Civic leaders launch Lead with Civility
- Kalen Academy
- 1 day ago
- 12 min read
On Saturday, May 2, civic leaders gathered in Chilliwack, British Columbia for the launch of Diane Kalen-Sukra’s new book, Lead with Civility: A Handbook for Uncivil Times.
It was not simply a book launch. It was a civic occasion, marking a message that has become increasingly urgent in local government, public service and community life: civility is not optional. It is not a soft skill. It is a condition for trust, good governance and democratic life.
The event was hosted by Kalen Academy and emceed by Isabel Rutter, who opened by naming the larger purpose of the afternoon: to celebrate a new book, but also to reflect on “civility, leadership, and building the kind of civic culture we can be proud of across our schools, our workplaces, our neighbourhoods, and our politics.”
That sense of community was woven through the event. Diane described the launch as a gift from her neighbours. Though Lead with Civility is her third book, this was her first formal book launch, made possible, she said, because her own community encouraged and supported it.
“Today, I feel like the most fortunate person because I feel that I’m experiencing what is so rare today: to be surrounded by loving family, by solid friends, and by a true community,” she said.
The gathering also carried a sense of historical continuity. The Fraser Valley has been shaped by generations of local leaders, public servants, builders, advocates and citizens who understood that community life depends on more than policy. It depends on trust, service, restraint, courage and the willingness to carry responsibility for one’s neighbours.
Throughout the afternoon, the speakers did more than praise a new book. They situated Diane’s message within that longer legacy of leadership in the region, honouring those who came before while asking what standard of civic life should be handed on next.
From Australia, a Foreword Writer Names the Moment
The program began with a video greeting from Chris Eddy, host of Australia’s #1 Local Government News Roundup and writer of the foreword to Lead with Civility.
Speaking from Australia, Eddy placed the book in an international context. He noted that the pressures facing local governance are not confined to one province or country. Across Western democracies, communities are seeing rising polarization, declining trust and deepening fractures in public life.
“This book is a timely intervention,” Eddy said. “It is a roadmap for leaders who realize that just getting things done isn’t enough if we lose our humanity in the process.”
For Eddy, the book’s importance lies in its practicality. He praised Diane for taking the idea of civility and turning it into “a practical how-to for leaders at every level.”
“If you are holding this book today, you are not just holding a leadership manual,” he said. “You are holding a catalyst for change.”
Diane Kalen-Sukra’s Decade-Long Civility Tour
Diane then offered the context for the book and the journey that produced it.
About a decade ago, she said, she began to see that political culture was deteriorating across communities, not in one isolated council chamber or workplace, but across the civic landscape. Having worked in and around public life for more than two decades, including as a city manager, she recognized the pattern: rising toxicity, growing dysfunction, public hostility toward elected officials, staff burnout and good people choosing not to run for office or remain in public service.
She described the moment as a realization that communities were “like frogs in a tepid pot of water slowly being brought to a boil.” Too often, she said, leaders and institutions were trying to adapt to toxic conditions rather than address the culture that produced them.
That realization led Diane to leave her role as a city manager and sound the alarm. At first, she said, she did not have a plan. What she had was a conviction: “Toxic culture is the greatest threat to good governance and sustainable community building.”
That conviction became her bestselling book Save Your City, published in 2019, which called for a renaissance of civic values and civic education. It also launched what became a decade-long civility tour, eventually global in scope, as Diane spoke with civic leaders, public servants and citizens about the cultural conditions needed for democracy to function.
The message deepened in Lead with Civility.
“Incivility anywhere is a threat to civility everywhere,” Diane told the gathering, “because incivility, if it is not challenged and addressed consciously and intentionally by leaders and citizens, spreads like a contagion and becomes the way things get done.” Then she added:
“Culture is not fate. Culture is what we cultivate.”
The metaphor was deliberate. The word culture, Diane reminded the audience, comes from the Latin cultura, meaning to till or tend the soil. Civic leaders, she said, have always been culture shapers.
“Civic leaders, by the very nature of their role, are the chief gardeners of this shared life,” she said.
That is the heart of Lead with Civility. Civility is not passive. It is not avoidance. It is the disciplined work of tending to the common life before the weeds of contempt, distrust and fear overrun it.
A Modern Mirror for Civic Leaders
The next portion of the event introduced the intellectual frame of the book through a short video narration, Lead with Civility's 2 minute book trailer, contrasting two great figures of political thought: Desiderius Erasmus and Niccolò Machiavelli.
Both men wrote in periods of instability, faction and civic strain. Both understood power. But they offered different mirrors to those who govern. Machiavelli’s mirror showed leaders how to win and keep power in a ruthless world. Erasmus’s mirror asked how power could be used in service of wisdom, justice and the common good.
The question posed by the video was stark and contemporary: when fear, contempt and manipulation rule, incivility spreads until dysfunction becomes the norm. Lead with Civility asks leaders to choose another path, one oriented toward dignity, trust and shared hope.
