by Silvia D'Addario | Mar 9, 2026 | Inside the Work Blog
In many workplaces, when something problematic happens, people feel trapped between two options.
- Say nothing and carry the discomfort.
- Call it out publicly and risk escalation.
Neither option captures the full range of what’s possible.
Most relational work happens in the space between those two responses.
The challenge is that tense moments often trigger automatic reactions. Some of us default to silence because we want to preserve relationships or avoid disrupting the room. Others move quickly toward confrontation because the harm feels urgent or familiar to them.
Neither instinct is inherently wrong. But when our responses are automatic, we lose the chance to choose the intervention that best fits the moment.
This is where relational courage comes in.
Relational courage isn’t about avoiding disruption. And it isn’t about always choosing the gentlest response. It’s about staying engaged with the moment long enough to respond intentionally rather than reactively.
In conversations about equity and accountability, people often use the language of calling in, calling on, and calling out* to describe different ways of responding.
- Calling in – Addressing harm with curiosity and care, with the goal of learning, repair, and strengthening the relationship.
- Calling on – Pausing the moment to name a concern and invite reflection, helping the group notice impact.
- Calling out – Publicly naming harmful language or behaviour when impact is significant or safety requires immediate accountability.
These approaches are not a ladder of escalation. They are different tools for different contexts.
Most workplace moments live somewhere between silence and calling out.
Consider a familiar example.
During a team meeting, someone responds to a colleague’s suggestion by saying, “That might be a bit ambitious — maybe we should keep things realistic.”
The comment lands awkwardly. The colleague who proposed the idea goes quiet. A few people shift in their seats. The meeting continues.
Moments like this happen every day.
Often people feel pulled in two directions.
One instinct is to stay silent — to preserve the flow of the meeting and avoid creating tension. Another instinct is to call the comment out directly. But many moments like this live in the space between those two responses.
Someone might pause the conversation and say,
“I’m curious what feels unrealistic about the idea.”
Or they might widen the lens slightly:
“Tell me more about what concerns you about the proposal.”
Or even invite the room back into the conversation:
“I’m interested to hear how this idea is landing for others.”
None of these responses ignore what just happened. But none of them assume the worst about the person who made the comment either.
Instead, the intervention gently reopens the conversation and creates space for reflection.
This kind of response often takes just a few seconds, but it can shift the dynamic of a room.
It signals that ideas deserve consideration. It signals that dismissive moments won’t simply pass unnoticed. And it allows accountability to happen without immediately collapsing the conversation into conflict.
Of course, not every situation allows for this kind of intervention. When harm is repeated, significant, or connected to power dynamics that prevent quieter responses from being effective, stronger disruption may be necessary.
But many everyday workplace moments fall somewhere else on the spectrum – where a pause, a question, or a small interruption can reset the conversation.
What matters most is noticing our instinct in the moment.
Do we default to silence to keep the peace? Do we escalate quickly because the harm feels intolerable?
Relational courage asks something slightly different.
It asks whether we can stay present long enough to choose the response that moves the conversation forward.
Not silence.
Not immediate escalation.
But intentional engagement.
A Small Practice
When a tense moment happens in a meeting or conversation, pause and ask yourself:
What just happened? What impact might that have had on the room? What response would reopen the conversation rather than shut it down?
The goal isn’t to find the perfect intervention.
It’s to stay engaged long enough to choose one.
That’s often where relational courage begins.
-sd
** For more on calling in, calling on, and calling out, see Michelle Cassandra Johnson (2023), We Heal Together: Rituals and Practices for Building Community and Connection.
by Silvia D'Addario | Feb 28, 2026 | Inside the Work Blog
Equity is not consensus.
There’s a quiet tension I see in leadership spaces:
On one side, leaders feel pressure to make everyone happy. On the other, they feel the urge to retreat into unilateral authority just to move things forward.
Neither option feels good.
Both miss the point.
Equitable decision-making is not about ensuring everyone agrees. It’s about ensuring the process can withstand scrutiny.
In the last issue, I wrote about transparency as clarity about what is fixed, what is flexible, and where authority lives. That’s the foundation.
But transparency alone is not enough.
Once the architecture of a decision is visible, the next question becomes: Is the design of that decision fair?
