Photo credit: Joshua Spruiel, City of Atlanta
Deya Direct: We're in a political climate. There's the political concept of soft power. There's also the concept of hard power and we're somewhere in the balance in this country right now. How would you describe your leadership style?
Mayor Lance-Bottoms: My leadership style, if I'm talking about it in terms of soft power or hard power you know I have a more gentle deliberate approach. It's a softer more deliberate approach because I find that's what works best for me and I know how to push when I need to push. And I know how to pull back when I need to pull back. But I think that it really for me I find the most success in collaboration. The two won't get much done in government if you don't have the ability to collaborate with folk. And over the past month or so what really struck me. I have been over at our state capitol which is a lead by primarily white Republican men and I have had. I'd. Probably built more solid relationships there over the course of just forty five days or so on matters that are important to the city than I have in some aspects and certain areas of our communities which is really interesting so you don't ever know.
Politics makes strange bedfellows but for me it again highlights collaboration because what I found in spending time at the state capitol is what's good for the state is good for Atlanta and was good for Atlanta is good for the state. And if we don't collaborate in this climate that especially this national climate then we'll be at a complete standstill like we're seeing in Washington right now.
Deya Direct: But do you find that there's a certain approach that has been most effective for you and that you're making deals and building alliances with these strange bedfellows?
Mayor Lance-Bottoms: I think the approach really has been not coming in with a chip on my shoulder and vice-versa them not coming to me with a chip on their shoulder so people aren't defensive. Exactly. And that's not, you know, let me be clear, I'm not saying that as if another black woman would or another white man or a white man would.
But it's just the way that we operate it with each other and again this has been the beneficiary of some things that were groundwork laid out by my predecessor because he had a good working relationship with across the street at the Capitol. And it's now set this new model for how we should operate as a city and really anything short of that will be seen as a failure. And what we've seen is because we had such a good working relationship with our state leaders that it has been a tremendous boon to our economy and they want it to continue. And I've wanted to continue it, and I can't say that I would have thought to be that collaborative had I not seen that model succeed. Because we have a tendency to draw this line in the sand—you're this and that, therefore we can't somehow meet in the middle. And meeting in the middle has gotten us on the top 20 list for Amazon.
I mean, we are top 20 finalists for Amazon. It's gotten us so much success with our economy. And I think even when you look at where I am with my transition team again collaboration and that really has been charged to my new leadership team in the city of Atlanta. How do we cross collaborate to make sure we're maximizing in all other areas. So for example we've seen a spike in youth violence in the cities like so many other cities. A lot of it's related to gangs. And so my Cabinet meeting in a couple of weeks ago I asked each other department heads no matter what your department write down for me what you can do to help with gang violence in the city. OK if you're over public works and planning department and also what can you do to address affordability in the city. So to have my team start thinking about how we collaborate and not just go into our corners and work on what's important to us.