The Leadership in Action Series: On Leading the Global Organization

Bridging Boundaries: Meeting the Challenge of Workplace Diversity

Christopher Ernst and Jeffrey Yip

In today’s globally diverse and increasingly interconnected world, social identity boundaries rub together, pull apart, and collide in the workplace. When identity divides open up, people look to leaders to bridge the gaps. By employing four tactics—suspending, reframing, nesting, and weaving—leaders can facilitate positive cross-boundary interactions.

Globalization, rapidly advancing technology, changing demographics, and shifting social structures are creating a modern workplace in which groups of people who have historically remained apart are now working together. This is in turn creating a pressing organizational challenge: the need for leaders ...