When a decision lands poorly, people don’t only react to the outcome. They react to how it was made and how it was communicated.
When I am grappling with ensuring decisions are equitable at work, I often reflect on the “Fairness Triangle” (Office of the Ombudsperson of British Columbia), which names three dimensions of fairness: outcome fairness, procedural fairness, and relational fairness.
- Outcome fairness asks: Was the result reasonable?
- Procedural fairness asks: Was the process consistent and transparent?
- Relational fairness asks: Were people treated with dignity and respect?
Transparency makes the process visible. Equity asks whether that process was fair.
A leader can be fully transparent and still rely on inconsistent criteria. They can clearly name constraints and still default to informal favoritism. They can explain who holds authority and still apply standards unevenly.
Equity examines how power is used inside the architecture.
In most complex leadership decisions, we aim to satisfy outcome, procedural, and relational fairness. In reality however, trade-offs are real. Constraints are real. Scarcity is real.
Equitable decision-making does not eliminate those constraints; what it does require is clarity.
Clarity about the criteria being used. Clarity about what was fixed and what was flexible. Clarity about the trade-offs that were weighed. Clarity about where influence was possible and where it wasn’t.
For example, imagine a manager restructuring a team due to budget cuts. Two roles are merged. One employee is reassigned to work they didn’t ask for.
If the explanation is simply, “This is what leadership decided,” frustration grows. People fill in the blanks. Was this performance-related? Political? Personal?
But if the manager explains the constraints, the financial targets, the criteria used to determine role consolidation, and how decisions were weighed, even if the outcome is still difficult, the process feels visible. That visibility reduces suspicion.
Or consider a hiring process where an internal candidate is passed over for an external hire.
If the only message shared is, “We went with the strongest candidate,” trust erodes quickly.
If instead the leader explains the competencies that were prioritized, the gaps the team needed to fill, and how the interview process was structured; the outcome may still disappoint someone, but the rationale is understandable. That matters.
When leaders avoid naming trade-offs, people assume bias. When leaders avoid naming constraints, people assume indifference. When leaders avoid explaining criteria, people assume favoritism.
Silence fills with story.
Equitable decision-making interrupts that story-making by making the structure visible and defensible.
And this is where another distinction matters:
There is a difference between explaining a decision and defending it.
Explanation names criteria, constraints, and reasoning. Defense centers ego, authority, and justification.
If you find yourself arguing about whether the decision was “right,” you may have skipped the explanation step.
Equitable decision-making does not require you to abandon your role. It does not require universal agreement. It does not require perfection.
It requires fair, disciplined, decision design.
You can make a procedurally sound decision and still have someone experience harm. Equitable processes mean being willing to listen to impact, explain your reasoning, and make adjustments when warranted without collapsing into defensiveness or surrendering authority.
This is where many leaders get stuck. Some believe that if someone disagrees, the process must have failed.
But disagreement is not evidence of inequity. Avoiding explanation, hiding criteria, or personalizing pushback – that’s where inequity can begin to take root.
Equity is not consensus-building at all costs. It is disciplined decision design.
It asks leaders to move from “Do they like this?” to “Can I explain this?”
That shift alone reduces tension in rooms.
The Simple Test
Here’s a quick starter list for equitable decision-making. If someone challenged this decision publicly, could I calmly walk them through:
- The criteria I used
- The constraints that shaped it
- The trade-offs I weighed
- The impact I anticipated
Without becoming defensive?
If the answer is no, the work isn’t finished.
This isn’t about whether the decision is popular. It’s about whether it can withstand explanation.
When people understand how decisions are made even when they don’t love the outcome they are far more likely to experience the process as fair.
And fairness – especially procedural and relational fairness – builds long-term trust.
In high-pressure environments, the temptation is to move faster and explain less.
Inclusive leadership asks for the opposite.
Move deliberately.
Explain clearly.
Hold impact.
Stay steady.
-sd
by Silvia D'Addario | Feb 21, 2026 | Inside the Work Blog
Transparency is not exposure. It’s clarity about process and power.
There’s a quiet anxiety in leadership spaces right now around transparency.
Leaders hear:
“We need more transparency.”
