TenHaken talks next steps after City Hall

Feb. 12, 2025

Mayor Paul TenHaken is watching the snow pile up outside his City Hall office in the final weeks of 2025 with two numbers blending in his head.

The first: 640, the number of people counted as homeless in Sioux Falls through the most recent count in early 2025.

The second: More than 170, the number of churches he says operate in the city.

“It’s roughly four per church,” he said, imagining if each church rallied around four people.

If that managed to happen, homelessness essentially “is done,” he said. “It’s over.”

In the final months of his second term, TenHaken identifies with a quote he heard recently from television host Mike Rowe, whose foundation supports education in skilled trades and who recently visited Sioux Falls to mark a $2 million donation from Wells Fargo to advance technical education.

“(He) said, ‘Most of the problems in our community don’t have a solution that ends in dot gov,’” TenHaken said. “They’re part of the solution, but they’re not the solution.”

TenHaken came to City Hall nearly eight years ago as a government outsider, a product of the entrepreneurial private sector who still inherently views many issues through that lens. The founder of marketing firm Click Rain, he entered elected office having never been on a ballot before but with a history of leading a culture-focused organization.

It’s maybe not surprising, then, that despite two terms that saw the city achieve record building and population growth, he looks inward first in talking about accomplishments.

“I hate this question: ‘What are you most proud of?’” he said. “I think people want you to say we got debt per capita low.”

Instead, “it’s really becoming clear that I’m most proud of building this team,” he said. “It’s not any project. It’s not any partnership. It’s the team we’ve put together. The team has done all the work. I’ve hired them and given them the freedom to get things done.”

If there’s a second question he seems to hear routinely, it’s this:

“I’m getting asked a lot what my plans are,” TenHaken said. “And what I tell a lot of people is that I’m ungovernable. I haven’t worked really for someone in almost 20 years. I work for 220,000 people right now, but the most joy I get out of this job is when I get to lead people and develop people. It leads to my next chapter. That’s what I’m good at is empowering people and building teams.”

As he prepares to leave office midyear, TenHaken has been formulating plans for his next self-employed venture. He envisions himself offering a mix of leadership development, executive coaching, business and government strategy, public speaking, and public relations and crisis communications.

“I’d like to help businesses get more out of their teams, help businesses struggling with motivating their teams or who have succession-planning challenges or leadership challenges and go in and see if I can provide value,” he said.

“It’s what I’ve been doing the last 20 years private and public sector, and I want to bring that expertise to the rest of the world.”

Additionally, he plans to launch the TenFold Leadership Fellowship, designed to unite up to 10 individuals by invitation to an annual cohort beginning in the fall.

“I think there’s a bit of a gap in our marketplace for an intense, C-suite leader program,” he said. “I am acutely aware of how lonely it is at the top for high-test leaders, people at the top of the food chain in their organization that are supposed to have it all together, supposed to be physically healthy, supposed to have strong mental health and be able to take care of their people and be financially secure. They’re pouring into everyone else, and no one is pouring into them.”

The idea would be to bring together advanced executives committed to building legacy, expanding influence and creating lasting impact, he said. The program would be a confidential yearlong development experience designed to help identify blind spots, grow self-awareness and build “level 10” leadership skills.

“It’s all about vulnerability and candidness,” he added. “This is meant to help. And there’s a religious and physical health component. Mind, body, spirit, business. At the end of the day, I love people, and I found my passion is investing in making people better. I think this job has instilled that in me.”

‘A guy with a calling’

Before Jon Thum was appointed chief of police in 2021, he mostly had known TenHaken from a distance.

“You wonder, ‘What’s this guy really like?’ You have this perception. And immediately, I was impressed with just how he interacted with everybody,” Thum said. “I think sometimes we see people and have this idea that they’re not really that way. That’s just the persona. That’s not the way they are behind closed doors. We have in our nature to be cynical about politicians. And no, that’s really the way he is — if not a little better.”

As a member of the city’s director group, Thum has witnessed TenHaken’s collaborative approach to leadership.

