By Dr Renate Volpe

One of my passions is facilitating a module for the business schools entitled: “Personal Mastery in a Transformational Society.”

My definition of Personal Mastery is: "Seeking to consistently approximate your inner truth, whilst remaining relevant to the context, within which you choose to find yourself."

The key principles upon which I base this workshop are:

Firstly, in order for leadership to be effective they need to understand that their primary challenge is leading a diverse group of people, in a consistently changing context.

The primary prerequisites to doing so are to understand how people behave – beginning with themselves – when exposed to consistently increasing rates of exponential change, which bring with it enhanced ambiguity, ambivalence and uncertainty.

Secondly, to understand that personal mastery in a changing context brings with it the requisite challenge that they be prepared to review their personal beliefs for relevance and applicability to their context.

Managing diversity constructively requires actively exercising the principle of acceptance for diverse world and life views, and therefore, by definition, being open minded.

Inevitably within an organization at senior levels, some level of homogeneity pervades. This may be present in the form of gender, language, culture, religious affiliation, or a mix of all of the above.

What people believe influences their thoughts and their actions.

Our beliefs were influenced by our upbringing; that is namely our parents, elders, religious and other educators. These people were well meaning and taught us what was relevant to their day.

The world around us has changed immensely and continues to shift daily. As such we cannot assume that our beliefs should remain constant in a radically changing world.

We are often drawn to people similar to ourselves, because they reinforce our own reality. We sometimes judge those different to ourselves as inferior and or wrong, when all they are is different!

Our world view is threatened the moment we feel uncomfortable about something. This could extend from nudity, to religious beliefs, to abortion, to political views to alternative practices of sexuality. When we feel uncomfortable, we try to reestablish our equilibrium by justifying or rationalizing our point of view, or seeking support from others that hold a similar view of life to our own.

This creates for us a sense of superiority, a feeling of being right and allows justification of our world view. The result is one that creates a divide between people who consider themselves superior to others in class, race and religious affiliation.

The answer? We’re all on the same journey.

In South Africa, the diversity and transformational context are particularly noticeable and therefore noteworthy.
The desire of each and every person is a more peaceful, less aggressive, more accepting society. Well it is time for each one of us to take a good hard look at ourselves and review what we believe about the following:

• If you are a man, do you believe yourself superior to women?
• If you are very religious, do you look down on those who are not?
• If you are white or black or colored or oriental, do you believe you are of a superior or inferior breed?
• If you are top of a hierarchy at work, do you believe yourself superior to those who work with and for you?
• If you hold strong beliefs around sexuality, politics, nudity or bad language, do you judge others who don’t as less worthy?

Leadership in the future is about managing difference in a transformational context!
This means baking one cake, with a variety of ingredients, all essential to the mix or recipe.

So in brief, if you purport to be a good person, to hold positive values, have the courage to look around you at people who hold varying life views - different from your own.So - they make your uncomfortable? Deal with it!

You are no better or worse than they are. You are simply different. Why not adopt a healthier value than that of judgment and superiority?
May I suggest the value of ‘acceptance of difference?’
It will go a long way to creating a happier, peaceful and more respectful society for each and every one of us.