Business Growth Architect Show

Ep #145: Tiana Sanchez: Tips for Civility in Leadership

• Beate Chelette • Episode 145

Share episode

Had an AHA or Insight? Share it:

Tiana Sanchez shares practical tips on how to use civility in leadership and shares how this will help you to build a better company. Discover how respect, clear communication, and purpose-driven leadership can transform your organization and inspire your team to thrive.


This episode drops just as we are in the middle of an election cycle and Tiana Sanchez's message on civility in leadership couldn’t be more on point. She is a powerhouse in leadership, a respected speaker, and CEO of TSI LLC. In our episode she dives deep into the importance of civil leadership and how respect can transform our environments and our workplaces. As the world feels more divided than ever, with tensions and conflicts spilling into our professional lives, Tiana brings a fresh approach that centers on respect, empathy, and a strong sense of community. Her bestselling book, The New C-Suite: Civil Leadership in Action offers a practical blueprint for leaders ready to drive real change, build collaborative teams, and foster a work environment where everyone feels valued.

Tiana’s journey into civil leadership began during a pivotal moment at a conference. Inspired by a company with an incredible commitment to employee well-being, social responsibility, and environmental impact, she shares how Patagonia—a certified B Corp—practices what it preaches, blending ethical practices with high standards for governance, community, and sustainability.

During our conversation, Tiana and I explore how civil leadership goes beyond traditional management styles to create an inclusive, purpose-driven workplace culture. Tiana walks us through her unique framework, built around three core facets: collective social responsibility, community-first thinking, and creative synthesis. Through collective social responsibility, she encourages leaders to consider the bigger impact they’re making on employees, customers, and society. 

And here’s the beauty of civil leadership—it’s not just for big corporations. Tiana explains that whether you’re running a small business, managing a team, or even working as a solo entrepreneur, you can adopt civil leadership principles to foster a respectful, supportive, and socially responsible culture. She even offers a preview of her civil leadership evaluation, a tool with questions and exercises to help leaders assess how respect, community impact, and social responsibility are showing up in their work.

A powerful takeaway is when Tiana talks about the "like-hungry" culture of social media and how it impacts modern leadership. Business and civil leaders can easily get trapped in echo chambers, seeking validation instead of real connection. True leadership, she reminds us, requires courage—the courage to welcome disagreement and to push beyond surface-level affirmation. 

I invite you to tune in and join us for this thought-provoking conversation that challenges the status quo of leadership and how you chose to handle an o

_____________________
We appreciate you, thank you for listening. Let us know in the comments what resonated in this episode, we want to hear from you.

Leave a comment, like, share with one person who needs to hear the message our guest shared.

Take our QUIZ and find out what your talent is worth in this market: What's Your Talent Worth (http://WhatsYourTalentWorth.com)

Follow us on Instagram:
Check us out on Tik Tok:
Work With Us

Tiana Sanchez:

Hi. My name is Tiana Sanchez, and I'm the author of the new best selling book, The New C-Suite Civil Leadership in Action." I'm also the founder and CEO of TSI LLC, where we help solve complex people problems for organizations. I really want you to tune in to this episode, because we're going to be talking about civil leadership and really, how can it impact you and your organization? If you want to learn how to have a conversation and be a better leader, I suggest you listen to the full episode, and it'll challenge you to really think about how you lead your team and what the future looks like for you. I hope to see you soon.

BEATE CHELETTE:

And hello, fabulous person! Beate Chelette, here I am the host of the Business Growth Architect Show and I want to welcome you to today's episode where we discuss how to navigate strategy and spirituality to achieve time and financial freedom. Truly successful people have learned how to master both a clear intention and a strategy to execute that in a spiritual practice that will help them to stay in alignment and on purpose, please enjoy the show and listen to what our guest today has to say about this very topic. Hello and welcome! Beate the Growth Architect. Today, I have Tiana Sanchez, the boss lady, with me, and also the author of a book on civility. And I don't think there's a better topic to be having right now where we see so much anger, discord us vs. them going on around us, that I really felt it's an important conversation to bring to the beehive. Tiana, welcome. I'm so excited to have you.

