After paying his dues on the Bristol police department’s night shift, John Leone was finally working days. He was happy to settle back and enjoy the more reasonable hours, so it’s not surprising that he was reluctant to try for a sergeant’s position — that move would have landed him back on nights. But with the urging of a senior officer, he took the sergeant’s test and ended up with the promotion.
But it was that decision — between staying comfortable or putting up with hardship for the sake of moving upward — that put Leone on a course to head up the detective division at the department, then to the city council, and eventually to become mayor of Bristol in 1984.
Now the President and CEO of the Central Connecticut Chambers of Commerce, Leone credits the influence of his senior officer as the catalyst that nudged him on his path.
“His advice was probably the best advice I took,” Leone said. “From that point, I’ve never looked back.”
Because he was willing to make some sacrifices for a few years, he was in a position to move up fast when higher ranks opened up. It taught Leone not to be afraid to take a chance, even if the short-term results might not be ideal.
Leone’s work as a police officer gave him a lot of insight into dealing with people, something a past job had laid the foundation for: Prior to joining the force, Leone was a shoe salesman.
That had been a high school-era job, where he was hired in a local store as a stock boy but eventually helped out customers as well. Police work is a bit more intense, Leone says, but both jobs helped him learn how to relate to other people.
One thing was certain: Leone was better at reading people than at working with machinery.
During his high school days, he got a job at General Motors to work a machine that ground down raw metals into bearings. It was a fairly prosperous job at the time, but it didn’t turn out to be a long-term option for Leone. It’s not that he was bad at the work, but he admits he didn’t have the knack for it that some people have: “I’m not mechanically inclined.”
Instead, Leone went the civil servant and public service route. Working as a policeman helped make him a successful politician, he said, because of the sheer amount of human interaction the job required. It helps you size somebody up fairly quickly — a good skill to have in politics as well, he said.
And as police work informed his political career, his political career led naturally to his job at the chamber. Leone said the previous mayor before him had also gone on to take over the chamber. It’s a natural fit, really: both mayors had been very pro-business, were knowledgeable about economic development — and mayors tend to have a lot of contacts.
Leone stepped down from the mayor’s office in 1991 and will be retiring from his current job this year. He’ll stay on most of his nonprofit boards and other community concerns, but as far as the chamber goes, “It’s time to step back a bit.”