By Hilary Morefield

At our recent Insti­tute ses­sion, Interim Mayor Todd Glo­ria dropped by to speak to our fel­lows and share his own per­sonal prin­ci­ples and advice on what it takes to be a suc­cess­ful civic leader. Here are four of the essen­tials (and their back­sto­ries) that he shared.

Pas­sion

“Pas­sion breeds success.”

Glo­ria believes he is lucky in that he knew that he wanted to work in the area of pub­lic ser­vice at a young age. He pur­sued a num­ber of oppor­tu­ni­ties related to pub­lic ser­vice through­out his youth and his enthu­si­asm helped him gain bet­ter expe­ri­ence. He devel­oped his true per­sonal pas­sion for gen­er­at­ing afford­able hous­ing after his time liv­ing in Wash­ing­ton D.C. It’s still an issue he remains pas­sion­ate about and works toward today.

Men­tor­ship

“Find folks who will be cham­pi­ons of yours.”

In his early work, Glo­ria found advice and encour­age­ment from U.S. Con­gress­woman Susan Davis, whom he first met through a high school lead­er­ship pro­gram. Glo­ria and Davis remained in close con­tact over the years and devel­oped a more per­sonal rela­tion­ship. When Glo­ria started nav­i­gat­ing his early career, he looked to Davis’ men­tor­ship to guide him and gain the foot­ing he needed. He encour­aged the fel­lows to seek lead­ers who shared sim­i­lar val­ues to their own.

Open­ness

“Remain open to new ideas and oppor­tu­ni­ties as they present themselves.”

After grad­u­at­ing from the Uni­ver­sity of San Diego with a degree in polit­i­cal sci­ence and his­tory, Glo­ria was unsure of what to pur­sue next. He was invited to move to Wash­ing­ton D.C. to work for a num­ber of months under a Tru­man Schol­ar­ship. He quickly decided to take the oppor­tu­nity. Glo­ria took a red eye flight after grad­u­a­tion and found him­self sit­ting across the desk from Hillary Clin­ton the next day. The tran­si­tion was a fast one, but he chose to delve into the new posi­tion head first and remains thank­ful for it.

Con­fi­dence

“You are your own worst enemy. Don’t allow your­self to be.”

Glo­ria works at a fre­quently unfor­giv­ing rate. His posi­tion tends to lend itself to a con­stant high energy pace, count­less phone calls, and end­less days. He says his pas­sion for what he does and why he does it helps keep his per­sonal energy level up. It is ulti­mately his con­fi­dence in what he is doing that helps encour­age him­self to keep moving.