'Monumental task'

When Rick Mills was a commander in the U.S. Army, a subordinate once commented that it seemed like Mills rarely made a leadership mistake.

The statement surprised Mills. And he knew it wasn't true, especially in military, where missteps were sometimes unavoidable.

“I told him I had made a lot of decisions I didn't like, but I rectified them,” Mills says. “If you feel like a decision you made wasn't the best, you need to own it, address it and correct it. And the more difficult the decision, the more you have to own those and be accountable.”

Mills, who has held leadership positions in both the military and public school districts in Chicago and Minneapolis, brought his management philosophy to the Gulf Coast in March. That's when he was named superintendent of the Manatee County School District amid a budget shortfall and a burgeoning morale crisis. In addition, two prominent athletic coaches in the district are at the forefront of separate alleged ongoing criminal conduct cases.

The $568.3 million, 5,000-employee school district is the largest employer, private or public, in either Sarasota or Manatee counties. A budget that big would be the third-largest business in Manatee County in annual sales. “Turning around this school district is a monumental task,” says Mills, eight months into the job. “Had it continued on the path it was on, it would have been even more monumental.”

Mills' strategy to deal with the wide range of problems focuses on collaboration, leadership without ego, data-infused decisions and, above all else, creation and execution of systematic protocols. It's a strategy many business executives might relate to, a point not lost on Mills, who has an M.B.A. from Webster University and once taught at West Point. “I feel good about what we have done in a short period of time,” says Mills. “We have moved the district forward in the right direction.”

The wrong direction was balloon-full of problems. Predicaments include:

Mills declines to comment on specific personnel cases. The budget issues, meanwhile, fuel Mills' lingering anxiety. “The budget is what keeps me up at night,” Mills says. “We are getting there and getting there quickly. But we are not where we need to be. We are still challenged by finding unexpected costs, even today.”

'Last job'
In outlining his leadership style and management philosophy, Mills, 58, says he doesn't consider himself a turnaround guru who comes in, fixes calamities and bolts out of town. He says he hopes to hold his current job for the next decade. That's atypically long for a school superintendent.

Says Mills: “I want this to be my last job.”

Some of his bosses, the five-member elected Manatee County School Board, hope Mills sticks around for a while, too. School board Chairwoman Karen Carpenter says Mills isn't afraid to challenge employees to do it again, and do it better. And he combines bluntness with creativity — a unique pair for a school bureaucrat.

Even the most recent budget debacle hasn't dented Carpenter's opinion. “At every challenge he validates my vote for him,” says Carpenter. “He's proving he's the right guy for us.”

Carpenter says one of Mills' best moves, a nod to his anti-ego ethos, happened his first week, when he named Diana Greene deputy superintendent for instruction. Greene was a finalist for the Manatee County superintendent post Mills ultimately won. Mills and Greene, most recently the deputy superintendent of curriculum for the Marion County School District in Ocala, met each other in February, when both were in town for interviews.

“He reached out to her within two days,” Carpenter says. “That's a very confident guy.”

School board member Bob Gause also says one of Mills' best attributes is his ability to hire smart people and put them in the right positions. No surprise, then, that one of Mills' favorite leadership books is “Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...and Others Don't.” The popular 2001 Jim Collins book lays out the “right people, right seats” theory. “Good to Great,” Mills says, “is the go-to book I use to empower me to move this school district to greatness.”

Gause says Deputy Superintendent for Operations Don Hall is a “right people” hire for Mills. Hall and Mills worked together in Minneapolis, and Gause calls the deputy an “amazing resource.”

Mills has made other key hires. He created budget and finance director positions that never existed in the district. Mills also hired an executive director of human resources and he redid the district's organizational chart.

Nonetheless, while Gause says Mills has done some good things, it's too early to tell if his leadership moves, from blunt assessments to good hires, will pay off. That, says Gause, might take a year or two, and it depends somewhat on how true Mills can stay to his convictions. “There's no question changes need to be made,” says Gause, “and you don't have to be a rocket scientist to realize there will be pushback.”

Squash the silos
Mills has no problem pushing back.

He says he's already encountered the “old-guard” mentality in some parts of the district, like some groupthink-styled silos in the administrative offices. Mills says he squashed the silos through new hires, and through setting new expectations.

“We have to get around the 'we always did it this way' thinking,” Mills says. “We have to change the culture.”

Mills grew up in Johnstown Pa., a blue-collar city about 70 miles east of Pittsburgh. He spent 24 years in the U.S. Army before he got into education. He retired in the rank of lieutenant colonel in 2001, but not before he held post everywhere from Fort Knox to Jerusalem, where he worked with the U.N. Mills also spent three years at U.S. Central Command at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa.

An east Manatee County resident, Mills says the Army taught him how to see six steps ahead of everyone else. He would have stayed in the Army, too. But Paul Vallas, who ran the Chicago Public Schools system and was cited by former President Bill Clinton for his work in school reforms, recruited him to the Windy City.

Mills worked directly under some national figures in Chicago, including six-term Mayor Richard Daley and then-Chicago Public Schools CEO Arne Duncan, now U.S. Secretary of Education. Mills considers both Daley and Duncan his primary leadership mentors.

A big takeaway for Mills from those leaders, something he first began to learn in the Army: Be quick and decisive. Never let a situation fester.

“Some leaders, especially in education, tend to talk to 50 people before they make a decision,” Mills says. “But I might talk to two or three. I'm comfortable making a decision without having a plethora of conversations.”

Bio: Rick Mills
Hometown: Johnstown, Pa.
First job: Worked a 6 p.m. to midnight shift at a local gas station in high school.
Military career: 24 years in the U.S. Army. Taught at West Point. Stations included Fort Knox; Jerusalem with the U.N.; and U.S. Central Command at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa.
School administration career: CEO of Minneapolis Public Schools from July 2011 to March 2013. Spent 10 years before that in executive positions in Chicago Public Schools, including two years in charge of 26 high schools.
Favorite leadership books: Mills has read “The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People will Follow You,” by John C. Maxwell, 25 times. The rule about producing more leaders, says Mills, is especially necessary for the Manatee County School District. His two other favorite leadership authors are Jim Collins, who wrote “Good to Great,” and Patrick Lencioni, who wrote “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.”
Hobbies: Plays golf, occasionally, and spends time with his wife and two dogs. Mills also recently bought a small fish tank for his office, which helps him relax.