PASSIONATE LEADERSHIP

PASSIONATE LEADERSHIP

Angela Wilson-Team Detroit, T2,Q4

ANGELA WILSON has a vision for Detroit. She has a vision of a city where children are nurtured and cared for, a place where families have access to everything they need. She believes that it is city leaders who will transform her city.

With this in mind, she made the decision to run for Detroit City Council. She used her participation in the Team Management and Leadership Program to create a Game in the World where, with the help of four teams, she would be elected to the city council. She and her teams created the acronym PEOPLE – standing for People Empowerment, Openness, Principled Leadership and Excellence in Detroit government.

The four teams, with two leaders on each team, are:

1) Resource development team – to raise money and secure other resources including businesses, people and time;

2) Community team – to engage the community, recruit volunteers, community events, creating events around a platform and align with others platforms;

3) Partnership team – to focus on creating partnerships with other candidates and share resources; and

4) Leadership team – to manage all teams, making broad policy decisions, approaching and supporting other teams.

When Angela lost the primary on Tuesday August 4th, she and her team leaned some invaluable lessons, the most important of which was to not give up on the game. They are still passionate leaders committed to transforming their city, but have aligned behind two winning primary candidates and will bring the power of their game to those leaders.

The transformation Angela is committed to for Detroit has already begun. People are seeing the possibility of a city that isn’t doing business as usual – they are not settling for ‘the way it’s been.’ A big shift occurred in the last election: of the six incumbent members running, only two made it into the top five. Since the top nine candidates will become the city council members, at least four will be new. This has never happened in Detroit politics before. Detroit is playing a different game now – a game of transformation.

Angela has learned two critical things from her game: First, that team–a real team, not just names, requires people who are committed and clear about their role. Second, she learned that it is crucial to listen ‘for’ what people are committed to, not just the words but for the intentions behind the words.

As she completes her second year in TMLP, Angela found out what was important was not just winning a council seat, but the training and development in playing the game and learning what works in the practice of playing.

Written by Judi Romaine, Edited by Jeff Bonar