To Colby Frantz, being a strong fleet leader means taking responsibility for your work and not being complacent.

“I tell my guys, anything you put your hands on, anything that comes to our shop, you’re ultimately responsible for,” said Frantz, who is fleet services manager for the city of Grand Prairie, Texas.

A real-life example of that philosophy took place recently when a vehicle came into Frantz’s Grand Prairie fleet shop with a spare tire on it. Frantz said the fleet technician’s responsibility was more than simply replacing the flat tire and placing the spare back in the spare tire position.

“I told him you need to go back and check all of the lug nuts on the vehicle,” said Frantz, who oversees about 1,500 vehicles and pieces of equipment for the city. The tech asked why, since he didn’t touch the other tires. “Yes, but somebody did,” Frantz told the tech. He said the technician needed to document everything done to the vehicle.

That’s important in all cases, but especially on pursuit-rated vehicles, Frantz said. If a wheel comes loose during a 100-miles-an-hour pursuit, for example, the technician’s work and the fleet department’ s records will be scrutinized.

“One of the things that we push all the time is to make sure people understand accountability, and they’re always not so much following the order to be accountable to those things, but to set that mindset where everybody knows everything that needs to be documented and to go above and beyond and make sure everybody's safe and taken care of,” Frantz said.

Avoiding Complacency and Boosting Team Morale

Other government fleet managers agree on the importance of avoiding complacency as part of being a strong fleet leader. Nicholas Bradshaw, who oversees a staff of 53 and a fleet of about 1,700 vehicles and equipment as director of fleet services for the city of Knoxville, Tennessee, describes complacency as a “natural enemy,” especially in the area of safety. That goes for a fleet shop employee who has used the same air compressor in the shop many times.

“But that 500th time you do it, if you’re not paying close attention, you get hurt,” Bradshaw said. “So complacency is our enemy in all areas, leadership among them. Don’t take things for granted, keep it upfront and be talking about it all the time.”

Bradshaw expanded on that topic by saying that avoiding complacency is an issue that confronts leaders in every industry. 

“To me, not getting complacent means you never think you’ve made it,” he said. “Always be getting better, always be trying to improve, and never think that you’ve got something perfect and figured out, because it’s an illusion. As a leader, my job is to model that behavior, to talk about it and always be challenging the other leaders who work for me, the frontline supervisors, especially. Always be challenging them to be trying to think of ways to get better and be creative and to solve problems.”

As part of avoiding complacency, fleet managers say empathy, boosting team morale, and leading by example through continuous learning are among various factors that help make a strong fleet leader and a strong fleet.

Strong Fleet Leaders Work to Boost Morale

Frantz says being a strong fleet leader “all boils down truly to empathy, not sympathy.” It means the team members trust you enough to tell the truth when you ask them a question. 

It also means helping team members understand why they have to do something that they don’t want to do, he said. 

“You know the time and place where you’ve got to bark some orders, but you know if your team understands that there’s a reason behind everything, they tend to trust you a bit more,” Frantz said.

For Frantz, making time to talk to staff members is a big part of boosting morale. 

“There’s never enough time, so make the time when your guys have it to go out there and visit with them, find out what their concerns are, make sure they’re telling you everything, and like I said, if you have that trust with them, they’ll come to you,” he said, adding that the department works to add some fun to its monthly meetings.

“Every once a while, we’ll do a little spontaneous thing, like take the first three people I see out to lunch,” Frantz said. “And then when somebody goes above and beyond, we make a big deal out of it.”

Bradshaw’s department works toward good staff morale by asking often for feedback. Compensation also plays a big role in morale.

“I think our guys are reasonably well-compensated for a municipal fleet in our area,” Bradshaw said. “Our turnover figure is very low...it’s creating a culture. The guys need to feel safe when they come to work, feel valued, they need to feel heard, and they need to feel like they’re part of the team.”

He provided an example of how his department keeps the team members on the same page, noting disagreements that have taken place between workers on the first and second shifts.

“It was like that when I worked fast food as a teenager,” he said. “That’s just a natural thing, but being aware of that and this ‘them’ mentality, ‘they’ did this, we’re all together here, and always reinforcing that we’re on same team [and we need to] keep that ‘otherness’ from creeping into our everyday interactions.”

