Herocrats in Action: Melissa Wiley

“Every person on the earth needs to speak their truth. People’s lives get bad or good depending on how comfortable they are with speaking their truth. If they can’t, it can lead to depression. If they can, they can bring it out in other people. They can help people live their best lives.

Public speaking is a way for me to speak my truth. My face was disfigured in a dog attack when I was a child. As a young adult I was the happiest when nobody mentioned it. I lived in fear of people asking blunt questions. I wanted to reinvent myself and have a new chapter.

In grad school I had a public speaking professor, Buck Benedict, who encouraged me to give an inspirational speech about being attacked and how I dealt with it. I thought, ‘what if I did, and it gave me the power back? I’d no longer be at the mercy of people’s questions.’ I gave my speech and you could have heard a pin drop. Buck sat in the front row and stayed with me. He said it was one of the best speeches her ever heard.

That was the beginning of my journey in how my life improved and how much connection I’ve been able to make with people. I take it to my work in local government where I open up spaces full of grace and ask people to speak truthfully.

I do this exercise with government employees in which I ask them to finish this sentence: ‘I want to innovate, but. . .’ In their answers, the number one category is always people. Usually, co-workers and bosses.

So the barriers to serving the community better are the people they see every day. We can’t tell citizens that ‘the reason you don’t have this service is that I don’t like my co-worker.’ We need to humanize each other and listen to each other’s stories.”

Melissa Wiley is the Deputy Town Administrator in Erie, Colorado.