It was a fitting bridge to the first in-person speaker, Dr. Ron Dart.
Dr. Ron Dart: Recovering a Lost Civic Virtue
Dr. Ron Dart, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of the Fraser Valley and writer of the prelude to Lead with Civility, brought philosophical depth to the day.
His remarks placed Diane’s work in a much older tradition. He spoke of Greek, Roman and Christian civic inheritance, of citizenship, the common good and the lost virtue of civility. Where public life often becomes trapped in ideological combat, he said, Diane’s work recovers older resources and translates them into the realities of modern civic life.
“What you have done is unearth and take a spade to the soil,” Dart said, “and you have brought the gold up from that magnificent tradition.”
He praised Diane not simply for studying the civic tradition, but for making it practical. In universities, he noted, these ideas can remain academic. Diane, by contrast, has taken them into the public square.
“You said, ‘Let’s take these ideas and translate them into public life itself in the midst of the culture wars,’” he said.
Dart’s most striking image came from Dante’s Comedy. He described Satan frozen at the lowest level of the Inferno, intensely flapping his wings yet unable to move beyond the frozen state of his own self-understanding. It was, he suggested, an image of our ideological age: people intensely committed to their positions, but frozen in how they understand themselves and the world.
“Your work is an attempt to thaw that ice and give people wings to fly,” Dart told Diane.
Dart named the moral ambition of the book. Lead with Civility is not merely asking people to behave better in meetings. It is asking them to become less frozen, more capable of listening, more able to think, disagree and govern together.
Patricia Ross: Courage, Public Service and the High Road
Patricia Ross, Chair of the Fraser Valley Regional District and a guest essayist in Lead with Civility, followed with remarks rooted in lived public service.
Ross has spent more than three decades in elected leadership. Her message was direct: civility is not naïve, and it does not require leaders to avoid difficult issues. It requires courage, preparation and discipline.
“These are very difficult times,” Ross said. “People are full of anxiety. Instead of pulling together, we have become polarized, less compassionate, and civility has deteriorated. But we need not despair. We can turn this around.”
She spoke about advocacy, disagreement and the importance of making arguments with respectful demeanour, evidence and facts rather than personal attacks.
“It is really easy to throw insults. That requires no work,” Ross said. “Thoughtful, fact-based arguments are more work because they require research and critical thinking. But that is what inspires confidence in leaders.”
In one of the strongest lines of the day, she quoted writer and activist William Wells Brown:
“People don’t follow titles. They follow courage.”
That idea sat at the centre of Ross’s remarks. She spoke of the loneliness that can come with taking a principled position before others are ready to join, and of the importance of citizens making their views known to decision-makers so democracy can function as a shared responsibility.
Her reflections were not abstract. They were shaped by years of public service, hard choices and the knowledge that leadership often means speaking first, even when doing so carries personal cost.
“If you have the courage to speak up about what is important to you,” Ross said, “I promise you, you are not alone.”
Ross also offered a striking testimony about what politics had taught her.
“Politics has made me a better person,” she said. “It has made me a better listener.”
That is not a sentence often heard in an age when politics is frequently described as corrosive or exhausting. But Ross’s words pointed to the nobler possibility at the heart of civic life. Public service, at its best, can enlarge us. It can make us more attentive to the experiences of others. It can teach collaboration, humility and courage.
She closed by honouring Diane’s role in the wider movement for civic renewal.
“Every movement for change needs a leader,” Ross said. “Diane is that leader.”
Henry Braun: Civility as Strength
Braun, also a guest essayist in Lead with Civility, has led through some of Abbotsford’s most difficult recent chapters, including budget challenges, the COVID-19 pandemic and the devastating 2021 flood.
His remarks carried the weight of a leader who knows what public service demands, and who recognized in Diane Kalen-Sukra a long-standing commitment to principled, respectful civic leadership.
He described Lead with Civility as more than a book title.
“It is a call to action,” Braun said.
For Braun, the book matters because incivility has become increasingly visible in public discourse, workplaces, everyday interactions and local government. He spoke of the temptation to react rather than reflect, to divide rather than connect, and to speak rather than truly listen. That is why, he said, Diane’s work matters.
“It asks us to rethink what real leadership really looks like: not leadership rooted in authority or the loudest voice in the room, but leadership grounded in respect, empathy, and accountability.”
“Trust, as we know, is the currency of leadership,” he said. “Once broken, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to regain.”
Then Braun turned from the book to the author.
“Diane, this book reflects who you are,” he said. “It reflects your values, your voice, and your belief that better is possible: that our workplaces, our communities, and our conversations can be more respectful, more thoughtful, and more human.”
“That belief is contagious,” Braun continued. “Everyone who reads this book will walk away not just with ideas, but with the challenge to show up differently, to lead differently, and to choose civility even when it is difficult, especially when it is difficult.”
He also gave one of the clearest definitions of the book’s message:
“Civility is not weakness. It is strength. It is discipline. It is leadership in its most enduring form.”
