Transit Unplugged Deep Cuts – Eulois Cleckley

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Welcome to a special episode of Transit Unplugged that we're

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calling Transit Unplugged Deep Cuts.

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Hi, I'm Tris Hussey editor of the podcast.

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And for this special episode, we bring you, Eulois Cleckley.

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Eulois is the CEO of Miami-Dade County Department of

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Transportation and Public Works.

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And in February of last year, he talked with Paul about leadership.

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Now it just so happens that we recently had Schneider St.

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Preux on the podcast.

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And Schneider works for Eulois as General Superintendent of Bus Operations.

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Schneider talks about Eulois' leadership.

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mentorship, and how it's influenced his career trajectory

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and his own leadership style.

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So sit back listen in to Eulois Cleckley on leadership.

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Excited to have with us today Eulois Cleckley, who is the director and

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CEO of the Miami Dade Department of Transportation and Public Works.

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Thank you so much for being on the program today.

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Thank you, Paul.

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It's always great to have a conversation with you, especially

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about this topic called leadership,

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tell us about that.

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Why is leadership important?

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You've held a number of leadership roles in our industry.

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leadership is, extremely important.

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One is that, strong leadership not only helps to run a efficient, effective,

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and productive department, but it really helps the individuals that work for that

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organization to maximize their potential.

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And, what I've found in a variety of different, positions that I've held.

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Is that if you have a lack of leadership within a specific department, not only

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impacting that department's, ability to be sound and do what's best for,

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the general public, especially from a transportation service standpoint.

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But you're impacting sometimes generations of employees and

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their families if you do not.

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set A culture that really cultivates leadership.

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And leadership really is about people and it's about the people you serve.

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And it's also about the staff that works very hard for you every single day.

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And so if you're not focused on making sure you're preparing and protecting

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your staff, and you're leading your staff and you're setting a sound vision

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for them, you're really, putting a department in a bad position to not

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be as effective as what it could be.

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And then for those employees that are highly talented and could go on to

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do great things, you're suppressing their, their ability to do so.

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I've found that, strong leaders.

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Create that culture where everybody feels empowered and they come to

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work energized and excited, and then they go on to do great things.

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And so it's extremely important, from a general public as well as an

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individual employee standpoint to make sure that a department and organization

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really is led by strong leaders.

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You have a few principles you like to focus on, right?

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You and I were recently at the Florida Public Transportation Association

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Conference and I asked you to share, I'd like you to kind of run

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through those with our listeners

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Yeah, absolutely, and this is, based off of my experience and what I've known, not

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only seen and observed from other leaders that I respect throughout the industry,

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but also what I've, had to, I would say endure and or expect for myself to make

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sure that I lead my staff appropriately.

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And I always start off.

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This acronym called reps and, I'll talk about the first half of it

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is R E P P S, and I'll talk to the r e in the P aspect of reps.

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And the first, letter in this acronym, r, really, is about results.

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And at the end of the day, the general public, whether you're transit or you

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know, in our case on the public work side, And then transportation as a whole.

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You know, your job is to make.

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That you are delivering projects, programs, policies and services

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that make people's lives better.

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And so really at the end of the day, it's about the result, the outcome.

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what are you doing to ensure that you are being progressive?

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And you're showing improvement.

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And a lot of times what we end up doing just naturally because of the work

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on a day, on a day-to-day basis is we have to do a lot of activity and alike.

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but there's a difference between just doing things.

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And progression.

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and really progression is about improving the current status, making

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things better, whether it be the assets you're responsible for, and making

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them, be in a better condition in the state of good repair, the service that

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you're providing, making sure that that service, is one that's efficient and

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safe for the people that you serve and that you're measuring those results.

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At the end of the day, if you focus in on that first, above all, Everything

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that you do should be focused on outcome and results and results oriented.

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And if you do that, then not only your staff can, have a, a situation where

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they're being acknowledged for the results and the positive things that are done.

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Uh, that also kind of rolls up, from a leadership standpoint

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where, as the department begins to build a brand that you can deliver

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results is extremely important.

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So, so always focus on results, number one.

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Number two.

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and, and the second, letter in the acronym is E that stands for expectations.

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and so from.

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my experience, what I've, tried to do when I started off in a, a new, leadership

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role is really, spend time listening to the staff and trying to understand

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where the specific organization, was in terms of its performance.

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but then, after doing an evaluation setting not only.

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Aspirational, but achievable vision for that specific organization

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or department or division.

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and.

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when you set a vision, that means you set an expectation.

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and for example, in now in Miami-Dade, our vision that we've

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created is to be the world's best provider transportation options.

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And yes, that's an aspirational goal.

