You're committed to developing your people, but what happens when a crisis hits and you need results now? This is the tension between being patient and decisive—one of the hardest parts of leadership.

My guest, Frances Robustelli, City Manager of St. Pete Beach, Florida, faced this challenge head-on. Just months into her new role, back-to-back hurricanes devastated her community, shutting down 90% of the city's structures overnight. Crisis revealed exactly where talent lived and where dysfunction amplified chaos—and forced her to make staffing decisions faster than ever before.

Fran's Framework for Building Healthy Organizations:

Days 1-60: Listen First

• Meet with every leadership level, especially mid-management (where culture lives or dies)
• Share your leadership style and expectations clearly
• Build trust before implementing anything new

After 60 Days: Confirm and Commit

• Share back what you heard—the good, bad, and the ugly
• Build team commitments together (Fran created 10, let the team vote on which 2 to measure first)
• Link new tools that the team asks for

The Secret: Reinforcement Over Complexity

• Use quarterly all-hands meetings for accountability
• Create a clear meeting cadence around what matters
• When things go sideways, ask: "Do we have clarity here?"

Crisis reveals who we really are as leaders, and authenticity matters. As Fran says, "I'd rather be struck down being the real me than spend my life trying to please everybody." Her approach proves that developing people and delivering results aren't competing priorities—they're woven together.

Resources Mentioned:

Connect with Fran Robustelli and the City of St. Pete Beach at stpetebeach.org

Contact me to learn about building team commitments in your organization

Visit ClaireLaughlin.com and connect with me @Claire Laughlin Consulting on LinkedIn.

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