wake up each and every single day, whether they’re three years old and it’s just picking up the front body, front bike out of the yard and it’s putting it in the garage for mom and dad to make the front yard look cleaner, or maybe it’s Mom and Dad using our single streamed recycling resource curbside pickup every Wednesday, that they have a small piece in making Frankfort, Indiana a better place.
When you get that buy in, when you get that volunteer army, in my instance, of 16,500 you’re going to see your community move forward. You have to figure out a way to plug people in in order to get to good government. You hear people talk about transparency. I’m huge on accountability. Have I decided whether I’m going to seek re election yet? No, I have not. I will decide that when I feel as though if I have done the job that I have promised the people of Frankfurt, Indiana that I said that I would do. And so when I came into office, I said, Listen, I’m going to have a 100 day plan. And if you go to www.frankfort-in.gov or you go to the MayorChrisMcBarnes Facebook page, we’re constantly video blogging. We’re constantly updating that 100-200 day plan that’s based around four cornerstones, neighborhood revitalization, economic development, communications and citizen voice. And you know what? Here’s what I’m finding. I’m finding people getting online. I’m finding people getting on the MayorChrisMcBarnes Facebook page, and they’re figuring out ways how to plug theirselves into their community. And they’re calling 6547332, and they’re asking to talk to the mayor, and they’re saying, Mayor, I can plug myself into this initiative. Or, you know what? I I have this small talent, and I’m not a Politico, per se. I don’t come to every city council meeting, but I want to give back to my community. How can I help? Well, Mrs. Parks, here’s how you can help, and here’s how I can plug you in. And when that happens, amazing synergy happens in the community. So good government is transparent. It’s accountable, and it also lays out a thorough plan to the citizen base where they can connect theirselves, and when you show them ways that they can connect theirselves, great things like workforce development, quality of life, economic development, they all occur, and those are things that we strive for in the McBarnes administration, each and every single day.
Narrator 3:41
Listening and disregarding unnecessary politics are not the only characteristics of a good leader. Senator Lugar has found that good leadership relies heavily on compromise. He recounts its presence in getting Unigov passed in 1970 a piece of landmark legislation for Indiana.
Richard Lugar 3:58
In the Unigov experience, we had an idea. Now it was not an idea that was shared by everybody. As a matter of fact, many of my public meetings here in Indianapolis at that time were with people, particularly in suburbs, who even would quote biblical Scripture as to why this was a dreadful idea. But at the same time we managed, this is the time we talk about civility to make sure that we didn’t get into a temper tantrum with anybody. We sort of listened to everybody, even quoting the Bible, as opposed to Unigov, and we also had to make compromises. I think the panel this morning made a very good point, that public school system did not come into Unigov. That was a situation in which the school corporations simply indicated from the outset that they had the votes in the legislature to stop any such nonsense of that sort, if we thought about it. And so we did not get the schools involved. We had a police and fire department situation that was sort of fractured for a long while. Did much better with sewers and water mains and other developments, as people in the county really wanted more services of that sort, but lots of compromises along the way, even while we were celebrating the glory of one mayor, one council, one Unigov.
Narrator 5:20
Along with compromising, Senator Lugar sees relationships as key to sustaining good government as mayor of Indianapolis, Lugar’s relationships throughout the community saved many lives the night of April 4, 1968 when Martin Luther King, Jr was assassinated, of particular importance was outreach to the African American community.
Richard Lugar 5:40
On the night of April the fourth, I was at the Marrott Hotel for a banquet of the Shortridge High School basketball team. My alma mater at Shortridge it was a team that was all black, a black coach. There was a situation which we were celebrating that. But I was also in the Marrott Hotel because that’s where the Kennedys were going to come and I sort of had set up a battle command station that was not that far from 17th and Alabama, or what have you, to try to take care of the situation. In fairness, historically, and they couldn’t have done it all, but Ben and Snooki were out there in the crowd down there at 17th and they were, in fact, counseling people, “This is not the time,” and made a very large difference as black activists that night, which saved lives in Indianapolis and all sorts of difficulty. But I stress the fact that in the campaign, because we had had these associations with these activists, it was very, very important in the history of Indianapolis that at the right time they step forward.
Ted Frantz 6:48
This podcast was produced by the Institute for Civic Leadership and Mayoral Archives and the Department of Communication at the University of Indianapolis. It is made possible by the support of the Richard M Fairbanks Foundation Indiana humanities and the lily endowment. For more information, please see our website, uindy.edu/mayoral.