ABSTRACT
In Dante’s world, lust and chastity are closest to Heaven because they are linked to selfless love. Lust is about desire for immediate, indiscriminate sexual satisfaction. Chastity fosters deliberate choice, suspense of satisfaction, and commitment. Both Church and State try to regulate lust, and lust motivates in a way that is different from greed: lust has no other reason to be than itself, it is its own object. Transformation in relationships such as marriage occur when the bond between two people manages to hold the polarities together. That bond is the love that goes beyond rationality – formal vows, for instance – and forms a kind of pact deep in the unconscious realms of the relationship. Dante’s journey reminds us that love is the key to transformation because love comprises the opposites. This chapter sets out how leadership, in a context dominated by textbook rationale, enhances creativity between two parties. A decision made with a combination of lust and chastity, body and mind, instinct and spirit, is more cohesive. Leaders working through presence may seem more vulnerable than those who take the safer route. Yet in times of change and upheaval of familiar structures, the safest place is in the now.
