![]() ![]() They can include gestures as simple as acknowledging and affirming someone’s experience of a microaggression, or giving encouraging feedback and sincere compliments. These are equally subtle but powerful actions or language that demonstrate affirmation, encouragement, and belief in a person’s potential. Research suggests that there’s a flip side of the coin: Microvalidations. Microaggressions, for example, are often dismissed or ignored by both perpetrators and witnesses, leading those on the receiving end to often feel alienated, withdraw, and face chronic stress. Microaggressions and microvalidations exist on the opposite ends of a spectrum of small behaviors that can make people feel like either outsiders or insiders of a particular group. To address this imbalance and build positive relationships in the workplace, it’s not enough to simply eliminate negative interactions - we also need to encourage positive ones. Small, Positive Acts Make a Big Difference As a result, members of marginalized groups must wait longer to reach management and executive levels (if promoted at all), have lower-quality relationships with managers and supervisors, and experience higher levels of work-related stress and adverse health outcomes as consequences of identity-based discrimination. Research shows that while leaders are willing to affirm the potential of early-career workers who belong to a majority group (racial or otherwise), workers from historically underrepresented groups are often subject to more scrutiny and less recognition of demonstrated success and are often given less– helpful performance feedback. This carries over to the workplace as well. Beginning in preschool, for example, Black and brown children receive far fewer compliments and more disciplinary action than their white peers, and throughout their formative school years, teachers maintain lower expectations of them and are less likely to provide developmental feedback on their assignments. In addition to the microaggressions and other forms of discrimination they experience, individuals from marginalized groups typically experience a deficit of positive interactions relative to their majority-group counterparts. These are small, positive actions that encourage or affirm. To do this, we propose an additional tool: Microvalidations. In our work as leadership and DEI academics, practitioners, and advisors, we’ve found that avoiding committing microaggressions is not enough to remedy the harm they cause, we need to counteract them. These are subtle acts of exclusion that negatively impact learning, problem-solving, and overall emotional well-being for workers who belong to a historically underrepresented or devalued group - whether because of race, gender, sexual orientation, or other identity. ![]() You’ve likely taken part in a workplace training that describes how to recognize and avoid microaggressions.
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