The Backbone™ Series | Part 3 of 3

If you work in local government, you have felt the job grow heavier.

Over the past decade, more of the nation’s hardest problems have landed at the local level. Cities and villages now carry pandemic recovery, housing and homelessness, mental health crises, and public safety demands with fewer partners beside them.

Residents bring every frustration to the government closest to their front door. Many of them do not see the budgets, mandates, and trade-offs behind a decision. Blame comes easily, and the staff in the front row absorb it.

Incivility has become a habit in too many council chambers. Many residents now feel comfortable treating public servants in ways they would not accept at their own jobs.

That is where this series began.

In Part 1, a resident stood at the podium and called your public works director incompetent while the person holding the gavel let it happen. Then a man on LinkedIn asked me what to do when the manager folds like a cheap lawn chair while staff are under attack.

In Part 2, I gave him an honest answer. Some managers do not stand up when they should. Many others fold because they are the only bone holding the weight.

Part 3 completes the answer. The backbone was never meant to belong to one person.

The Catalyst Perspective

I learned that lesson as a strong mayor, in the hardest moments of my tenure.

Every time a shooting happened in our city, I felt a pit in my stomach before I knew any details. Kankakee is my hometown. When someone was hurt, I often knew the family. A shooting was never a headline for me. I carried the pain of it home.

Then the blame arrived.

Some residents who wanted me out of office accused me of not caring about the people being harmed. They spoke as if the mayor could stop a bullet. I was not a police officer, and no one held the police department to that standard.

Residents had no idea how I internalized my community’s trauma when incidents of gun violence occurred. On several occasions, my husband and I discreetly wrote checks to help uninsured families pay for funeral costs.

At one council meeting, I said it plainly. "I do not politicize people’s pain."
Then I laid out the work.

We partnered with Cities United.
We educated the council and the community about the systemic conditions that lead to violence. We brought schools, hospitals, the courts, faith leaders, and neighborhood voices to one table to build a public safety plan.

The blame did not stop. It needed one name, and mine was the easiest to find.

That same reflex now points at the city manager, the police chief, and the staff in the front row. The threats keep changing. The FBI now warns of online networks that target children, and when a case surfaces, residents turn to the police chief, the library, and the recreation center with one question: why did you miss it?

No one person can stop crime.

A backbone holds a body upright because many separate bones share the load, and a city stands the same way.

When blame lands on one desk, every other bone loses its reason to carry weight.

Leaders across local government tell me the same thing from every level of the organization. In my conversations and messages, entry level and mid career professionals say they want mentorship and support. Many of them want to speak up when something goes wrong. Few of them have a mentor who taught them the words.

Every person on your staff is a bone in that backbone, from the clerk at the front counter to the manager’s office.

The SCALE™ Framework for Public Sector Leadership

S: Strengths-Based Leadership™ - Your staff already hold relationships across your city. Name that reach as an asset before the next crisis tests it.

C: Confidence and Cognitive Reframing™ - A crisis in your community does not signal one leader’s failure. Reframe it as a shared responsibility, and the response grows stronger.

A: Aligned Values and Boundary Negotiation™ - Decide in advance who speaks, who responds, and what your organization will not absorb in silence.

L: Leadership Longevity™ - Leaders who carry every tragedy alone do not last. Share the weight before it breaks you.

E: Emboldened Ecosystem Building™ - Your backbone starts with your manager, your chief, your directors, your council, and every employee, then extends to schools, faith leaders, and neighborhood partners.

Take Action Today: Three Moves Before the Next Crisis

1. Name the response team now. Decide who speaks for the organization, who supports the staff in the front row, and who briefs the council when a tragedy hits your community.
2. Give every employee the words. Your newest staff often hear the anger first. Give them a short script and a named supervisor who stands behind them.
3. Meet your partners before you need them. Schedule one conversation this month with a school, faith, or neighborhood leader you would call in a crisis.

If your team carries more blame than any one leader can hold, I design staff workshops and board or council retreats for local government teams.

I am now booking engagements for Q1 2027.

​Book a Partnership Assessment.

Final Thoughts

This issue closes The Backbone™ Series. It began with a line from former Illinois State Senator Toi Hutchinson: "our leaders today need a backbone, not a wishbone."

Three issues later, the backbone has a shape.

It holds a culture inside city hall, a team behind the manager, and a community that shares the load.

In Part 1, I asked you to write down three names, including one person outside your organization. Now you know why that name matters. When the blame pointed at my desk, the people who stood beside me were the ones I had built relationships with long before any crisis.

Those relationships did not happen by accident. I asked for them.

Many leaders in local government tell me they know whose support would change their career, yet the ask never leaves their notes.

In the first quarter of 2027, I will host a live 90 minute working session for 15 local government leaders. Together, we will name your strength, your seat, your ask, and your offer, and you will leave with a plan for your first ask.

Before I share the details, I want your answer to one question.

Whose support would change your next year?
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​Hit reply with the word PLAN and that person’s role, such as a city manager, a mentor, or a peer in another city.

Every PLAN reply goes on the first notice list, and those readers hear the details before anyone else.
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In partnership and purpose,