Book excerpt: Local government has rapidly become both more important and more complex and the quality of municipal management is becoming more significant every day as local governments deal with a vast array of organizational and community challenges. The Role of Canadian City Managers brings together experienced city managers and municipal chief administrative officers (CAOs) across Canada to analyse the daily issues that they face. Each chapter deals with a particular issue or challenge, such as council/staff relations, collaborative initiatives, and crisis readiness. The book contributes to the literature on local government and public administration by providing insights from the "real time" lived experiences of city managers, spoken in their own words. The book also speculates about the contemporary leadership role of the city manager and the future of the city management profession. The Role of Canadian City Managers is a useful resource for scholars and students of local government and public administration, as well as public servants who work with or aspire to leadership roles within local government.