When Did We Start Taking Every Difference Personally?

“What happened to just…listening?” a colleague asked me recently after a tense leadership review meeting.

He wasn’t complaining. Just weary. A senior, thoughtful voice who had gently pushed back on an idea that felt rushed. “The minute I said I had a different view, the energy in the room shifted,” he said. “The smiles faded. The eyes dropped. I wasn’t attacking anyone. But I could feel it — I had broken the harmony.”

This isn’t new. Many of us feel it. That strange discomfort when someone in the room — a colleague, a boss, a junior — offers a thought that doesn’t quite fit the consensus. And instead of engaging, the room subtly withdraws. The moment becomes personal. The conversation closes. The critique is mistaken for criticism.

Across corporate India, this is the culture we rarely name but often feel. The quiet penalty of difference. And yet, we are living in an age where the intergenerational workforce is no longer a theory—it’s our daily lived reality. Young minds challenge legacy playbooks. Experienced voices urge caution and structure. The dissonance could be powerful—if only we allowed it. Instead, we rush to label, to protect egos, to preserve comfort.

In too many boardrooms, teams, and leadership circles, we still mistake disagreement for disrespect. We treat dissent like disloyalty. And in doing so, we shut the doors to learning, empathy, and innovation.

Where does this come from?

Maybe from our families, where obedience was often equated with love. Maybe from our schools, where questioning authority was seen as rebellion. Or maybe from our own fragile understanding of identity—where being challenged feels like being rejected.

This mindset spills into our teams. Into strategy meetings. Performance reviews. Family councils. Community WhatsApp groups. In each of these spaces, we find ourselves unable to separate the idea from the individual. If someone doesn’t agree with us, we assume they don’t value us. And that inability to hold emotional distance from difference is costing us deeply — as people, as organisations, and as a society.

And yet we parade inclusion as a core value. We fill company decks with phrases like diversity in Indian organisations, inclusive leadership, and psychological safety at work. We train teams in unconscious bias. We host “townhalls for all voices". But when the real test comes — when someone disagrees, especially from a junior level, or from a different background—we still flinch.

Let’s be honest. Inclusion is not about colours on a poster. It’s about what happens when you say “I disagree” in a room full of senior leaders—and still get invited to speak again.

That’s the real work of leadership in India today. Not just driving efficiency, but nurturing safety. Not just delivering results, but building spaces where challenge is allowed — even welcomed. Because without that, the so-called workplace wellbeing we seek will always be surface-level. We cannot be at peace in a culture where disagreement equals disrespect.

This is also not about business alone. In our homes, how many conversations are avoided simply because someone fears being misunderstood? In friendships, how many truths go unspoken because “they won’t get it”? In partnerships, how many boundaries are blurred just to avoid discomfort? And in parenting—are we raising kids to obey, or to think?

These are not rhetorical questions. They’re daily realities in a country where we are facing a massive generational shift—not just in leadership, but in thought, values, and expectations.

Take the example of a family business transition. A son wants to digitise the sales model. The father sees it as abandoning “relationships built over decades”. Both are valid. Both carry truth. But instead of sitting in that tension, many families implode. The conversations get personal. Identity takes over reason. And the opportunity to evolve is lost.

You’ll see it in startups, where young founders hesitate to question a seasoned investor’s feedback. In legacy companies, where younger team members are told “you’ll understand when you’re older.” In every instance, we lose not just speed or agility — we lose trust. And we lose the richness that managing generational diversity can bring.

As a culture, we still reward conformity. We like teams that nod in unison. We like juniors who “learn quickly and don’t argue". We value “team players” who don’t challenge power. But if everyone’s thinking the same way, someone isn’t thinking.

And this is where our Indian corporate culture needs reinvention. Because the future of work in India is not going to be driven by single-lens thinking. It will be shaped by contradiction, by friction, by debate. And if we don’t build muscle around respectful dissent, we’ll continue to build brittle cultures—unable to adapt when real change hits.

Here’s the paradox. We all crave authenticity. But we also fear discomfort. We want real conversations, but not too real. We want feedback, but only if it’s framed kindly. We want emotional intelligence from others, but often struggle to model it ourselves. And so we scroll through Instagram reels telling us about peace and presence, while avoiding the one place that actually demands it—real human difference.

Let’s call this out. Inclusive leadership is not about everyone being like us. It’s about learning to live and lead with people who are not. And that requires more than skill—it requires grace. A mindset. A willingness to be questioned without getting defensive. A readiness to accept that sometimes, you’re wrong. And always, you can listen better.

The best leaders I know don’t silence difference. They sit with it. They make it visible. They thank the person who voiced it. Not because they agree, but because they value the culture it protects.

And in doing so, they make the whole system stronger.

So the next time someone challenges your view — pause. Before reacting. Before retreating. Before turning away. Pause and ask yourself — is this an attack, or a contribution? Is this a threat, or a mirror?

Because real inclusive culture is not about avoiding discomfort. It’s about choosing to stay in the room when it happens.

And maybe, that’s where real peace begins.

Not in agreement. But in acceptance.

Dr. Srinath Sridharan is a policy researcher and corporate advisor.

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are those of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views of NDTV Profit or its editorial team.