What they often feel is:
“Do I have to disclose everything?”
“Am I about to lose authority?”
“What if I share too much and it gets weaponized?”
“What if I share too little and I’m accused of hiding something?”
So transparency becomes equated with exposure.
And exposure feels risky.
But here’s the shift:
Most people are not asking for your private deliberations.
They are asking for process clarity.
They want to know:
- What decisions are already fixed?
- What is genuinely open for input?
- What criteria are being used?
- Who ultimately holds decision authority?
- How will feedback influence the outcome — if at all?
When those elements are unclear, tension rises. People fill in the gaps. Distrust grows. Motives get assigned.
And leaders often misinterpret that tension as resistance — when it’s actually ambiguity.
And ambiguity is not neutral.
When criteria and constraints are unnamed, those closest to informal power can decode the system. They can access clarification, read signals, interpret subtext.
Those without that institutional capital cannot.
So vagueness rewards proximity to power.
Clarity reduces that gap.
Here’s what that can look like in practice.
A Director I worked with was preparing to restructure her department due to budget constraints. Wanting to model openness, she opened a staff meeting with:
“I want to be transparent — everything is on the table.”
People left unsettled.
Because everything was not on the table.
The budget reduction target was fixed.
The staffing envelope had already been set.
The timeline was confirmed.
But none of that had been clearly named.
So staff assumed they were being invited into shared design. When the final structure didn’t reflect their suggestions, the reaction wasn’t just disappointment — it was erosion of trust.
And for some staff, particularly those who had previously experienced token consultation or performative inclusion, it felt familiar in a deeper way.
What shifted the dynamic wasn’t more information.
It was clearer boundaries.
In a follow-up meeting, she said:
“The reduction target is fixed. I don’t have authority to change that.
What I do have influence over is how we prioritize work and distribute responsibilities. I’m looking for your input on those areas. Here are the criteria guiding this decision.”
The tone changed almost immediately.
Not because people loved the outcome.
But because they understood where influence actually lived.
That is transparency.
Not vulnerability theatre.
Not over-disclosure.
Not surrendering authority.
Clarity about constraints.
Clarity about authority.
Clarity about criteria.
And naming criteria is not just good communication.
It is an equity practice.
When leaders surface the values shaping a decision – cost, access, workload impact, student need, accessibility, long-term sustainability, they make visible how fairness is being considered.
Without that, people assume neutrality.
And neutrality often masks power.
Why Leaders Fall Into the Trap
The transparency trap happens when leaders assume they must choose between:
- Full disclosure
or
- Tight control
In reality, transparency is not about sharing everything.
It is about naming the architecture of the decision.
You can say:
- “This direction is constrained by budget and timeline.”
- “Consultation will inform implementation, not the final mandate.”
- “These criteria are non-negotiable because of policy.”
- “Here’s where your influence genuinely sits.”
You are not surrendering decision rights.
You are reducing information asymmetry.
That distinction matters.
The Power Layer
Here’s the deeper layer – and this is where many leaders hesitate.
Transparency surfaces power.
It requires naming:
- Where authority sits.
- Where it doesn’t.
- What trade-offs are real.
- What pressures exist.
That can feel uncomfortable especially in institutions where power is often implicit.
But when power is unnamed, people experience decisions as arbitrary.
When power is named, even difficult decisions feel grounded.
You may not always get agreement.
But you will reduce speculation.
And when speculation drops, conflict and tension become more workable.
What Transparency Actually Reduces
Done well, transparency reduces:
- Escalation
- Conspiracy narratives
- Back-channel organizing
- Personalization of institutional decisions
It increases:
- Predictability
- Psychological steadiness
- Mature engagement
- Trust in process, even when outcomes are hard
Transparency is not softness.
It is disciplined clarity.
A Simple Practice
Before communicating a decision, ask yourself:
- What is fixed?
- What is flexible?
- What criteria shaped this?
- Where does influence live?
- What am I not sharing — and why?
If you can answer those clearly, you are already practicing transparency.
Not exposure.
Not confession.
Not appeasement.
Clarity.
-sd
by Silvia D'Addario | Feb 14, 2026 | Inside the Work Blog
It usually starts like this: “We have some tensions among a few key people on the team.”
