Yama Paillere brings more than a decade of public-sector experience to the City of North Miami. As Chief of Staff, she works across departments to connect people, priorities and purpose, while strengthening communication, mentoring and staff development throughout the organization. Her leadership balances accountability with genuine support, helping foster a workplace culture built on collaboration, consistency and a shared commitment to the City’s mission.
Seeing the Whole Organization
For Yama Paillere, the work of a Chief of Staff begins with seeing the whole organization without losing sight of the people inside of it. At the City of North Miami, that means moving across departments, understanding how their responsibilities intersect and making connections visible to employees whose daily work can otherwise become siloed. Throughout her career in public service, she has developed an approach centered on four principles: consistency, purpose, organization and employee support.
“One of the greatest gifts that I have is being a chief of staff, not just for a department, but for the entire city,” states Paillere.
The breadth of that role gives her an unusual vantage point. She can step into a department, observe how its work is unfolding and understand how a project or responsibility connects to what another team is doing. She sees that visibility as part of the job itself.
It is easy for employees to work in silos, particularly when they do not see how one department’s work connects to the next. Her task, then, is not merely to coordinate priorities but to help people understand the larger system in which their work sits.
The Four Principles
That perspective shapes how Paillere engages with employees. She believes consistency matters because leadership is measured not only by what happens on a good day, but how a leader shows up when circumstances are less predictable. Purpose gives employees a reason to see their work as more than a series of tasks. Organization provides the procedures and structure needed to navigate the demands of public service. And support is what allows people to bring their best effort to all three.
Service delivery improvement is directly linked to how an employee is feeling supported or not supported.
For Paillere, that support has to be visible and reciprocal. She makes a point of visiting departments and engaging with the people doing the work, rather than allowing a divide to grow between administration and frontline employees. During a community health fair hosted by the Housing and Social Services Department, for example, she made a point of stopping in, seeing the event and observing the community engagement firsthand. The gesture was simple, but it reflects a larger view of leadership: if employees are expected to show up for the city, leaders should show up for them.
Developing People, Not Just Programs
That commitment naturally extends to how she thinks about development. Paillere does not regard professional growth as a single program that can be applied uniformly across an organization. Employees arrive with different experiences, ambitions and needs, so she favors the range of opportunities provided by the City of North Miami: mentoring, workshops, conferences and other forms of professional learning. The City’s partnership with Big Brothers Big Sisters is one example. Midlevel managers can mentor others while continuing to develop themselves, creating a relationship in which the mentor also learns by sharing knowledge and responsibility. For Paillere, development works best when it is responsive to the person rather than prescribed in advance.
“ By holding myself accountable, I cannot expect from others what I, myself, do not bring to the table. “
“Service delivery improvement is directly linked to how an employee is feeling supported or not supported,” she says.
Employee engagement, therefore, is not simply a morale exercise. Informal opportunities to connect with administration, communicate outside project discussions and feel part of the workplace can strengthen relationships that matter when the work becomes demanding. The connection between employee experience and public service is, for Paillere, direct.
Support, with Standards
Yet support does not mean lowering the bar. Paillere pairs an employee-centered approach with a firm belief in accountability, beginning with herself.
“By holding myself accountable, I cannot expect from others what I, myself, do not bring to the table,” says Paillere.
By making that standard visible in her own actions, Paillere turns accountability from something expected of others into something she demonstrates herself. Employees and department directors are responsible for contributing to organizational goals, but they must also have the support, resources and opportunities needed to succeed. For Paillere, excellence is not about perfection. It is about bringing a strong commitment to the work, learning along the way and continuously finding ways to improve.
That balance is also central to the workplace culture. Paillere does not believe culture can be created by one person or announced through a single initiative. Positive workplace culture is dependent on genuine participation, communication and buy-in across the organization. Complete agreement may be impossible, she acknowledges, but meaningful progress becomes possible when a majority of employees understand and support the direction of the organization. Her approach to change follows the same logic: strategies borrowed from elsewhere may be useful, but they need to be understood, adapted and made relevant to the people who will carry them forward.
A Leadership Built on Connection
For Paillere, that makes leadership less a matter of finding a perfect formula than of paying attention to the organization, to its people and to the connections between them. Her citywide perspective helps her see where those connections can be strengthened; her emphasis on development gives employees room to grow; and her insistence on visible accountability keeps support tied to responsibility.
Paillere also acknowledges for her to do her job well, she maintains the connection with the city’s administrative team from City Manager Theresa Therilus, to Senior Assistant City Manager John Lorfils, Assistant City Manager Katia Philippeaux, Marilu Nava, Millie Viega and the whole team in the City Manager’s Office. “I believe great feats are accomplished in our connections, not through solo acts.”
Together, those qualities define the leadership recognized through the Chief of Staff of the Year 2026 award.
At its center is a simple idea: stronger public service begins inside the organization, where employees have clarity, support and the confidence to deliver for their communities.
