HELLO

Chiany Dri 

She/Her

LinkedIn

 

Meet the Leader

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Chiany Dri is the Founder of The Inclusion School, where she helps organizations build healthy workplace cultures and embed equity and belonging into their core strategies. With over a decade of experience in DEI leadership across nonprofits, education, and healthcare, she integrates lived experience with restorative and trauma-informed practices to cultivate psychologically safe and thriving workplaces. Recognized by the California State Senate for her leadership in social justice, Chiany continues to reimagine what inclusive leadership looks like.

 

Restorative Leadership Interview Questions:

 

Question 1: What helps you stay creatively courageous when the world feels threatened/like it’s on fire?

 

What helps me stay creatively courageous is my belief that even amidst collapse, something new is being born. It’s been important to me throughout my life to find communities that dream out loud and refuse to settle for the world as it is. I want to be part of spaces that aren’t afraid to ask for more or to name our reality and our worthiness. Creativity, as a courageous practice, for me, is not a luxury; it is resistance in a world that often asks us to settle and stay quiet. Creativity is how we alchemize pain into our writing, poetry, dreams, strategy, and collective change. 

 

Question 2: Describe a time when your imagination helped you move from fear into action.

 

When the world feels like it’s unraveling, I root myself in asking myself "else could be true?" That question has often become a lifeline, not to bypass the grief or fear, but to make space for possibility within it. Dreaming of possibility, to me, is not separate from pain, but often born from it, and is a really important process when moving through personal and collective hardship. One of the most vivid examples was during the uprisings in 2020. I felt overwhelmed by rage, sorrow, and deep grief, but I also imagined a world where our grief could be visible, held, and honored collectively, and used to create something better. That vision helped me to reimagine my own consulting work and the ways in which I wanted to support my community.

 

Question 3: What does growth and holding space look like for you after a loss or rupture? 

 

After rupture, I do my best not to rush to fix or solve something. Combating the idea or urgency has been one of the hardest practices for me, personally, but one of the most important as well. Sometimes stillness is necessary to find solutions, and often your world will demand it if you don’t surrender to it first. In the aftermath of a personal and professional loss a few years ago, I wanted to rush the healing process and move on, but instead I allowed myself to witness all that was coming up for me, giving me space to dream and create something new for myself. Much of this was poured into The Inclusion School, a learning collective that was birthed from this very experience. Some practices that supported me in the process also included journaling, prayer, long walks, laughter with friends, and time spent with my children. What helped me move forward wasn’t necessarily rushing to a resolution but trusting in the timing of my life and believing that I had a greater purpose to fulfill.

 

 Question 4: How do you protect space for imagination in your team or community? 

 

I treat imagination as sacred and necessary. In my team and community, dreaming is a normalized part of the work. When working with others, I make room for check-ins and conversations that are nonlinear, and I encourage people around me to ask themselves, “What would this process look like if it were rooted in ease?” or “What would feel most liberatory right now?” These questions help us widen the field of possibility, even within everyday workplace or community constraints. Just as importantly, when you see imagination as sacred, it’s essential to set boundaries by modeling healthy rest, joy, and connection to each other. 

 

Question 5: What rituals or practices help you (and/or your team/community) name what hurts while still holding on to what’s possible? 

 

We hold space through nurturing and tending to our relationship. I think connection has an important role in processing the hardships we might experience as humans moving through the world and the grief we may be experiencing collectively. To be connected to ourselves, our communities, and the world around us is what will ultimately anchor us in challenging moments. Some tools that have been supportive for me in finding these forms of connection have been music and dancing, storytelling with people we love and trust, and dreaming. Dreaming really big, no matter what we plan to do with it all. These are some of the things that remind us of our humanity, and we need that when the world works to make us feel small.