Kelsey Hornicek, MPA

I always say my dad. My dad is a heavy equipment operator, or he was before he retired, and he traveled hours each way to go work on some of the largest infrastructure projects in the state area up around New York City. He was also a volunteer fireman on top of that - he was third generation in my local community, and my brother was fourth generation. My grandfather, my father, and my brother had over 100 years of service combined. I really watched how my whole family gave back through the volunteer fire department. I live in a tight-knit, small community, and we are based around what we do for others. They don't do it for money, they do it because it's the service, and we need it. That's the way I was brought up, and I will always attribute my success to that and my trajectory to that. I learned to show up at the local fundraiser and work all day to raise money for the volunteer fire department to operate, and how to have discipline for something that wasn't personally benefiting you in any way. It was just about trying to help and give back and do your part, doing it selflessly.

You're not gonna please everybody, so you need to remain authentic to yourself and focus on what you can control. Control what you can control - that is the number one thing I tell people when I'm mentoring them. You can control how you show up every day. You can control how you discipline yourself to stay focused. You can control how you speak to people. I talk a lot about lead by design and the process, which is a Nick Saban sports theology, but it's about controlling the mechanisms that make you great at what you do. You don't focus on the outcome, you focus every day on what you're gonna do today - I'm gonna be accountable, I'm gonna speak clearly - and you just continue to build on that. That's honestly been the advice I've compiled for myself, and then the advice that I continue to coach and mentor into other people as I work up the chain.

You gotta have thick skin, because you're gonna have people always that doubt you, that think you're rising too fast, or think you don't have enough experience to contribute. Contribute anyway. Contribute thoughtfully, and that doesn't mean be the loudest in the room. You know, be thoughtful about it, be strategic about it, but know your value. Also, ensure that you keep around you the people that support that confidence in you. And I don't mean people that give you a big head - I have one friend, Lois, who I treasure, and I always thank her because she doesn't ever shy away from telling me when I'm doing a great job, but she's also willing to tell me when she disagrees with me, and I love that. Not everyone's gonna agree with you all the time, so having those trusted people around you that you've built that rapport with, when they'll give you the flowers when you need the flowers, but then also challenge you and say 'let me challenge you here, I don't know that I agree with your thought process there' - that's super important. I coach people to find those people and keep them around you. Culture those relationships. They are integral to your success.

It is a male-dominated field. I have worked mostly across construction and engineering. The hard thing that people don't like to say out loud is that there's still a lot of competition between women for the seat at the table, and I'm gonna be a little ageist here and say I see it more prevalently in the generation that's two above me. They fought so hard to have that seat, and hats off to them because we wouldn't be here without them, but it's almost like they can't come back out of that sometimes. They still think you're coming for the one seat that's at the table, but I have seen that there's more seats at the table. I was only the second woman nominated to the board of the Sullivan County Partnership for Economic Development, but 3 years after me, I got to induct 3 more women. When I got nominated to that board, I was in my late 20s, I was 28, and I was sitting at the boardroom with the local old male CEOs. Meanwhile, I'm working on a $400 million program for the State of New York. We started the Women in Business event annually and really worked to foster that culture of inclusion. For opportunities, I say start with project coordinator and work your way up to project manager. Understand what project management actually means - it's not an admin position, it's not an overhead position, it is an early leadership position. Use it as such. Take up space in the room. Then you can take that to a lot of different places - Value Change Office, Transformation Management Office, Enterprise PMO, program management. If you're good at organizing stuff, go to project coordination, go to project management, because that's what the nuts and bolts of that is, and there's lots of opportunities after that.

Accountability. I will say that time and time again. Accountability is so important to me. As a leader, I believe that you show accountability first. Accountability is walking into the room and never pretending you're perfect. We are all human. We all make mistakes, we make bad decisions, and all you gotta say is, you know what, that wasn't my best, that wasn't my best that day, but this is what I'm gonna do to change it. To me, that's accountability. When someone comes into my office and they're constantly saying, oh, I can't get this done because so-and-so does this, my immediate feedback is, rephrase that, please. What can you do differently? Look to yourself first. I've seen it firsthand where leaders allow this culture to breed, and it just spreads like a disease, and then all of a sudden people won't work together. We're all showing up as human, giving people a break. We're all working really, really hard, and sometimes maybe you're just not explaining it as well as you could be, or you're just really not setting the expectation as well as you could be. Look to yourself first, and then look to other people, because no one's perfect.