Tiana Sanchez:

Thank you for having me. I'm glad to be here for

BEATE CHELETTE:

somebody who doesn't know who you are or is not familiar with your work, will you please introduce yourself and tell us what problems do you solve for your clients?

Tiana Sanchez:

Yes, so I am the boss lady. I call myself the boss lady, but we, we're an organization, 13 years young, who help organizations solve complex people problems, because where there are people, there are typically problems. So we provide an array of services, typically around solving not only problems, but talent development solutions. So that may come through leadership coaching. It might come through training and development, staff development, or assessments and evaluation. So at the end of the day, we want our organizations to thrive, and the people within those organizations to thrive.

BEATE CHELETTE:

I like that. And you are really hot and heavy on the topic of civility. Give us a little bit of a back story. I'm sure you didn't wake up one day and says, Oh my gosh, I have to write a book on civility, or I have to participate in a book on civility. Where did you first come up and say, somebody's got to do something about this. Well, interestingly,

Tiana Sanchez:

I was sitting in the audience at a conference several years ago. It was an annual conference for group of human resource professionals, and I had a front row seat with a colleague, and I was listening to the opening speaker and this gentleman who worked for a company, he started sharing how they had really low turnover rate, like it was, like single digits, and I remember that was unheard of. But what really caught my attention was he started to describe the work environment and the things that that organization did. And so he mentioned things like, during the afternoon, the employees could leave lead their work and go surfing, like for an hour or two hours a day. And I was like, What? What? You know? What is this? And then he went on to say that, if you were a parent and you had a child, well, they had child care facilities on site. And I was like, Okay, you're really picking my interest. And then they could, you could bring your pets to work, which is really before bringing pets to work was very cool and the end thing, but people had spaces for their animals, and then the the idea of philanthropy. So they weren't just saying, hey, you know, choose a cause and we'll gladly support you in spirit and in heart. But no, they were saying we're going to put some financial support. So they match, they literally match their employee. They said, Hey, pick a cause that you want, and we are going to support it. We're going to contribute or and we're going to match dollars. And so the company that this gentleman worked at was Patagonia, and if you know anything about Patagonia, they are all about sustainability, they're about the world. They're about global responsibility. And it just sit me down this rabbit hole of wanting to learn more about what this company is, and why aren't more organizations like

BEATE CHELETTE:

yes, Patagonia, who doesn't like that company, a B Corporation? Do you mind just sharing with the audience, sort of what is A B Corporation? So we have some foundation established.

Tiana Sanchez:

The B Corp certification is a rigorous assessment. It's an evaluation of your company based on five facets, and they call these the five impact areas. And so if you want to demonstrate that you are a company that is really not just saying certain things, but actually living and breathing this, then you go through this assessment. So the five impact areas. Governance, workers, community, customers and environment. But once you go through this assessment, you get a score rating. Most companies who go through this they get a score, and Patagonia has actually been certified, if I'm not mistaken, for many, many years, with a very strong high scoring. So that is what a B Corp, it's basically saying to the world that we believe in these five impact areas, we're holding ourselves accountable, and we're not just talking about it, but we're being about it. And

BEATE CHELETTE:

so how do you get from sitting there being inspired by that to this idea of civility? I mean, needless to say, I don't think there's a more important conversation we had at this very moment. But how did you get there and then say, I want to actually start this conversation.