When leaders say “tensions,” they often mean conflict. And when they say conflict, they often mean communication breakdown.
But more often than not, what’s underneath isn’t tone.
It’s power.
Tension is rarely just about personality differences. It’s about uneven risk.
- Who can speak plainly without consequence?
- Who is labeled “difficult”?
- Who is protected by positional authority?
- Who absorbs impact quietly to survive?
Conflict does not unfold on a level playing field.
The Myth of Neutral Conflict
In many institutions, conflict processes are designed as if everyone enters from the same starting line.
Procedures assume neutrality. Policies emphasize compliance. Conversations center “both sides.”
But conflict is almost always shaped by:
- positional authority (manager, faculty, staff, student)
- social identity (race, disability, gender, Indigeneity)
- access to credibility and institutional protection
- historical patterns of marginalization
- who carries reputational risk
When we treat conflict as purely interpersonal, we erase these dynamics. And when we erase power, we often reproduce harm.
Conflict Is an Equity Issue
One of the most important shifts in conflict work is this:
Conflict is not separate from equity work. It is equity work.
Power conflicts, overt or subtle, show up in everyday interactions.
They show up when someone names racism and is told they are “too emotional.” When access needs are framed as inconvenience. When junior staff are advised to “wait their turn.” When disabled employees are asked to be “flexible” within systems never designed with them in mind.
Conflict engagement without an equity lens often rewards comfort over accountability.
That is not neutrality. That is design.
What Changes When We Name Power
A premise I’ve learned to hold steady: Conflict is natural. Its impacts are not evenly distributed.
In one consultation, a leader described the situation this way:
“We have a team member who keeps escalating things. It’s creating tension.”
What had happened was this:
A racialized staff member raised concerns about inequitable workload distribution. She documented patterns. She named impact. She asked for structural change. Her manager described her as “intense.” The manager described themselves as “overwhelmed.” The team described the environment as “tense.”
No one described the inequity as the source of the conflict. No one felt safe naming race as part of the dynamic. The tension wasn’t caused by tone. It was caused by power and identity meeting accountability.
In another consultation, a department described “persistent friction” with one employee.
The employee had requested predictable meeting times and written follow-ups accommodations connected to a documented disability. Colleagues described them as “rigid.” The leader described it as “a personality clash.”
But the friction wasn’t interpersonal. It was structural.
The team valued spontaneity and informal decision-making. The employee needed clarity and consistency, and was entitled to accessible process and accommodation.
Instead of redesigning the system, the system attempted to correct the person.
Conflict, again, was framed as communication. It was design.
The Practice
When we integrate equity and restorative principles into conflict engagement, we can widen the frame:
- from “Who violated policy?” to “Who was impacted and how?”
- from individual blame to structural pattern
- from punishment alone to repair and accountability
- from compliance to relationship and culture
This doesn’t abandon due process. It widens the lens.
It adds nuance to procedure and asks:
- What structures made this likely?
- Whose risk was higher?
- What repair is needed – individually and systemically?
And this is where capacity comes in.
I often see leaders visibly relieved when they realize they’re not being asked to eliminate conflict.
They’re being asked to build capacity inside it. That looks like:
- strengthening emotional regulation under strain
- separating discomfort from actual harm
- recognizing unequal risk before responding
- slowing down decisions when power is uneven
- designing processes where dissent doesn’t require personal sacrifice
- practicing dialogue over debate
- holding space for repair rather than defensiveness
Conflict capacity isn’t about smoothing things over.
It’s about staying present when tension rises without defaulting to control, avoidance, or urgency.
It’s about understanding that equity work without conflict skills becomes performative. And conflict skills without an equity lens can deepen harm.
Leadership, especially in complex institutions, requires both.
A Hard Truth
There’s a myth that inclusive workplaces are harmonious workplaces.
In my experience, the opposite is often true. Inclusive workplaces surface more tension because more people feel able to speak.
The question isn’t whether conflict exists. The question is whether leaders are equipped to carry it responsibly.
Because here is what we cannot ignore: If conflict repeatedly exposes the same people to greater risk, that is not accidental.
It reflects how power is operating.
And changing that requires leaders willing to build the skills and redesign the conditions that make engagement more equitable.