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That's a very lofty goal, but I truly believe that we can get there.

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your mission and the goals and the tactics need to align with

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trying to meet that vision?

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So that's an expectation where, one, the staff needs to understand that

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we are here to h be high performing, individuals, divisions, and departments.

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But also everybody else that's involved in helping us to meet that

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vision needs to step up and meet those high level performance expectations.

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And so when you're trying to be the best in a world's best, you should

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expect the best out of every single individual that's working for you.

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So, So one, setting that high expectation, and then it generates a

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great vision and it generates a lot of interest in making sure people come

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in every day and figure out a way to meet that vision that you set and that

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expectation to meet the world's best.

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So you should ask yourself, you know, my response to a customer today, a road

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transit, if I'm a bus operator, did I.

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That type level of expectation that to make sure that that individual knows

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that we're one of the world's best providers of transportation options.

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it just trickles and, and goes throughout the entirety of the department.

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And so always set expectations and don't be afraid to, to reach

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far because you never know.

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The individuals that within the department, their ambition.

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And if you set a very lofty goal, you'll be surprised that they'll

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end up most times meeting that goal.

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and and the last thing I'll just mention is, the, the p so it's

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r e p, and the, that, that first p in reps is, is about people.

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And I've mentioned.

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People throughout, our conversation today, but people come really in

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two forms in terms of what you need to focus in on a leader.

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One is focus on the people you're here to serve, the customer, the general public.

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again, making sure that you're providing, those types of, services and programs

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that make, and projects that make sense for them and you're listening to them,

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but also making sure that before you start talking about delivering any of

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those projects, programs and services, you need to focus on leading your

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staff And, and if you are not figuring out ways to protect and position.

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And provide the proper amount of training, support, and empowerment to your staff.

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You're not maximizing your job as a leader.

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So it always starts off with your staff first.

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And sometimes that's very difficult, especially in public

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sector life, when, a lot of times it's focused on the individual.

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but, always challenge ourselves to figure out ways that we first focus

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on the staff and, and the question I always ask all of my leaders.

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Is who have you identified on your team that is ready to take

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your job when you go elsewhere?

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And who and how are you preparing that individual to take your job and do

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it better than perhaps what you did.

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And if you're not focusing, in that aspect, if you're not building that

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culture, then you're again, suppressing somebody's ambition, to, to do great

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things within, their specific job division department or in the industry.

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And so I'm very much focused on making sure.

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I empower the staff, that I act as a coach and I'm put people in the right

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position to maximize their potential.

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And at the end of the day, if, if they are doing their best, the department

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will do their best and then we'll ultimately end up in a situation where,

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the general public and the people that we serve are really getting the department

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that's meeting all of their needs.

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So those, that's, that's the first half of reps, our ep.

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And, and at some point in time, Paul, we, we can come back and

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talk about, the second P and the S.

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Those are really good, really good thoughts.

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Eulois in, in our positions in public transit or government,

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or wherever we're at.

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Would you tell me, one, one follow up question is who defines what results

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you should be going for in your.

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book

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So, I'm very much focused on making sure that we look at data.

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So a lot of times we, again, we do things or we're just active and we

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show numbers in terms of production.

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Right.

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Like a gerbil or a hamster and a wheel spinning around.

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Right.

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Oh, I did a hundred reps today.

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Yeah.

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If you didn't get

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It didn't get anywhere.

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Right.

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and, and sometimes again, if you don't set the expectation, you didn't know where you

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were gonna go in the first place, right?

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Yes.

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Yes.

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That's good.

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So, one aspect that what we're focusing on in the department, every place

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I've been is, is one we wanna be.

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A organization that is data driven and you turn data and numbers into information

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to help you make sound decisions.

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And so that's one.

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And the second that data is helping you to track your performance.

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so you wanna be in a position where you're tracking everything as much

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as you can, and then you have the supportive, technology or systems

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to help you, track that performance.

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so, one data extremely important to set the baseline and then, , you, you perform

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some analytics that actually set a goal or a target, and you do that for as much as

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you can within an entirety the department.

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that should lead into, well, here's how we set our, our specific goals

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and, and expectations moving forward.

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Thank you Eulois Cleckley for sharing some leadership principles with

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our listeners around the world.

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Thank you very much, Paul.

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Appreciate it.

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And, until next time, I hope everybody has a great day and, enjoys this podcast.

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Thank you for listening to this special episode of Transit Unplugged Deep Cuts

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with our guests Eulois Cleckely from an interview recorded in February, 2023.

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Don't forget to swing by transit unplugged.com.

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So you can sign up for the newsletter, check out past episodes.

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