Picture the same news, told two ways.
A customer walks into a family-owned hardware store holding a table saw that stopped working three weeks after the return window closed. The manager checks the receipt. It’s past the window, so no exceptions can be made under store policy.
Told one way, that’s the whole exchange. Policy stated, receipt handed back, next customer in line.
Told the other way, the manager says the same thing, past the window, no refund available, but doesn’t stop there. She asks what happened, listens while he explains, and pulls up the manufacturer’s warranty information right at the counter, since a saw failing that fast usually means it’s still covered by the maker even after the store’s own window closes. She helps him start the claim before he leaves. The store still can’t refund him. But he leaves with his problem actually solved, and he’s back the following month for a new set of blades instead of driving to the big box store across town.
Same policy. Same denial. Completely different relationship left behind. That gap is civility, and it turns out to be measurable. A January 2026 analysis in Inc. of the latest data from the Society for Human Resource Management found that 75% of U.S. workers reported experiencing or witnessing incivility at work in the past month, and that each uncivil act costs an estimated $19 in lost productivity, adding up to more than $1.3 billion a day nationwide. That gap between a bare-minimum interaction and a genuinely respectful one shows up on the balance sheet, in trust, in morale, and in whether people come back.
Every August, National Civility Month asks organizations to pause and recommit to something disarmingly simple: treating people well. The observance was built around a straightforward reminder that kindness, empathy, and respect belong at the center of how we work.
Most conversations about civility focus on etiquette: hold the door, say thank you, watch your tone in an email. That advice has its place, but it reduces civility to a set of manners instead of recognizing it as something much deeper. In a values-driven organization, civility reflects what we believe about people and the dignity they deserve simply because they are human. Those beliefs are tested every day in the moments that matter most, including how leaders lead, how deals are negotiated, and how an organization treats its vendors, partners, and even the competitors who share its ecosystem.
Servant leadership in practice
One expression of that belief is servant leadership, a term that gets misunderstood about as often as it gets used. Today, it’s frequently interpreted as permission to accommodate everyone, avoid hard conversations, or put people’s happiness above the organization’s actual results. That was never Robert K. Greenleaf’s intention.
Greenleaf, a retired AT&T executive, spent his second career examining why so many institutions relied on hierarchy and authority rather than trust and stewardship. In his 1970 essay The Servant as Leader, he argued that the desire to serve should come first, with leadership emerging as a natural consequence of that desire, not the other way around. The Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership, which continues his work today, still upholds that same standard.
Outcomes still mattered to Greenleaf, but they were never his primary measure of leadership. His test was simple: Do those served become “healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, and more likely themselves to become servants?” By that measure, a leader’s success is reflected in how many people leave more capable than they arrived, confident in their own judgment and prepared to serve others in turn.
That standard is where servant leadership and civility meet. Civility is more than courtesy exchanged in a hallway. It is recognizing that every person you lead possesses inherent dignity, and that honest feedback, difficult conversations handled fairly, and meaningful accountability all honor that dignity rather than diminish it. Servant leadership does not ask leaders to avoid difficult decisions or lower expectations. It asks them to exercise their influence with humility and remember that every decision affects a person, not just an outcome.
That perspective is reflected in the small choices leaders make every day: staying in a difficult conversation because someone’s growth depends on it, recognizing the team member who actually did the work instead of letting credit flow upward, or treating a setback as an opportunity for development rather than a permanent mark against someone. Each decision returns to Greenleaf’s central question: Does the person on the other side of this interaction leave more capable than they were before? In the end, that is the measure of leadership he set out to define.
One expression of that belief is servant leadership, a term that gets misunderstood about as often as it gets used. Today it’s frequently read as permission to accommodate everyone, avoid hard conversations, or put people’s happiness above the organization’s actual results. That was never Robert K. Greenleaf’s intention. Greenleaf was a retired AT&T executive who spent his second career studying why so many institutions were led through authority rather than trust, and his 1970 essay The Servant as Leader grew directly out of that question. He argued that the desire to serve should come first, with leadership following only as a natural consequence of that desire, not the other way around. The Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership, the organization he founded, still carries that same standard forward today.
