This is a copy of my weekly blog which I write for work and is published on the council's intranet.  The views I express in this log are my own, professional, views as the Head of Communications but do not necessarily reflect those of the authority itself.

I asked one of my colleagues a few weeks back about what he found frustrating about me and my leadership style.

'Not a lot' was the answer (which is encouraging) but he did say that he felt I did too much 'doing' sometimes and got involved in some issues when perhaps I should be taking a wider view about communications and what the team does.

I suspect that means I need to be a bit more strategic - you know - like the foreman of the works who supervises and gives direction but probably doesn't actually pick up a shovel.

I've been trying to do that since those comments were made and I hope my colleague has noticed.

However, when the chief executive called on Thursday morning to ask me to 'sort out the issue of a scaffold pole and a rather stressed BBC director' (don't ask) at the election count venue, I had to go back into 'doing' mode.

A few phone calls later and the BBC man was less concerned about the scaffold pole.

And as I was in 'doing mode' I was unable to resist the call to help move the Portaloos into place outside the main count building.  Despite the Portaloo delivery driver's doubts we did manage to shift three tonnes of toilet into place fairly swiftly.

Who says communications people can't multi-task!

Talking of elections - six days on and it seems we've finally got some clarity about who's going to be in charge of the country in future, even if we're still waiting for news here in Leeds.

Having spoken to a number of senior politicians over the last 24 hours I know that there is a lot of talking going on.  Let's hope that the clarity we need is forthcoming very soon.

Witnessing events first hand last Thursday night and Friday morning was fascinating.  The media scrum was a bit embarrassing to be honest and it was interesting to hear journalists tell me that they were really only there to watch a certain national politician 'do a walk of shame' as he lost his seat ... which of course he didn't in the end.

One media organisation rocked up with about a dozen members of staff and another just sent one.  In contrast, the local election on Friday attracted hardly any interest at all.

Then, there were those very misleading pictures filmed by the BBC of a queue outside Boar Lane polling station.  It was reported that 'people had been turned away from voting' and the pictures were used to illustrate it.

What the BBC failed to point out was the fact it recorded the film almost 40 minutes before polls closed.  As far as we know there were and have been no complaints from voters at Boar Lane and the presiding officer there has reported no issues either.

We complained in the strongest terms to the BBC about this and it altered the script but continued to use the misleading images.

This caused a great deal of discussion on many social media channels because people assumed the BBC's inaccurate representation of the story was considered to be fact.  Again, we did our best to correct this, but were then accused by several 'tweeters' of being 'uber defensive' and trying to cover something up!

I think it would be helpful if people weren't so trusting of their chosen source of news!

Right - back to some of the issues from previous logs, namely internal communications.

Thanks for the additional comments you've been sending in.  Ben, from environmental services, emailed:

“In terms of internal communications, I have always thought it would be a good idea to have a [question and answers] Q & A facility for staff to ask questions to get an 'official response'.

“This could be done at directorate level or even at corporate level where a [directorate leadership team] DLT or even [corporate leadership team] CLT could receive questions from staff and then an official response could be presented to staff.

“This may benefit the authority as it may lead to (i) more staff asking questions or suggesting ideas; perhaps even those staff who don't normally express views at meetings etc or feel that they have a 'say' and (ii) will assist senior managers and CLT being more visible to staff on the front line.”

Great idea Ben – I want to do this ‘live’ on the intranet, over say a lunchtime with colleagues able to pose questions there and then as well as submitting them via email etc.

And Fiona, from the libraries team sent me this:

“Just a note to say how much I'm enjoying reading your captain's log, and it's making me laugh!!”

[Excellent – that’s good to hear!]

“On Ena's point – 'Ena in the land charges team emailed: [On] improving internal communications, how about setting up a discussion forum accessible only to @leeds.gov.uk email addresses?’

“I agree that would be another good tool to help us wrestle with the long standing communications challenges we all face, however is it worth pointing out that many of us especially in the Leeds library and information service world, are on the Leeds Learning network email system (like myself) and can't access leeds.gov.uk? I would think that many of us (or at least some) would like the opportunity to be included if a discussion forum was established.”

Yep – all taken on board.  None of our communications (messages or channels) should exclude, so the technical aspects are something we would clearly have to overcome.

Thank you, as ever, for your feedback.

Finally, some late BREAKING NEWS: Watch the One Show tomorrow (Thursday).  The film about our plain English work is going to be shown.