The fleet team for the city of Salem, Oregon, also experienced disagreements between shifts, and Jim Schmidt, assistant director, service technologies division, for the city of Salem, used leadership skills and a quote from Ford Motor Co. founder, Henry Ford, to ease the problem. Ford said, “If we move forward together, success will take care of itself.” 

“This resonated with the team, and we had two champions who carried the message to the rest of the team,” Schmidt said.

The Salem fleet department held weekly team meetings, increased communications between shifts and made some staff-recommended process changes so the work was spread out more evenly.

“The ‘moving forward’ motto helped get beyond the past quarrelling and helped us build trust in each other,” Schmidt said. “The building of trust by using a team member recommendation invites more recommendations.”

Strong Fleet Leaders Lead, Learn by Example

Frantz says retaining employees is a main challenge, with several of his experienced employees recently retiring or leaving for another position. That has led to an additional challenge: attracting the younger generation as fleet employees. That generation might not appreciate the public sector benefits versus the bottom line on their paycheck.

“Right now we hire based on willingness,” Frantz said. “I’ll take somebody with inexperience and willingness long before I’ll take somebody who has experience but there's going to be a problem.”

Frantz said the team members who do well are the ones willing to learn. He wants people who are self-motivated to check out a service manual for a challenging job instead of just throwing their hands up in the air and saying, “I don’t do that.” Frantz said his department encourages that type of self-motivating behavior.

“We praise them, and we do everything we can to motivate them to complete the steps in their career ladder and get them promoted so that way they’re comfortable and happy being where they are,” Frantz said.

He mentioned Sam, an apprentice technician who recently started with the city. Sam has volunteered often for tasks and to work after hours if needed. Frantz said Sam made up for his lack of experience by being willing to do whatever it took to finish the job. After the fleet department nominated him, Sam won a citywide integrity award. 

“We’re trying to show that fleet is not the police, we’re not the fire department, we’re not facing the public, we don’t get too much glory or anything, and that’s fine with me,” Frantz said. “I want to make sure my guys get recognized.”

Also in the area of leadership and learning, Bradshaw in Knoxville believes in lifelong education. He has earned two master’s degrees, achieving the second one while already a city employee. “Never stop learning, even after you’ve supposedly ‘made it,’” he said. He noted that some technicians on his team who are over age 50 have achieved ASE and other certifications.

That’s leadership by example, he said.

“It’s not about standing there preaching to people telling them what to do,” he said. “It’s setting an example, so that to me is leadership.”

Schmidt of Salem, Ore. agrees on the concept of leadership and learning, and an example is that his division moves people into higher positions when others are out on leave. 

“The helps inspire and motivate them to improve their skills,” Schmidt said. 

The division has experienced some turnover, with several moving on to higher positions within the organization or other organizations. 

“As a leader, if I can help someone get a higher position they want, it's a win-win, even if they leave the organization,” Schmidt said.

Strong Fleet Leaders Delegate

Part of Frantz’s leadership style is to delegate tasks to staff and allow them to make decisions. 

“In doing so, we have to kind of test them a little bit and have a little bit of a leash for a while and make sure that the decisions they make are the right ones or at least justifiable,” Frantz said.

Frantz believes that if staff members take care of customers and can justify their actions, they will probably make the same decisions he would have made in the same situation.

“Where I’m coming from is make sure we’re doing right, we have integrity, and we get the job done,” Frantz said.

Bradshaw agrees on the theme of loosening the reins and letting people get the job done. 

“My philosophy is to surround myself with people who are better than me, and then empower them to make good decisions and to do good work and to trust them,” Bradshaw said. “Not to micromanage, but to set a direction, establish expectations and then hold everyone accountable to those expectations. That’s what leadership is to me.”

Schmidt of Salem, Ore. also said his leadership style involves building trust with team members by being transparent and allowing them to make and own decisions. 

Most people thrive in that type of environment if they have the courage to take initiative, he said.

“Some are hesitant at first, but when they make a mistake, and we all do, I don’t reprimand them,” Schmidt said. “I help them see the knowledge and lesson they’ve gained to not repeat the same mistake.”

Schmidt said complacency is doing what you have always done, with no self-reflection as to why it is done that way. 

“You have to look for a way to improve a process or equipment, or to provide specific training to get improved results.”