Tiana Sanchez:

I think when I realize we're almost at the five year point of the pandemic, it started helping me to reflect like kind of where we've come from, where we've been, and the things that have transpired. And I remember in 2020, just so much, so many different things have happened that were brought to the forefront within our society and within our world. I think that it's not new. I think these types of you know, whether it was civil unrest, whether it was again, this division, this discord, as you described earlier, was created it just as I wanted something great to come out of this horrendous, kind of unsettling time that we had, and what I learned through this process. So during those years, and my company, my consulting firm, and just like everybody else, our sales kind of dipped a little bit. But I would say through like the middle of 2020, to 2023 we saw 424% increase in our sales, and most of those were requesting services around diversity, equity and inclusion, but also leadership coaching. So I had literally a lot of leadership coaching that I was doing. And so that was telling me that there's this thirstiness, there was this yearning for managers to be better, to learn to do more. And so last year, the end of 2023, and even the beginning of this year, we started seeing a lot of layoffs. You know, big companies, I'm talking a lot of tech companies, started to lay off their employees. And what I found interesting was that many of those roles were those Chief Diversity Officer roles, those roles that we said it's 30 years ago that these were the people that we needed in these roles. And then we started to say, Well, no, I don't think they matter to us. That, at least that was the impression that I got. And then we started seeing these polarizing views of people saying that dei was now triggering, and other people saying, well, no, it's necessary. And over here we're saying, oh, we need to defund it, and we're not, no, we need to put more resources behind it. And it just felt like it was the right time for me and others, I think, in my line of work, to really speak out openly that we cannot let the progress that we've made in this area to diminish. And so that is really where this civil leadership was burst from that book. And I've always wanted to write a business book, and I thought this was, this is a great way to kind of to set it set things off. Yeah,

BEATE CHELETTE:

I really appreciate that path to getting there before COVID, I was keynoting women leadership, and I'm all over the place, as I'm sure you were, too, and the minute we get out of it, it's like, white man, hooray. And now we have to defend, you know, the same thing again. And Roe vs. Wade certainly did not help, and the language that's being used in the political arena certainly isn't helping. And suddenly, when you say man, then women say, what about me? You say, women, then men go like, what about me? You say, black, then White says, what about me? Latinos or Latinas saying, nobody even talks about us. And then the Asian population comes and says, Well, are we not even in the conversation? And now it feels that we've gotten to such a point where you almost can't say anything. You know, I got to a point where I was in an event, and I mentioned that my first husband was black, and that was a trigger for somebody, right? Whereas, then if I would have said, I see no color, which I have learned is not a good thing to say, because obviously I see color. So I was like, Okay, that's it for me. You know, we have to find a better way. So I arrived at the exact same conclusion as you do, that if the message that we're going out with is having this much friction in it, we're never going to get anywhere. We keep turning in circles. So now let's go to back to the civility. So now you've got this great concept of something that I believe everybody can agree to, right civility. Men want women want any race, color, age, everybody wants civility. So how do you now present this to the world? Because it's a new concept, but it's not a new concept. How do you position. At

Tiana Sanchez:

civility, really is in everything that we do. When I I had to explain it to my publisher, when we were talking about civility, because it can have a couple of different meeting meanings. And I really wanted to focus on the the respect for others. We can have disagreement, and that's the problem. I think, are we're very fragile, and we have not strengthened our resolve to be able to have these kinds of conversations. There's an author by the name of Robin DiAngelo. She wrote a great book called"White Fragility," and in this book, I remember, there's a specific line she talks about that certain individual. She's speaking to people that like look like her and are same gender, and says we haven't developed racial stamina. And when she said that those two words together just really it just like a light bulb, it's like there is a there is a stamina that we haven't developed in our society around how to navigate a conversation or even a relationship with someone who who disagrees with me and or who has a different perspective, who has a different has a different background, who I don't have to be disrespectful. I don't have to shut you down. Shut you out, cancel you. Put my hand up in front of your face because you said something that is either triggering for me, if anything, that's a me issue, if it's triggering for me or something that I disagree with, we haven't, and I don't say this as for everyone, because there are exceptions, but mostly, most of us have not learned how to engage in civil conversations, where we communicate with respect and communicate in a way where I want to learn, I want to understand what, where you're coming From. I still may not agree with you, and that's okay, but we still have at least a civil conversation, and it will affect our world. It affects us globally around this this kind of civility and kind of another notch of this civil leadership has to do with aligning. There's a definition we provide everybody in the book, which is basically that says civil leadership is about aligning community. It's about social responsibility and individual creativity, connecting our business principles with global initiatives and perspectives. Because we have leaders, global leaders that disagree disagree, and then how do we protect our planet and our organizations, global organizations, where we can thrive without creating what, without making everything so divisive. And so it just kind of opened up the flood gates for us to put together a, really, what I believe to be a great book on these kinds of concepts.