“In this style, we all had voice, and our opinions and input were valued,” he said.

“I could educate you on aspects of the library and health department and things outside my lane because of this style of leadership. I understand how we’re all interconnected as city government and something like childhood literacy affects my work on a day-to-day basis at the police department. That style is really collaborative, but make no doubt about it, at the end of the day somebody has to be in charge and a leader who defines the priorities, and there was never a doubt when tough decisions needed to be made he was up for it.”

TenHaken fostered a “positive and uplifting” culture within city government, Thum added. “This is a guy on a mission. A guy with a calling. And I know for a fact whatever he does will be fulfilling, what he feels called to do.”

As a consultant, TenHaken will benefit from having led an organization in which actual years of experience translate more to “dog years,” Thum joked.

“An eight-year term of mayor, it’s like (gaining) 56 years of experience in all these different things, especially in the world of what’s most scrutinized,” he said. “When you come from making high-consequence, highly scrutinized decisions, you gain a different perspective on what crisis is to navigate.”

Chad Hatch saw that at work while climbing Mount Kilimanjaro with TenHaken in 2024, after accepting the mayor’s invitation to scale the highest freestanding mountain above sea level in the world.

In a group of more than 50 people from around the world, “all the guides would be in front, and they had this dance ceremony and were singing in their own language, and Paul’s up there directing traffic,” Hatch said.

“He’s just got a great ability to communicate with people. I’ve been to Haiti (doing mission work) with him eight times, and wherever he goes — Kilimanjaro, Haiti — every place I go, people are attracted to him. He cares about people. He energizes people. He can mobilize people in a way I’ve seen very few people do. He’s a natural at doing that.”

Hatch, a strategic adviser at Elgethun Capital Management, sees a need in the market for the kind of consultancy TenHaken plans to offer.

“There’s a huge need for it, and sometimes people don’t even know where to get started,” he said. “I think he has a huge blue sky to do all kinds of things. What he gets started doing is probably not going to be what he ends up doing because he’s so entrepreneurial. It’s tough to articulate how he’s going to make an impact, but … he can get involved and help create cultural change (even) within a large organization, and the larger ones are tougher to move the needle.”

TenHaken said he also plans to deliberately lower his public profile when leaving office.

“I’m going to consciously not show up where I don’t think I should be for at least a year,” he said.

“You won’t see me at events I went to as mayor. You won’t see me at ribbon cuttings, not because I don’t enjoy them but because it’s not my place, and it will be time for the next mayor to have that space. Mayor Huether was very gracious about that. He did not show up for things for quite a few years because he knew it was my time to be there, and I appreciated that. I want to give the next mayor the same courtesy.”

He also doesn’t rule out future public office.

“I would never say never. But the temperature right now is too hot for me. My style of leadership, I don’t know if it works or fits in the political climate we’re in right now,” TenHaken said. “My faith is a big part of my life, and I would pray about it and leave my heart open to it, and if that’s the direction I’m led, I would never say no.”

At the same time, there’s work to be done in the mayor’s office over the next several months — including a close focus on the South Dakota Legislature, particularly around economic development-related bills.

He’s also mindful of finishing certain work at City Hall, “making sure the slate is nice and clean for the next mayor,” he said, hinting that there still might be more news to come from his administration.

“We’re running through the finish line strong, and we’re not done yet. There are one or two big rabbits to pull out of the hat before June 2 comes.”

In a lot of ways, the final months in office feel like the reflections of a parent, TenHaken said.

In the thick of it, “you’re like, will the kid ever get out of diapers? Or, I can’t wait until this phase has passed. And then when it is passed, you realize how special that was,” he said.

“There’s definitely been days and weeks I’ve wished it all away. And now that it’s almost over, it’s like, did I really take advantage of the time and enjoy the special moments enough and celebrate the wins enough? I hope I did. Hopefully in the next six months, we’ll have a few more wins to celebrate before the time is up. But overall, did I enjoy it? Absolutely. It’s been the honor of a lifetime.”

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