CONSCIOUS DIALOGUE
Time to face reality, think positively and plan for the future
IWAS THE keynote speaker at the Sustainability Summit at the JSC recently when I asked the question: What have we done to ourselves and how did we get here? These are anxious and difficult times for which we need an inner resilience and security to get ourselves out of this malaise of loss, betrayal and the paralysing pessimism of recent events that threaten our national psyche?
Fortunately, some of the finest minds of the nation avail themselves to unravel consciousness in action or the lack thereof in the Conscious Companies Leadership dialogue breakfast hosted by Strate.
A national conversation to cultivate an intuitive guidance to conscious leadership gains momentum in a panel discussion of highly influential leaders.
Dr Ian Weinberg, neurosurgeon, neuroscientist and conscious leadership coach joins Professor Mervyn King, corporate governance guru, chairperson of the King Committee and chairperson Emeritus of the Global Reporting Initiative, executive chairperson of the Mandela Institute for Development Studies, Dr Nkosana Moyo, Ronnie Ntuli, entrepreneur, financier, founder and chairperson of Thelo Group, visionary leader and winner of the Conscious Companies Award Monica Singer; and finalists Adam Craker, chief bexecutive of IQ Business, who is robust in his quest to unify business, labour and government, and Marc Lubner, chief executive of Akrika Tikkun and founder of the Smile Foundation, who has made an indelible difference in society.
These are awakened leaders and the trailblazers of consciousness in action and their work breaks the current cycle of deceitful blinkered leadership in this country.
Dr Weinberg is a courageous pioneer in the science of applied psychoneuroimmunology and his unique take on the human brain in terms of neuroscience, leadership, emotion, consciousness and the reality of our current morass and the grim, destructive legacy of apartheid on millions of South Africans is deeply disturbing and thought provoking.
“The current leadership crisis and social struggle is the reactionary behaviour of our dismal past and the forced breaking up of extended families and communities.” Weinberg explains.
‘The current leadership crisis and social struggle is the reactionary behaviour of our dismal past and the forced breaking up of extended families.’
Heritage
“Our nature nurture heritage gives rise to our world view or subjective reality. The marked social deprivation situation of a whole generation that saw family structures, value systems and self-esteem destroyed and not replaced by something adequate saw unfulfilled gratification for prevailing needs.
“As a consequence of the nurture deprivation for the individual as well as the collective in not having any of their needs met, such as food, love, education, a sense of belonging to something bigger, not experiencing growth and gratification and a marked absence of meaning and purpose is not conducive to conscious leadership.
“My model identifies three archetypes of behaviour that reflect differing nature-nurture dynamics that impact leadership,” he continues.
Alpha bravo
“A conscious leader like Madiba is what I would term an alpha bravo, self-assured and integrated. Even though one had experienced deprivation, to them the world is a great place and they experience gratification in serving others and placing the needs of the collective above their own.
“The second archetype has an excessive drive and excessive fear that they would not have their needs met and go into overdrive to have their needs met.
“Conditional reward for work and engagement and the relentless drive for power and material gain are all consuming and above all else, a value system that does not go beyond own needs and self- interest.
“The third archetype is an unintegrated individual driven by fear and need and greed.
“If you add a cocktail of severe deprivation, fear, lack of self-esteem, with little or no sensitivity and gratification of others suffering you get an individual completely obsessed with own needs and own gains.
“In turn they create a cabal of likeminded individuals for material gain and power at the expense of the greater collective and driven by a core value system of what’s in it for me rather than what’s in it for us.”
Deprivation
So how can we change the value system of someone who had been forged in such severe deprivation? How can you coach an individual to seek a chemistry of gratification not from materialistic self-interest but rather to a value based concept of service to the collective?
How do you turn the actions and behaviour of a Zuma into the actions of a Mandela whose own personal needs were secondary to the overall wellbeing of the collective?
Intriguing and necessary questions to put to the panel of conscious leaders on Thursday, July 20, from 9am to 11am. Booking at no cost to admin@agni.co.za