BEATE CHELETTE:

I really, I think you explained that very beautifully just now on how we don't even give it any power, we just say, Look, we should be able to talk to each other. I mean, everybody has disagreements. The world is full of disagreements. It's what we do when that happens that makes us civil or human. So Tiana, what you just said was very powerful about having conversations that have a disagreement, where I know that this other person has a different opinion. Do you believe that people have conversations now to convince other people that the art of a conversation or the art of the debate or the art of exchanging information has that gotten lost in all this media manipulation the big tech companies with I say something, and then if I get likes, we I think we're being trained psychologically to go where we are liked, and then we believe that that's the only way we go. So I want to hear what you have found in your work, and that, because I think there's a lot of gold in there, that's

Tiana Sanchez:

a really good point. I do think we are a like hungry we seek after the approval of others. We seek after the acknowledgement of others. I think in our in our world, in our side, we absolutely see that. I think that we tend to gravitate toward those that believe the same things that we believe, and again, those that don't we we shut them out, we categorize them, we put a label on them, we put them in a box. And when we talk about social media, I mean, you think of people feel feel free to kind of share certain things on that platform that they wouldn't necessarily in in real life. I remember a situation. I had a disagreement with an individual about vaccination. I remember we were going back and forth on on social media, and I remember at one point I stopped and I said, You know what, I'd love to have a conversation with you. Why don't you give me a call? Because I didn't want to go back and forth with this person, because I know people feel a little bit more free, dangerously free, on that platform to say certain things without engaging me as a human, as a human being, because somehow when we see it, we even though we see the person space in that little text box, you don't really see a human. You just see this kind of digital footprint. And so it. Takes away the humanness of who you're talking to, and then you go spewing hate or various things. I said, You know what? Let's have a conversation offline. And she did. She called me. We chatted because, by the way, we were, we were confidants, like we knew each other, and we were having this really strong, heated disagreement, and we chatted off the phone, and it was fantastic. I don't think many people are doing that. So yes, to your point, there are people that are, hey, I must be saying the right things. I must be doing the right things people are liking. There is, I think, and I don't know the name of it, I'd have to ask my friend, who's a behavior psychologist, but there's a name for when you tend to find and follow the people that that will agree with you, confirmation bias, yes, yes, and so you will generally find those people. And then you think you're the best, you're the greatest, you're data, and you just put yourself in a box and you it removes the the diversity, it removes the creativity, it removes thinking about things in a different way, and I think that it's dangerous for us to to rely on external approval in this kind of season in this environment.

BEATE CHELETTE:

I couldn't agree with you more. I always it's actually one of the things I talk about quite frequently where I say that happens when you make a conscious choice to stay where you are, because if you are okay with where you are today, you're going to defend this position from here on out, my mother is in the same opinion that she has been since World War Two as a 12 year old, she never made a conscious choice to say I am purposely going outside my comfort zone, to look for things that are contrary or outside what I believe in, because she just can't. I mean literally, she cannot. So I think in I see this in my work, which I'm sure you do see in your work, that the most coachable people or the most results we see is when, when somebody says, Tiana, I would have never thought about it like this. I completely disagree with you, but let me sit on this. Yes,

Tiana Sanchez:

