The Catalyst Perspective

You already know how this works.
Someone who has followed your reputation for years finally makes the call.

Comptroller to city manager.
Finance director to assistant village manager.
Director brought in from outside because the organization needs exactly what you have built.

The person recruiting you knows your record. That is precisely why they want you.

What they rarely tell you, and what you cannot always see coming no matter how carefully you ask, is what the seat will actually cost you once you are in it.

I was recruited to serve as a Village Manager by a mayor I had known for years. We crossed paths at Illinois Municipal League conferences and National League of Cities conferences because of the seats we each held, me as mayor, him as a village trustee at the time.

He knew my path even though he had never watched me work firsthand: two years on city council before becoming mayor, time as a senior congressional staffer, and a reputation as a strong mayor who made hard decisions. He was on a similar track himself, two years as a trustee, planning his own run for mayor, a race he eventually won.

He recruited my strength deliberately, and he needed it.
​​
His staff were not functioning efficiently, and he knew I would not shy away from fixing the issues. That part was never in question.

Nobody told me how deeply rooted the dysfunction actually was and that included how the community itself treated staff during public meetings.

My network up to that point had been built mostly among mayors.
Nobody had told me to ask other managers what they knew about that particular seat.
If I had, I would have learned it had a difficult reputation long before I ever accepted the offer.

There was no accountability structure in place when I arrived.
Employees disappeared for hours during the workday.
Directors let staff emails sit unanswered for weeks.

I built accountability from the ground up, disciplined and removed staff where the situation required it, and did the job I was hired to do.
​
I was never disciplined myself.
I had no prior write-ups, no complaints, no history of concern on my record.

Over time, the elected official I answered to began overstepping the boundaries of his role in ways that became increasingly public. When I raised concerns through the proper channels, an investigation followed. The findings included claims about my leadership and my character that were not true.

I am not who that report described.
It painted me as someone who led through fear and intimidation.
​
Staff have trusted me enough to come out to me, more than once, across more than one chapter of my career, because of the environment I built, not despite it. The same season that report was written, staff gave me holiday cards and gifts. One department honored me with a formal presentation for a holiday. People from that organization still check in on me today, years later.

My contract was ultimately terminated.
Managers who move for this work often uproot an entire household to do it, a spouse's career, children's schools, a community built over years.
​
​Losing a seat this way costs more than the job itself.

The SCALE™ Framework Connection

S — Strengths-Based Leadership™ - The record that got me recruited was real, and it remained real no matter what a single document claimed afterward. Your strengths do not disappear because someone writes something that says otherwise.

C — Confidence and Cognitive Reframing™ - I will not pretend this part came easily or quickly. Reframing what happened to me took real time. It took therapy. It took leaning on close friends and family who reminded me who I was when a public report was trying to tell the world something else. If you are in the middle of something like this right now, professional support is not a sign that you are failing to cope. It is often the thing that makes the reframing possible at all.

A — Aligned Values and Boundary Negotiation™ - I named some of what I was seeing directly, in regular meetings with the village attorney, and I made the board aware of many of the larger issues as they developed. I also absorbed more of it than I should have, trying to manage it internally rather than escalating everything immediately. That balance, between naming and absorbing, is something I would calibrate differently today.

L — Leadership Longevity™ - The people who stayed close to me through that season, the ones who still reach out years later, are the truest measure of what I actually built. A report has a shelf life. Real relationships do not.

E — Emboldened Ecosystem Building™ - The relationships I built across every level of that organization were never about optics. They were the reason people knew the truth, long after I was gone.

Take Action Today

Before you accept your next seat, ask other people who have held your next seat, or worked near it, what they actually know. Do not rely only on the people who recruited you.
​​
Document everything from day one, not only the difficult moments. A clean record only protects you if it exists in writing before you need it.

Know who your genuine allies are, the ones who will tell you the truth about your leadership regardless of what gets written about you later.

Understand that raising a legitimate concern can carry consequences you did not cause. That risk does not mean you stay silent. It means you walk in with your eyes open.

Final Thoughts

This is Part 1 of a new five-part series called The Seat™.

Over the next several issues, we will talk about what happens when the people who chose you turn on you, what it feels like to carry the workload of two jobs while being paid for one, and what this seat quietly costs you in isolation and guilt long after the cameras are gone.

If the people around you were being fully honest, what would they tell you about the seat you are about to take?

Reply and tell me where you are with this. I read every response.

The seat does not care how ready you feel. It demands you deliver anyway.

In partnership and purpose,