Because — “Polite Isn't the Same as Civil.”
“That’s the provocation: we are very good at diagnosing incivility in other people—
and terrible at recognizing it in the mirror.”
About a month ago, just after the start of the academic year, I was struck by the number of posts in Nurse Educator Facebook groups and on LinkedIn about faculty incivility. The stories are compelling and heartbreaking. Especially as I reflect on the incivility I experienced in that setting. At the leadership level, their nearly universal explanation is all too familiar: it’s a person. “She’s toxic.” “He’s destroying morale.” They want a verdict on someone else — a name, a label, a problem to remove.
In my practice-setting nurse executive role, the directors and managers shared their concerns about uncivil or unhealthy work environments in the same way. A different building, a different job title, the same story: someone else is the problem.
Here’s what I’ve learned from experiencing it in both worlds: the quiet moves are the same. The eye-roll in the meeting. The email that goes unanswered. The decision relitigated in the hallway after everyone agreed in the room. What differs is where they happen and what they cost — an interesting topic for upcoming posts! This post is about looking inward as the first assessment. A tool: ten questions, for nurse leaders in either world, about the incivility in the mirror.
So this assessment comes with a twist. It is not a survey about your colleagues, your faculty, or your unit. It’s about you.
That’s the provocation. We are very good at diagnosing incivility in other people. We are terrible at recognizing it in the mirror — because quiet incivility doesn’t feel like cruelty when you’re the one doing it. It feels like being busy. It feels like standards. It feels like leadership.
Ten questions, ordered from easiest to admit to hardest. Answer the questions based on your behaviors over the last twelve months, and answer honestly — nobody sees this but you. Leadership incivility doesn’t look the same in both worlds. The assessment questions don’t care which world you lead in. But the behaviors are the same at the core; assessment, as we know, is the first step!
If you’re comfortable enough, take the assessment online by clicking here. The tool will automatically calculate your score, automatically deletes when you close the window — no hidden data collection, no counts, no leftover evidence. If you’re not convinced, here are the questions you can read the old-fashioned way! Don’t forget to score your results.
How to score it
0 = Never. Not once in the last year.
1 = Rarely. Once or twice.
2 = Sometimes. A few times a year — often enough that it’s a pattern, not an accident.
3 = Often. Monthly or more. It’s a habit.
The 10 questions
1. Nonverbal dismissal. I’ve sighed, eye-rolled, checked my phone, or visibly multitasked while a colleague was speaking. I never said a word. I didn’t have to.
2. Selective responsiveness. I’ve answered some colleagues promptly while letting messages from particular people sit, stall, or die quietly. I called it triage. It was also a message.
3. Busy as a wall. I’ve used “I’m swamped” to dodge a mentoring moment, an equity issue, or a hard conversation I owed someone. My calendar was full. So was my avoidance.
4. Correcting with an audience. I’ve corrected or “clarified” a colleague where others could see it — in the meeting, on reply-all, or with their supervisor looped in. It played as rigor. It landed as humiliation.
5. Voice rationing. I’ve interrupted, rushed, or talked over someone — or scheduled the meeting when I knew they couldn’t attend — so their perspective got less airtime. The agenda was full. Some voices were fuller than others.
6. The meeting after the meeting. I’ve relitigated a decision in a hallway, a text thread, or a side conversation after consensus was reached in the room. The vote happened; I kept campaigning.
7. Credit absorption. I’ve presented an idea without naming who brought it to me, or let my name stay on work I didn’t originate. Nobody corrected the record — including me.
8. Triangulation. I’ve discussed a colleague’s performance or attitude with someone else before speaking directly to them. I called it getting perspective. It was gossip with a purpose.
9. The private freeze-out. I’ve been warm to someone publicly while withholding information, collaboration, or opportunities from them privately. Polite in the meeting; absent everywhere else.
10. Selective standards. I’ve enforced — or waived — a policy differently depending on who was involved. The rule was the rule, except when it wasn’t. Everyone noticed except me.
What your score means
One caution before you read your score: this is a reflective tool, not a validated instrument. The bands below are meant to start an honest conversation, not to label you.
0–5: The clean mirror. Either you’re unusually disciplined, or you’re answering as the leader you wish you were. Don’t trust this score yet — earn it. Ask one person who reports to you and one peer to take this quiz about you, anonymously. If their numbers match yours, the mirror is clean.
6–12: Quiet currents. A few of these are habits, not malice. That’s precisely how incivility normalizes: nobody’s the villain, everyone’s a little guilty, and the culture quietly absorbs it. Circle your highest-scoring question and name it out loud to your team — the behavior, and what you’re changing. Private resolutions don’t change cultures. Public ones do.
13–20: Your culture has a tell. Your team has already noticed the pattern you haven’t named. They’ve adjusted around you — they cc defensively, they pre-meet before your meetings, they’ve stopped bringing you bad news. You can’t ask for honesty you haven’t modeled, so go first: share your score with your team, name the behavior you’re retiring, and invite them to take the assessment too.
21–30: You’re administering a symptom. At this level, these aren’t lapses; they’re leadership style — and the instinct to fix it alone is part of the pattern. Your team won’t tell you the truth directly anymore, because the score explains why. Bring in an outside facilitator, and give them real authority — not a listening tour.
Leadership Takeaway
Incivility isn’t the loudest person in the room. It’s the quietest behaviors the room has learned to tolerate.
The quiet moves are the ones we never have to answer for, which is exactly why they are worth counting.
Questions to sit with
· Which question made you flinch — and what does the flinch tell you?
· If the people you lead took this assessment about you, anonymously, where would your score land? Do you actually want to know?
· What’s the one quiet behavior you’ll retire in the next 90 days, and who will hold you to it?
Evidence Behind the Story
This unvalidated assessment borrows its logic from Clark’s INE work — which asks respondents to rate behaviors on frequency and severity — with one deliberate twist: the person holding the clipboard is also the subject.
Clark, C. M. (2008). Faculty and student assessment of and experience with incivility in nursing education. Journal of Nursing Education, 47(10), 458–465.
—The open-access copy can be found here: Boise State ScholarWorks
NOTE: The Quiet Incivility Self-Assessment is not the INE-R and has not been psychometrically validated.
Its purpose is reflection—not diagnosis, classification, or comparison.
Want to use the story with your own faculty or leadership team?
The Adaptive Collateral Faculty Incivility Guide extends the novel into a structured learning experience using four pivotal scenes of faculty incivility. Each section includes guided discussion questions, leadership and professional-practice connections, and opportunities to examine how incivility is recognized, normalized, challenged, and sustained within academic nursing environments.