Braun closed with a line that drew together the day’s purpose and the urgency of the moment:
“Your voice is one people need to hear right now, and this book is one people need to read.”
A Reading from the Book: Know Thyself
After the speakers, Diane read from the opening chapter of Lead with Civility, titled “A Leader’s First Task: Know Thyself.” (See exclusive excerpt published by Plato's Academy).
The reading began with a contemporary anxiety: the belief that technology, data, predictive analytics and artificial intelligence will solve many of our civic challenges. Diane contrasted this with an older insight from Plato’s Republic, where the fate of the city was located not in systems alone, but in the wisdom, character and moral formation of leaders and citizens.
Her argument was not anti-technology. It was a warning against forgetting the human heart.
The reading travelled back to the Oracle of Delphi, where leaders in the ancient world sought guidance about the future of their cities. At the entrance to the temple was the instruction: “Know thyself.”
For Diane, that ancient warning remains urgent. Leaders who do not understand their fears, desires, blind spots and assumptions will misread the world around them. Their inner life will not remain private. It will spill into meetings, councils, neighbourhoods and institutions.
“Whatever we carry within, whether it is anger or patience, contempt or curiosity, does not stay private,” she read. “It leaks into our meetings, our councils, and our neighbourhoods, setting the emotional temperature of our civic life.”
That is the uncomfortable starting point of civic renewal: incivility begins with us.
But the reverse is also true. If leaders model patience, they make space for reasoned judgment. If they practise courage without contempt, they show that firmness and respect can coexist. If they lead with civility, they invite civility.
The reading ended with one of the book’s most urgent lines:
“No algorithm can save us from the condition of the human heart.”
It was a fitting note for an election year. Communities may need better systems, tools and policies, but they also need leaders with self-mastery, courage, restraint and respect.
Choosing Civility in an Election Year
The launch of Lead with Civility comes as communities in British Columbia begin looking toward the next municipal elections. While the formal campaign period comes later, the election year is already underway, and citizens are beginning to consider the kind of leadership they want in their councils, boards and communities.
That is where the launch connects directly to Diane’s wider public message. In conversations around the event and in her public writing, she has urged citizens to be civil and to elect leaders capable of practising civility under pressure.
In her Edmonton Journal opinion piece titled "Choose civility when electing your next city council", Diane argues that citizens hold a powerful tool: the ability to choose civility at the ballot box:
“When we elect leaders who practise self-control, respect, and collaboration,” she wrote, “we don’t just get better meetings; we get stronger communities”.
That argument is not partisan. It is pre-partisan. It belongs to the civic foundation beneath every party, slate, platform and policy debate. Communities will always disagree. They should. But disagreement becomes destructive when contempt replaces conviction, when public service becomes punishment, and when the loudest voices drive out the wisest and most principled.
To be civil does not mean to be silent. It does not mean to avoid hard truths or difficult debates. As Diane’s Lead with Civility poem, recited near the close of the event by civic leaders from Ontario, puts it:
“Civility is not about being nice,
Nor silence bought at any price.”
The point is not to make public life bland. The point is to make it possible.
To choose civility in an election year is to ask better questions of those who seek public office:
Can they listen without mocking?
Can they answer hard questions without rage or evasion?
Can they value facts and experience over slogans, mob pressure or personal branding? Can they admit mistakes?
Can they disagree without degrading the people with whom they disagree?
It is also a call to citizens. Do we reward outrage, or do we reward wisdom? Do we amplify contempt, or do we make room for leaders who can serve the common good with courage and restraint?
As Braun reminded the audience, trust is the currency of leadership. As Ross reminded them, people do not follow titles, they follow courage. As Dart reminded them, civility is a virtue with deep roots. And as Diane reminded them, culture is not fate. It is what we cultivate.
For Kalen Academy, the day affirmed the purpose behind the work: to equip leaders, citizens and communities to renew civic culture in uncivil times.
The launch of Lead with Civility was not the beginning of Diane Kalen-Sukra’s work. It was another marker in a long journey that began in public service, moved through a decade-long civility tour, and has now become a handbook for those who refuse to surrender public life to contempt, chaos and fear.
As the province looks toward municipal elections, the message could not be more timely.
Be civil in what we reward.
Elect civil in whom we entrust.
Lead with civility.
About the Book
Lead with Civility: A Handbook for Uncivil Times is Diane Kalen-Sukra’s new handbook for leaders, citizens and communities seeking to renew civic culture in an age of rising incivility. Drawing from classical wisdom, civic leadership, democratic tradition and practical experience, the book offers a roadmap for restoring trust, strengthening public life and leading with courage, restraint and respect.
About Diane Kalen-Sukra
Diane Kalen-Sukra is a bestselling author, speaker, former city manager and founder of Kalen Academy. She is the author of the bestseller Save Your City: How Toxic Culture Kills Community and What to Do About It and Lead with Civility: A Handbook for Uncivil Times. Her work focuses on civic leadership, good governance, cultural renewal and restoring civility and trust in public life.
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