Outcomes still mattered to Greenleaf, but his real test for a leader was simpler: he asked whether those served “become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants.” By that measure, a leader’s success is counted in how many people they leave capable of leading, confident in their own judgment and free to serve others in turn.
That is where servant leadership and civility meet. If civility begins with recognizing the inherent dignity of every person, servant leadership is what that belief looks like when put into practice. It asks leaders to remember that every decision lands on a person, not just an outcome, and to exercise the responsibility of leadership with humility. That conviction shows up in the everyday choices leaders make: staying in a difficult conversation because someone’s growth depends on it, giving credit to the person who earned it instead of letting recognition flow upward, and treating a setback as something to work through rather than a mark against someone’s potential.
Integrity in Practice
Integrity is often described as honesty, but in the workplace it is something more demanding: the alignment between what we say we value and how we behave when those values are tested. It is easy to act with integrity when circumstances are simple and interests are aligned. The real measure comes under pressure, when the easier path is to protect a position, prioritize personal gain, or treat someone differently because the outcome feels more important than the relationship.
Civility is easiest to talk about and hardest to practice at the negotiating table, where interests are genuinely in conflict and the temptation toward positional pressure is highest. The Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School built its research around what Roger Fisher, William Ury, and Bruce Patton called principled negotiation, or negotiation on the merits. Principled negotiation treats a deal as a problem to solve together, not a contest to be won. It asks both sides to separate the people from the problem, focus on underlying interests instead of fixed positions, and work toward shared standards that both sides actually understand and agree are fair.
That approach reflects integrity because it recognizes that how an agreement is reached matters just as much as the agreement itself. A leader or organization can achieve a favorable outcome and still damage trust if the process relies on manipulation, withheld information, or unnecessary pressure. Integrity asks a different question: not only Did we get the result we wanted? but Did we pursue that result in a way that reflects the values we claim to hold?
This is where integrity and civility become inseparable. Civility is choosing fairness even when self-interest would make it easier not to, choosing respect when there is disagreement, and choosing honesty when a shortcut would be easier. Integrity gives civility its foundation because it ensures that respect is a reflection of deeply held principles, allowing people to trust that civility will remain present even under pressure. It is the commitment to treat people with dignity not because it is convenient, but because it is right.
Respect for vendors
Vendor relationships reveal another dimension of civility: how organizations behave when they hold the advantage. Every business relationship has some imbalance of power. A large company may have the purchasing leverage to dictate terms to a smaller supplier, while a smaller company may have less leverage but depend heavily on a critical vendor. In either situation, the question is the same: does the organization use its position simply because it can, or does it recognize the responsibility that comes with influence?
Integrity in vendor relationships is reflected in the choices that are easiest to overlook. It means honoring payment commitments instead of treating a supplier’s cash flow as a convenient source of financing. It means communicating openly when a relationship needs to change rather than allowing a vendor to absorb the cost of poor planning. It means negotiating terms with an understanding that a supplier’s sustainability matters, because a relationship built on squeezing the other side eventually weakens both parties.
This is where civility moves beyond politeness. It is not about being agreeable in every transaction; it is about recognizing that the people behind every business relationship deserve fairness and respect, regardless of which side holds more leverage. Organizations that operate this way build something more valuable than a single favorable deal: they build trust with partners who are willing to be there when circumstances become difficult.
Letting a value survive an inconvenient Tuesday
This is where a stated value has to earn its place, by showing up in the boring, daily moments instead of staying on a wall as a mission statement. That might mean patience with a business owner who is behind on paperwork, honesty with a vendor even when silence would be easier, or a baseline conviction that everyone you deal with, customer, banker, competitor, or colleague, has worth that has nothing to do with what they can do for you. For organizations built on a faith commitment, like AmPac, that conviction has a name and a source. The practice holds up on its own, without any need for faith underneath it. All it asks is that you decide the value is real enough to survive an inconvenient Tuesday.
Grace as infrastructure
Civility observed for one month a year is a nice gesture. Civility built into how you lead, negotiate, and treat everyone in your orbit, including the people you will never see again and the ones you will compete against next quarter, is a durable advantage, because in commercial lending, and in any relationship-driven business, trust is the actual product. That is the harder standard, and the one worth being held to in every month of the year, not just this one.