Conflict is not neutral. But neither is silence.
And the difference between harm and growth often rests on whether capacity has been built before the moment arrives.
-sd
Equity and Conflict work is authored in partnership with Ashley J. Moore
by Silvia D'Addario | Feb 8, 2026 | Inside the Work Blog
There’s a moment I’ve come to recognize in almost every equity, leadership, or conflict consultation.
It usually arrives after the request for training. Sometimes it’s explicit: “We just need people to understand this better.”
Sometimes it’s more subtle: “Can you help raise awareness? We need to get everyone on the same page.”
What’s underneath is rarely confusion. More often, it’s strain.
The strain of knowing something isn’t working, and not yet having the capacity to respond differently when it matters.
This is the capacity myth: the belief that awareness, values, or a one-off intervention will translate into meaningful change.
In practice, most breakdowns in workplaces don’t happen because people don’t know better. They happen because people haven’t had the chance to build capacity before the moment arrives.
Leadership development often focuses on what people should know. But most leadership failures don’t occur in moments of ignorance; they occur in moments of pressure.
- Hiring decisions made under time constraints.
- Conflict surfacing in already stretched teams.
- Accessibility needs colliding with rigid systems.
- Equity commitments meeting fear, risk, or exposure.
Capacity is what determines what happens next.
Capacity isn’t built through exposure alone. It’s built through practice, reflection, skill-building, and relational support – over time.
And yet, institutions often reach for training as a way to avoid that slower work.
A one-off session can feel efficient. Contained. Safer.
It promises resolution without disruption. Learning without vulnerability.
Change without altering how power, risk, or responsibility are actually held.
But capacity doesn’t work that way.
Capacity is not a value you adopt. It’s not a statement of intent. It’s not something you perform once and move on from.
Capacity is the ability to stay present when things are uncomfortable.
To navigate disagreement without defaulting to control or avoidance.
To make decisions that align with stated values when the stakes are real.
It’s the difference between knowing what equity asks of us and being able to act on it when it costs something.
This becomes especially visible in equity and inclusion work.
Organizations often request training hoping it will:
- check a box
- quiet criticism
- prevent future harm
- reduce risk
What’s rarely named is the fear underneath:
- fear of getting it wrong
- fear of being exposed
- fear of conflict
- fear of slowing down
Capacity-building interrupts that fear — and that can feel destabilizing at first.
Because real capacity-building doesn’t tell people exactly what to say in every situation.
It doesn’t hand out scripts that remove uncertainty.
Instead, it asks people to build skills in:
- navigating ambiguity
- regulating themselves under pressure
- holding multiple truths at once
- responding rather than reacting
That kind of learning can’t be rushed. And when people are given permission to slow down — something shifts.
I see it in the room when leaders realize they’re not being asked to perform the “right” answer.
When staff recognize they don’t need to have perfect language before engaging.
When teams understand that building capacity means they’re allowed to practice — not just comply.
There’s often an exhale. Because capacity-building is not about forcing people to act before they’re ready.
It’s about supporting them to become ready – together.
This matters deeply in equity work, where the consequences of missteps are unevenly distributed.
For some people, naming harm or difference carries reputational, professional, or emotional risk.
For others, it doesn’t.
Treating equity as something that can be handled through awareness alone ignores that reality.
Capacity-building acknowledges it.
It creates space to ask:
- What does this require of me, not just intellectually, but relationally?
- What skills do I need when values collide with urgency?
- How do I stay accountable without becoming defensive or frozen?
Institutions are often very good at investing in frameworks, policies, and statements. They are far less consistent in investing in the human capacity required to carry them out.
The gap between intention and impact is almost always a capacity gap.
And here’s the part that’s often hardest to say out loud:
Building capacity means letting go of the idea that equity work should feel efficient.
It means accepting that learning happens in tension.
That mistakes are part of skill-building.
That relational repair is a practice, not a failure.
When capacity is built well, people stop asking for someone else to “handle” the work. They begin to hold it themselves with more care, nuance, and confidence.
That’s when change becomes sustainable.
Not because everyone knows the right thing, but because they’ve built the ability to respond differently when it counts.
For me, that’s the work inside the work.