I think the people that, and I'm going to be bold to say that it's cowardly. I've worked with enough people to say, when someone says to me, this is just how I am. This is just who and these are people that are in leadership roles in most cases, in 90% of the case, and oh, I'm just this is just who I am. This is just how I am. To me that doesn't make me respect you more, because someone who comes to humbles themselves and says, You know what? I don't know everything, and even what I think I know could be changing, because my The world is changing and evolving. So you know what that is, a unique perspective. Tell me more I'm really interested in learning about that. Can I share my point of view with you and tell me what you think that's a conversation like that I'd be willing to have, that I want to have. So those that that stick to certain beliefs and and, hey, we all have our beliefs and backgrounds and how we were upbringing, particularly if you are in a leadership role and other roles where you are impacting lives in people and touching people and lives every single day, you cannot, absolutely cannot be so rigid where you are not opening yourself up to things that you don't know

BEATE CHELETTE:

perfect segue to go in the strategic part of this. So let's talk about leadership, and let's talk about civility in leadership. How do I know Tiana if I'm a leader who follows civility concepts or not, because I think I'm an amazing leader, because I'm the leader, after all. So if somebody made me the leader, I assumed leadership. I must be good, because I have the title, I have the position. I'm the CEO. Is that true? How do I? How do I, how do I do my self awareness here? What do you do? Well,

Tiana Sanchez:

first before I tell it, let me just remind the audience that there's two reasons why people get promoted, one of them is seniority, and one of them is because you had success in a non managerial, non leadership role. Those are the two reasons. So most managers that go on to become leaders have done so not because they particularly demonstrated a certain competency or skill set initially. Okay, so let me just say that to kind of bring this into the fold, what the certified B Corporation evaluation does, it does this very thing. It kind of says, again, they don't use term civil leadership, but it does give you like through governance and community and workers, it gives you a framework that says, if I practice these things, if I'm actually doing these, I'm taking care of my employees. I'm making sure that my customers receive the best quality that that I'm following certain rules of governance, and you know, all of these different facets it is that is where you are. Evaluated and objectively, not subjectively, right? So there are people that might not or that might not disagree with you because they work for you, and so you may not get the most honest response. If, if, hey, if they're signing your paycheck. Hey, am I great leader? You sure are, you know, so he's like, I want to keep my job. And so they may not give you the most honest response, whereas you have an objective person coming in and saying, Hey, let me peek underneath the hood and let me really see what's going on. Let me talk to your employees anonymously. Let me ask these questions. Let me look how much have you donated and contributed? What kind of sustainability products are you using, and all these other things, so that kind of ties into it. Now it is a rigorous process, and so I know everybody may not be saying, Hey, I'm not ready to go through B Corp. So what we are actually doing, we're in the process of designing kind of this intermediary evaluation for civil leaders that will go through a series of kind of pre B impact questions to kind of see if you're on the right path, if you're on target, to meeting some of these things. So there's a series of questions, little plug in the book that we kind of give our reader that goes through some of these things to help evaluate what that looks like. And

BEATE CHELETTE:

that is not just for large corporations. That's also if I'm a business owner, and I am really thinking about building a culture and building a team just to make sure that this works both ways,

Tiana Sanchez:

absolutely, it's a great place to start. Even if you're the only employee in your organization, I think it would behoove you to start looking at this is what I can expect in the future, this is what I aspire to be. So, absolutely so

BEATE CHELETTE:

for somebody now that has started there, if I'm in a leadership position, is there anything that I can do as a person? Our listeners might be asking themselves, how do I evaluate myself? Short from coming to a consultant like you and say, help me figure this out. But is there a litmus test you're suggesting on the number of conversations where you hang up, or, you know, when you when you are constantly in an argument? Is there anything that I can I can look at myself to see where am I as an awareness test of some sort?

