CEO Leadership in Challenging Times: APTA's Bill Millar

Bill Millar has been president & CEO of the American Public Transportation Association since 1996, after serving as CEO of the Port Authority of Allegheny County, the principal transit operator in Greater Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and as an executive in the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation. A strong supporter of transportation research, Bill is the recipient of the Founding Father Award for his leadership in establishing the Transit Cooperative Research Program, and he has been a member of the Executive Committee of the Transportation Research Board for many years.

I recently spent a fascinating and thoroughly enjoyable hour with Bill, discussing public transportation CEO leadership in challenging times. Here are some highlights from our discussion.

Doug: Bill, what do you see as the knowledge, skills and attributes that are most important to CEO success in these rapidly changing, challenging times?

Bill: I could talk about a lot of skills and attributes, Doug, but I’ll focus on what I consider the big four: communicating with the public; being both patient and action-oriented; having a solid moral compass; and focusing on the people-side of the business. Being an effective communicator – explaining the public transportation system in a community to its residents – is one of the CEO’s most important skills. For one thing, it means listening carefully to what people are saying; otherwise, you can’t possibly know what people think about your operation. During my years as CEO of the Port Authority in Pittsburgh, I made a point of riding our buses regularly, observing and listening to our customers, and I also faithfully read the letters that people sent us. As you can imagine, Doug, I heard many more complaints than compliments, as is the custom in public transportation, but I needed to know what attitudes I was contending with when I ventured out in the community – which I did often – to speak about the Port Authority’s operations. Public transportation is such a complex business, so hard to get a handle on and involving such significant expenditures that the CEO’s got to specialize in being the system’s Educator-in-Chief in order to build public understanding and support.

Public transportation CEOs obviously can’t rule by fiat. You can’t just plow ahead in new directions as a CEO, whether it’s adding or cutting service or launching a major capital project; if you do, you’re doomed to fail. Decision making in public transportation can be a pretty convoluted process with lots of politics involved, so an effective CEO has to have the patience to work through process, including sitting through lots of meetings with lots of constituents and stakeholders. I really mean more than just patience; I see a new breed of CEO emerging around the country who doesn’t just tolerate process, but plays an active role in designing it. It’s all too easy to get caught up in endlessly spinning wheels. But you’ve got to balance this patience with a bias for action; otherwise inertia will win the day, and nothing will ultimately get accomplished. I see emerging national leaders like Michael Townes in Hampton Roads and Steve Bland in Pittsburgh who appear to have mastered this critical balance.

Two other attributes at the top of my list are having a solid moral compass and treating public transportation as truly a people business. Really successful CEOs, in my experience, employ different techniques and even styles in dealing with different constituencies, whether we’re talking about riders, staff, the board, appointing authorities like county commissions – whatever. But they don’t ever change who they fundamentally are, which I think comes down to core values. Not only do CEOs who are successful over the long run have a clear set of values to live and work by, they put them into practice day after day and don’t ever contradict them in important ways. That’s what we mean by “authenticity,” and if the people around you sense that you’re not authentic, they’re not going to be inspired, and they’ll for sure lose trust and commitment. Another thing, to be a successful CEO in public transportation, you’ve got to love working with people. This is a people business above all else, and you can’t succeed as a CEO if you hide in your office; you’ve got to be out there building relationships – with your staff, your board, your key stakeholders. Human relationships are a huge part of the leadership business, much more important than technical knowledge and skills when you reach the CEO level.

Doug: Would you talk about the greatest executive leadership challenge you’ve faced in recent years as APTA’s CEO, Bill.

Bill: That’s an easy one, Doug: governance. Over the past three years, and especially the past year in terms of intensity, we’ve been reviewing and developing ideas for changing APTA’s governing structure, focusing on the composition of the Executive Committee and Board of Directors and the role of committee chairs. We’re pretty well through the process now, as the bylaw changes are out for a vote of the membership. Everyone one involved at the Board and executive level at APTA can be satisfied that we’ve accomplished what we set out to do, but it required that I, as CEO, do what I think of as a “delicate dance.” What I mean by that is that most of my leadership has been behind the scenes; I’ve avoided being the driver of the process, because the governance structure, including the Board’s composition, is the APTA members’ business, not staff’s. The task force of members that developed the plan had to work through the issues, reach its own consensus, and make its own decisions. My job has been to help design the decision making process and to be a facilitator, helping members work through the issues. But there was one point in the process when we got caught in some wheel spinning, and couldn’t seem to get any traction, when it was clear I needed to be more assertive, and I did weigh in with a strong opinion. But as soon as things were back on track, I stepped back and put on my leading-from-behind facilitator hat again. To tell the truth, I enjoyed the delicate dance; it certainly kept me on my toes, and apparently worked.