By Ginka Toegel
Microaggressions are subtle, often unintended slights that quietly undermine confidence, belonging, and performance. Their cumulative impact erodes trust and psychological safety, slowing careers and driving attrition. This article examines how microaggressions distort workplace dynamics and offers leaders practical steps to recognise, repair, and prevent them to build cultures where confidence and respect thrive.
In modern workplaces, bias rarely announces itself with a slur or an overt slight. It whispers. It shows up in who gets interrupted, who gets credited, who’s left out of the WhatsApp chat where decisions are quietly made. These moments are small, but their effect is cumulative. Over time, microaggressions (those subtle indignities or dismissive comments directed at people from marginalized groups) chip away at confidence, belonging, and performance itself. For leaders, understanding how microaggressions work isn’t an exercise in political correctness. It’s about retaining talent and preserving trust. Subtle disrespect is still disrespect, and it costs companies dearly in engagement, innovation, and attrition.
The Hidden Tax on Confidence
Psychiatrist Chester M. Pierce first coined the term “microaggressions” in the 1970s to describe the small but relentless slights Black Americans experienced daily. Decades later, psychologist Derald Wing Sue expanded the concept to include race, gender, sexuality, disability, and other identity factors. His definition, “brief, everyday exchanges that send denigrating messages to certain individuals because of their group membership,” still captures it best.
What makes microaggressions so insidious is their ambiguity. They’re often unintentional, wrapped in politeness or humour. A “compliment” such as “You’re surprisingly articulate” or “You don’t look disabled” may sound harmless, but it quietly reinforces stereotypes about who is expected to be competent or capable. A leader who habitually checks messages while a colleague from an underrepresented group is speaking may not mean harm, but the signal is unmistakable: you’re not worth full attention.
Repeated exposure has measurable effects. Studies show that microaggressions increase stress hormones, trigger rumination, and corrode self-esteem. Women in STEM fields, for example, report higher anxiety and lower belonging when their competence is subtly questioned. Over time, people start editing themselves: speaking less, volunteering less, doubting more. Confidence doesn’t collapse all at once; it evaporates drip by drip. The true psychological damage lies in the uncertainty: the “is it me or is it bias?” spiral that becomes exhausting to navigate. Am I being oversensitive? Did I misread the situation? This mental tax drains energy that could otherwise fuel performance and growth.
The Perception Gap
Most microaggressions aren’t delivered with malice. They arise from unconscious bias and the mental shortcuts our brains take to process difference. But research consistently shows that men and majority-group members underestimate how often microaggressions occur. A 2023 benchmark study by the Integrating Women Leaders Foundation found that women reported experiencing microaggressions far more frequently than men believed they occurred. Men active in allyship networks noticed more, but even then, gaps remained.
The blind spot is structural, not moral. People who aren’t targeted rarely see the thousand small cuts. To them, it’s “just banter.” To the person on the receiving end, it’s ‘death by a thousand paper cuts’. The message to leaders: intent isn’t the same as impact. The paradox is that targets of microaggressions often internalize the harm. They begin to police their tone, qualify their expertise, or withdraw from stretch roles. Confidence, once eroded, becomes self-reinforcing, because visibility and voice are both symptoms and sources of confidence. Microaggressions, then, aren’t just about civility. They’re about career velocity. They slow people down by making them second-guess their right to take up space. The effect compounds over time, especially for women and people of colour navigating “double binds,” where assertiveness is praised in men but penalized in women. Leaders who want high-performing teams can’t afford to ignore this. Confidence isn’t innate; it’s contextual. The environment either amplifies it or corrodes it.
What Leaders Can Do
Addressing microaggressions isn’t about scripting every word. It’s about setting norms that make everyone feel seen and heard. Here’s where to start.
Make listening a leadership habit. Don’t rely on anonymous surveys alone. Ask people directly how they experience meetings, feedback, and recognition. Hold short “pulse” check-ins with small groups. When someone flags a pattern of exclusion or bias, thank them before you investigate. The goal is learning, not defensiveness.
Practise repair, not perfection. Everyone slips. What defines a leader is how they recover. If you realise a comment landed wrong, try: “I didn’t mean for that to sound dismissive, thanks for catching it.” This simple acknowledgement does more for trust than a defensive explanation ever could. Mistakes handled well become moments of credibility.
Model inclusive meetings. Pay attention to airtime. Who gets interrupted? Whose ideas are rephrased and credited to someone else? Simple tactics such as rotating who speaks first, explicitly inviting quieter voices, or naming contributions can flatten hierarchies and restore confidence to those sidelined by bias.
Link inclusion to performance, not just values. When you talk about microaggressions, connect them to outcomes: “When people second-guess themselves, they contribute less, and that costs us innovation.” This framing helps sceptics see inclusion as operational discipline, not moral preference.
Protect people who speak up. Microaggressions often escalate when someone calls them out. Make it explicit that retaliation, however subtle, is a breach of company values. Quietly check in with anyone who’s raised a concern: “How are things going since we spoke?” The follow-through matters more than the form.
Train for feedback fluency. Teach managers how to receive feedback on bias without shutting down. Encourage curiosity over defensiveness: “Can you tell me how that came across?” Equip them with language for repair and the emotional maturity to hold discomfort without making it about themselves.
Make small wins visible. When teams model inclusion (intervening in an interruption or crediting a colleague’s idea) recognise it. Culture spreads through storytelling. Celebrate the people who get it right; they make inclusion tangible.
The Business Case for Action
When microaggressions go unchecked, organisations lose more than morale; they lose momentum. Teams stop challenging ideas. Innovation slows. High performers quietly leave for cultures where they don’t have to translate themselves daily. But when leaders model accountability and empathy, confidence rebounds. Employees who feel heard and respected are more likely to share ideas, take risks, and stay. Microaggressions erode psychological safety. Repairing them restores it.
Leaders sometimes ask whether microaggressions are really their problem. They are, because they define the lived reality of the culture you claim to lead. Every raised eyebrow, every forgotten invitation, every undermining “joke” tells people how power works here. Fixing this doesn’t require grand gestures. It requires consistency: listening when you’d rather move on, apologising when you’d rather explain, protecting people when silence would be easier. Confidence grows where respect is predictable. And that’s the ultimate leadership metric: not how loudly you inspire, but how quietly you make others believe in their own voice.
Ginka Toegel
