Transformational Leadership with Dr. Julian Sonn (Part I)

Into Liberation: A podcast about transformative change, equity, and working against oppression

Join us for another VISIONS elder story as we sit down with Dr. Julian Sonn, who has been with VISIONS, quite literally, since its inception. This is another in our series of elder story podcasts that we’re doing in honor of our 40th anniversary, which we'll be celebrating in Boston on September 27, 2024.

Dr. Sonn is a psychologist and academic, and also worked extensively the VISIONS model while in exile in the US before returning to South Africa in the 1990s as Apartheid was ending. He talks about his early life and the experiences that shaped his outlook, and his trajectory from living in a pretty mixed town pre-Apartheid to experiencing displacement and the impacts of segregation, and how he ended up in the United States as a political exile, which is when he met VISIONS founders Valerie Batts and John Capitman.

Dr. Sonn has spent the last 30 years in South Africa, consulting and in university positions working on transformative leadership, which we talk about that more in the next episode.
Will we see you in Boston in September 2024 for VISIONS 40th Anniversary Celebration? Learn more here!
Interested in learning more about our approach and model? VISIONS offers a pay-what-you-can (free if you want!) introduction to our Guidelines for Effective Cross Cultural Dialogue on the last Wednesday of every month. All are welcome. Learn more and register here!
Some terms:
Afrikaans - a language spoken in South Africa with influences from indigenous Khoisan peoples, enslaved African and Asian people, and the descendants of European (Dutch, German, and French) colonists in the Dutch colony at the Cape of Good Hope.
Boers/Afrikaaners -Afrikaans-speaking descendants of Dutch, German, or Huguenot settlers in contemporary South Africa.
Karoo - large, semiarid desert region of the Eastern, Western, and Northern Cape provinces in South Africa.
Broederbond - a secret society open to Calvinist white males that were a driving force behind implementing apartheid in South Africa; see Wikipedia.
Bantustans aka "homelands" - ostensibly independent territories to which black South Africans were displaced as part of Apartheid polic

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About us
Into Liberation: A podcast about transformative change, equity, and liberation is a production of VISIONS, Inc, a non-profit that offers effective tools that help individuals and organizations communicate and forge connections across differences that drive collective success.

Since 1984, we’ve offered research-based, time-tested approaches to cross-cultural learning that invite participants to engage in equity and inclusion work, starting at the personal and interpersonal levels and expanding to include changes toward institutional and cultural levels.
VISIONS offers actionable approaches that empower people to identify actions, explore their motivations, and effectively move through complex situations with respect and humanity for others and their differences.
Any opinions and views expressed by the speakers are their own and do not reflect the positions of VISIONS, Inc.

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Music credit: Tim Hall @tv_hall
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1. Early Life and Apartheid Experiences (00:00:00)

2. Social Activism and Personal Growth (00:15:05)

3. Adapting Visions Model for South Africa (00:32:38)

4. Transformational Leadership in South Africa (00:40:26)

5. Celebrating Visions 40th Anniversary (00:49:59)