The Leadership Catalyst is where municipal power and women’s leadership collide. I expose how staff culture builds or breaks public trust, and why women leaders must set the standard for their teams and their communities. This is unapologetic strategy, rooted in SCALE™, for leaders who refuse to carry the weight of broken systems alone. Subscribe and join a community that’s rewriting the rules of government leadership.
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Issue 42: The Day I Stopped Explaining Myself | The Record™ Series | Issue 2 of 5
Published 16 days ago • 6 min read
Dear Reader,
In Issue 41 I introduced you to The Record™ and why every woman in public leadership needs to build it before anyone comes looking.
I told you that the criticism is not coming because you did something wrong. It is coming because you did something visible.
What I did not tell you is where I learned that.
This issue is that story.
The Catalyst Perspective
I served as the first Black mayor of Kankakee, Illinois.
The City of Kankakee loves St. Patrick's Day so much that they celebrate it twice. Once in March for the actual holiday. And then again in September with a Half Patty Day. Halfway through the year. A second celebration of a holiday they already celebrated six months earlier. Nobody questions it. The community loves it and so it happens. Twice.
I want you to hold that image while I tell you what happened when I decided to act for the students in my community who looked like me.
In 2019 I saw a gap I did not create but could choose to fill.
Black students in America carry more student loan debt than any other group. According to the Federal Reserve's 2024 Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households, more than half of Black student loan borrowers carry at least $25,000 in debt from their own education. Black families already disadvantaged by generational wealth disparities rely more heavily on student debt and on riskier forms of that debt than White families do according to The Century Foundation.
Many are fully supporting themselves while they study. Rent. Groceries. Tuition. Books. Fees. All of it on their own. Where some students receive an allowance and a safety net, many Black students are the safety net for themselves and sometimes for their families.
I had watched a scholarship bearing the name of Black history ask nothing about Black history. Over time more and more non-Black students were receiving it. I watched that happen and I made a decision.
So when I became mayor, I created the Mayor Chasity Wells-Armstrong African-American Civic Leader Scholarship™.
It asks students about civic engagement. It asks who in Black history influenced them. It asks what they have done to serve their community and how they intend to give back to the community that helped shape them.
I intentionally established the award at $2,000 based on research I gained when I called the local community college to inquire about semester costs for tuition, books, and fees.
I raised every dollar privately.
The hospital gave. Vendors gave. Nicor Gas gave. Council members gave from their own pockets.
Photo Credit: Nicor Gas Check Presentation - City of Kankakee
The Community Foundation of Kankakee River Valley became my partner in administering and endowing the scholarship so that one day the fund would sustain itself.
Last month, I awarded $2,000 to my 19th student. To date,this scholarship has put $42,000 toward college educations for young Black people in my community. Not one city dollar touched it. And the community agreed with me which is why they helped me meet the gap.
The Attack
And then, the letter arrived. Unsigned. Threatening a lawsuit. Accusing me of misusing taxpayer money. Calling me a racist. Stating that I bullied the Community Foundation of Kankakee River Valley.
Not one accusation had a single fact behind it.
The critics did not want to understand what I had built. Understanding was never the point. The scholarship was never the real target.
My decision to act was the target. My visibility was the target. The fact that I had used the authority of my office to meet a need that the community itself confirmed was real.
They wanted to weaponize my decision to act.
And for a moment I felt the pull to explain myself. To lay out the documentation. To walk through every donor and every dollar and every student served. To prove what was already proven.
Then something shifted. I realized it was not my burden to carry.
I had educated the community. I had documented everything. I had been transparent from the beginning. The people who wanted to understand already understood. The people who did not want to understand never would. No amount of explanation was going to change that.
The day I stopped explaining myself was one of the most liberating days of my leadership. Not because I stopped caring about the truth. Because I finally trusted the record I had already built to carry it for me.
Photo By: Dave Volden Photography
The SCALE™ Framework Connection
The Record™ maps directly to the SCALE™ Framework for Public Sector Leadership™. Here is how each component lived inside this story.
S — Strengths-Based Leadership™ | Component 1: Narrative Anchors I knew why I created the scholarship before I created it. When the attack came my narrative anchors did not waver because they were never built on approval. They were built on purpose.
C — Confidence and Cognitive Reframing™ | Component 2: Impact Documentation Every donor. Every dollar. Every student. Documented before anyone came looking. When the accusation arrived the documentation was already older than the attack. The record did not stop the criticism. It stopped the criticism from having the last word.
A — Aligned Values and Boundary Negotiation™ | Component 3: Relationship Transparency Every relationship I built around the scholarship was rooted in a shared value. When I made those relationships visible the accusation that I was acting for myself collapsed against a documented ecosystem of partners who were acting with me for the same reason.
L — Leadership Longevity™ | Component 4: Community Witnesses The 19 students are witnesses. The donors are witnesses. The Community Foundation is a witness. These are not cheerleaders. They are people who can offer testimony about what was built and who it served.
E — Emboldened Ecosystem Building™ | Component 5: Professional Development Defense Before I created the scholarship I was clear on what I hoped to accomplish for my community. Every time someone questioned my motives the community purpose was already in my own words before the critics could frame it in theirs.
What I Want You to Walk Away Knowing
You were moved for a reason. That reason matters.
It is not random. It is not ambition dressed up as service. It is a woman who saw something that needed to be done and decided she was the one to do it.
Before you take your next visible action be clear on three things.
Why were you moved to act?
Why is this the right action to take?
What outcome are you trying to create for the people whose trust you carry?
As long as you are clear on those three things everything else is noise.
Walk in your power. You earned the seat. Use it.
A Note for Mother's Day
This issue arrives the day before Mother's Day.
I want to take a moment for the women who raised us.
Most of them spent their lives filling gaps they did not create. They did not hold press conferences about it. They did not wait for permission or approval or a unanimous vote. They saw the need and they moved.
They did not explain themselves either.
If your mother is still with you call her this weekend. If she is not carry her forward in the way you lead.
I also want to acknowledge my own daughter. She is one of the great joys of my life and she is now a mother herself. Watching her step into that role with the same strength and intention I watched her grow up with is one of the greatest gifts this season has given me.
Happy Mother's Day to every woman who has ever filled a gap that nobody else was going to fill.
My daughter and me :)
Take Action Today
Before your next visible decision write those three things down and date it. That is your Impact Documentation entry for Component 2 of The Record™.
Keep it private. Keep it honest. Keep it dated.
Reply and tell me. What is the gap you are filling right now that nobody else stepped up to fill? I respond to every reply.
Issue 43 of The Leadership Catalyst™ arrives Saturday, May 23. It is Part 3 of The Record™ Series. We are going to talk about how the relationships you build in alignment with your values become the witnesses who hold your record when the room gets loud. Component 3: Relationship Transparency and A — Aligned Values and Boundary Negotiation™.
Forward this issue to one woman in your network who is navigating public leadership. She can subscribe and confirm her subscription at the link below so the next issue lands directly in her inbox.
Leadership Strategist for Municipal Teams Former Mayor | Village Manager | City Councilor | Congressional Staffer Creator of the SCALE™ Framework for Public Sector Leadership
The Leadership Catalyst is where municipal power and women’s leadership collide. I expose how staff culture builds or breaks public trust, and why women leaders must set the standard for their teams and their communities. This is unapologetic strategy, rooted in SCALE™, for leaders who refuse to carry the weight of broken systems alone. Subscribe and join a community that’s rewriting the rules of government leadership.
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