Tiana Sanchez:

Great question. Again, the the litmus test is part of the external evaluation that we're developing to go with it's like a more formal in the book, we give some tips and some questions, some exploratory questions that you can ask yourself in the book, I think there's like 15 of them. What can we do to help us really again, whether it's governance and employees, workers, things like that nature and for civil leadership, it's three it's three facets. It's collective social responsibility. It's community first, which talks about, are you focusing outwardly on how you are impacting the community, like not only your products and services, how your employees? What are you doing to give back? So it's collective social responsibility, it's community first, and it's creative synthesis, which is really all about the uniqueness of each other, the diversity that we bring our unique talents and together. When we bring those unique talents, it creates something even greater. Have you ever created an impact investment fund? You know, where would those funds go? So it's not thinking of those typical leadership questions, what are the seven characteristics of a great leader? How do I communicate effectively? Which is important? This is a level up. This is more of a I'm thinking of the planet. I'm thinking of a global impact. I'm thinking of someone be something and someone beyond myself. So those are some of the questions you can begin to explore. And I think you'll see that there's room for growth in those areas. I like

BEATE CHELETTE:

the idea to say that it's almost like you go to 30,000 feet first. In my world as a growth architect, that's where we start. Unless we know what we're building. We don't have a strategy. We have to know where we're going. I like this idea that you say, Well, why don't you, as a business, as a company, regardless of your size, determine how do you want to show up, and how do you want to others to see you, and how do you want to be your legacy, to be your impact in the world? And let's determine that first, and then let's go and find the people that believe into that then define the leadership strategy that follows that. Am I understanding this correct? Or do you want to add anything to

Tiana Sanchez:

that? I absolutely, I definitely will add, I think, for those who might be starting out, that could be a great approach. Let's say you're 20 years young, and you already have employees, and you've kind of built a reputation for yourself, and then all of a sudden you realize you know what I could be doing better. I'm not doing as well or being as responsible as I'd like to be as an organization again, I think of you know, Patagonia, that they are continuing to still live and breathe the principles that they've established years ago. At any point as a leader, you can flip that switch. You can say, You know what, going forward, I am going to start making a difference. Difference. There are principles of a civil leadership that says it shouldn't always be about the traditional business paradigms of a capitalistic society, and I know that's going to step on toes, because we're all about money, and so if you're not making money, then it doesn't make sense. Why are we doing it? What civil leadership principles says is that we have to envision new possibilities for the long term, not for the short term. We've seen companies that prioritize short, quick fixes and prioritize shareholders capitalism. And then there are issues. I will not state the companies that we've seen in the headlines that have experienced these issues, but quality issues lines are on the line where they've had those you should be focused on other things, not only the bottom line. If I remember, there are people that are working at your organizations, not robots, at least not yet. So we want to make sure that we're humanizing the workplace, that we're looking at the best interest is interest of the society at large, that we're upholding moral standards within all of our actions, and holding people accountable to that and shaping and influencing the culture of their organization. So there are principles that go beyond the day to day, transactional part of leadership, and even beyond the relational part of leadership. I think there is a spiritual awakening that happens when you take on this kind of civil leadership role that you are tapping into and touching things that are great, greater and larger than you. And I think that is that is where we should all aspire to be.

BEATE CHELETTE:

I love that, and what a great way to end and our interview so Tiana for somebody who now has listened to this interview and wants to get in touch with you. Where do we send

Tiana Sanchez:

Yes, very easily. You can go to tianasanchez.com them? which is my website, or you can connect with me on LinkedIn. I love connecting with new faces and new people. And you can find any of my books on amazon.com as well. So please connect with me. Love to reach out to you and hear how this resonated with you.

BEATE CHELETTE:

Excellent. Thank you so much. And you've been an amazing guest. I appreciate you sharing your information, and wish you nothing but best seller status for the book, of course, and hope that a lot of people respond very well to it, especially in times like this. And for all of you out there, thank you so much. I am always grateful that we have the opportunity to bring these conversations to you, let us know how it lands, how it resonates, what you taken away and pleased to share this episode with one other person who needs to hear what we were talking about today, and with that, I say goodbye until next time. So appreciate you being here. Thank you so much for listening to the entire episode. Please subscribe to the podcast, give us a five star, review, a comment and share this episode with one more person so that you can help us help more people. Thank you again until next time. Goodbye.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Beate Chelette

Host