Human Capital Leadership Leaders' Role in Promoting and Supporting Inclusion and Belonging, with Alida Miranda-Wolff
Mar 18, 2026
Alida Miranda-Wolff, DEIB practitioner and author of Cultures of Belonging, shares why belonging demands intentional work and how mobility disability shaped her focus. She explores fragile belonging, cultural resistance to accommodating others, loneliness as a workplace and public-health issue, the business case for inclusion, leadership transparency, and the limits of AI for relational work.
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How Personal Exclusion Sparked A Career In Belonging
- Alida Miranda-Wolff felt persistent lack of belonging after moving often and acquiring mobility disabilities at college, which sparked her focus on belonging.
- She described barriers at University of Chicago like inaccessible housing and professors resisting assistive devices that revealed belonging's fragility.
Belonging Comes With The Inconvenience Of Others
- Belonging requires tolerating the inconvenience and discomfort of others rather than tailoring environments to individual comfort.
- Alida referenced Lauren Berlant's The Inconvenience of Other People and noted Western cultural tendencies toward convenience reduce willingness to share imperfect commons.
Loneliness Is A Workplace And Public Health Problem
- Loneliness is a public health crisis tied to cultural design that emphasizes individual convenience over communal care.
- She cited research showing mothers of children under five are the loneliest group, highlighting costs of lost communal caregiving.
