Reframing the Conversation: Embracing Workplace Conflict Through a DEIB Lens

Abstract

While the experience of interpersonal conflict at work is not new, managers and EA professionals face increasingly complex and dynamic situations that influence how workplace conflict emerges, how conflict is interpreted, and how conflict is managed. Navigating workplace conflicts is often a part of the job that managers and employee assistance professionals report as a standard yet considerably challenging phenomenon in the workplace. In addition, organizational leaders are confronted with the dif- ficult task of guiding their teams through rapidly changing macro-sociocultural factors that can play out as unavoidable dynamics within the workplace, such as critical matters of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB). This article discusses the intersectionality between workplace culture and conflict while also introducing the benefits of using a DEIB lens in navigating workplace conflict through the application of the EMBRACE© model of mediation.