The headlines are bleeding with the usual bureaucratic anxiety. Two senior leaders at Calgary city administration—the heads of planning and community services—are out. The "insider" consensus is already forming: a narrative of instability, a "brain drain," or a toxic culture at 800 Macleod Trail.
They are wrong.
In the private sector, when a leadership team fails to deliver on core KPIs while costs spiral, we don't call a departure "instability." We call it a Tuesday. The obsession with "continuity" in municipal government is a terminal illness. It is the reason why projects take a decade to break ground and why "consultation" has become a synonym for "stagnation."
The exit of senior leadership isn't a crisis. It is a correction.
The Myth of the Essential Bureaucrat
The loudest critics of these departures cling to the idea that senior administrators hold the "institutional memory" required to keep the city running. This is a fallacy. In many cases, that memory is actually just a collection of old habits, outdated regulatory hurdles, and a "that’s how we’ve always done it" mindset that creates a bottleneck for any meaningful change.
When a City Manager or a Council decides to part ways with top-tier executives, the public assumes there is a fire. They should be looking for the broom.
Imagine a scenario where a private developer tried to navigate Calgary’s permit process with the same "continuity" that has existed for the last fifteen years. They would go bankrupt before the first shovel hit the dirt. If the leaders overseeing those processes aren't moving at the speed of the economy, they shouldn't be in the building.
The High Cost of Staying the Course
The "lazy consensus" argues that turnover at the top creates a vacuum.
I have seen organizations—both public and private—spend millions trying to preserve a culture that was fundamentally broken. They fear the "disruption" of a vacancy more than the rot of a plateau. But here is the reality: a vacancy is an opportunity to redefine the mission.
Calgary is currently facing a housing crisis, an identity shift in its downtown core, and a massive infrastructure deficit. You do not solve 21st-century urban problems with a 1990s leadership playbook. If the current administration is clearing the decks, it suggests a level of self-awareness that is usually absent in government. They are admitting that the status quo is no longer fit for purpose.
Why "Stability" Is a Trap
- Echo Chambers: Long-tenured leaders often surround themselves with "yes-people" who protect the leader's legacy rather than the city's future.
- Sunk Cost Bias: Senior bureaucrats are often psychologically married to projects they started years ago, even if those projects no longer make sense.
- Risk Aversion: The longer someone stays in a high-ranking government role, the more they have to lose by taking a bold, necessary risk.
Breaking the "People Also Ask" Delusions
If you look at the common questions surrounding municipal turnover, the premise is almost always flawed.
"Does high turnover mean the Mayor is hard to work for?"
Wrong question. The right question is: "Is the Mayor finally demanding accountability that the previous administration ignored?" If a leader is "hard to work for" because they demand results and efficiency, then we need more of that friction, not less.
"How will this affect city services?"
Brutally honestly: It won't. The people who pick up your trash, fix the water mains, and drive the CTrain don't stop working because a General Manager in a corner office packed their bags. The "service delivery" argument is a ghost story told by people who want to keep their jobs without having to innovate.
The Brutal Truth About "Interim" Leadership
The media loves to hand-wring about "interim" titles. They see it as a sign of a rudderless ship. In reality, an interim leader is a gift to an organization.
Interim leaders aren't there to build a career; they are there to bridge a gap. They have the unique freedom to cut through red tape and identify the dead weight because they aren't worried about their five-year plan. If Calgary uses these interim periods to audit the departments of Planning and Community Services, they will find efficiencies that a permanent, "stable" leader would have been too polite to mention.
The Battle Scars of Change
I’ve seen cities try to "foster" (to use a banned term of the mediocre) a sense of safety by never firing anyone. The result is always the same: a bloated, sluggish machine that spends 80% of its budget on its own internal process and 20% on the public.
The downside to a contrarian, high-turnover approach is real: you lose some specialized knowledge. You might even have a few months of slower decision-making while the new guard settles in. But that is a small price to pay for the chance to inject fresh, external perspectives into a system that has become dangerously insular.
Calgary needs leaders who understand that the city is a platform for growth, not a museum to be preserved.
Stop Mourning the Exit
The departure of two senior leaders isn't a sign that Calgary is failing. It’s a sign that the city is finally acknowledging that the old ways of managing urban growth and community services aren't working.
We should be asking why more people aren't leaving. We should be looking at every department and asking: "If we were starting this city from scratch today, would we hire this person to lead it?"
If the answer is no, they should be out the door by Friday.
The most dangerous thing for Calgary isn't an empty office at City Hall. It’s an office filled by someone who has stopped asking "Why?" and started saying "Because that’s the policy."
Clear the desks. Hire the disruptors. Stop apologizing for the turnover.
Fire the "experts" who managed us into this mess and find the builders who can get us out of it.
