ARE YOU COMMITTING EQUALITY CRIMES?

How Treating Everyone ‘Equal’ Destroys Talent and Suffocates Innovation in Your Team

Stop everything right now. Take a deep breath. Pause the frantic pace that rules your day and allow yourself a moment of full presence. What if, at this very moment, you dared to question the deeper meaning of justice — not only for others but for yourself and the legacy you are writing?
You might, unknowingly, be suffocating the greatest talent in your team. Not by demanding too much, but by insisting on treating everyone as ‘equal.’
More than two millennia ago, Aristotle warned us: “Justice is to treat unequals unequally, in proportion to their inequality.”
Today, neuroscience expands this understanding: different brains not only learn but create, feel, and motivate themselves in unique and singular ways.
And yet, you — the leader — still rely on standardized metrics to evaluate your team? Still offer uniform training to minds that operate in distinct worlds? Still promote those who fit in rather than those who challenge and transcend?
How many times has the illusion of equality blinded you from recognizing what is truly just? How many times have you become a spectator of your own existence, living scripts written by others, without grasping the pen to be the poetic author of your life?
Aristotle invites us to recognize singularity in justice. Nietzsche urges us to be poets of our own lives. Henri Bergson, in turn, invites us to inhabit duration — lived time, dense and not just clocked — to conquer the freedom to be conscious authors of our own being.
My article today aims to:
1. Unveil how your ‘well-intentioned equality’ might be imprisoning transformative potentials;
2. Reveal the antidote sustaining the most innovative teams in Silicon Valley;
3. Invite you to assume the role of sculptor of the singularities that compose your team.
If your purpose is to lead machines, this article is not for you.
But if you want to understand why teams with ‘equal’ leaders have 43% higher turnover (Gallup, 2023), or if you wish to extract the DNA of excellence pulsing in every human being on your team — the same insight that elevated Apple from near bankruptcy to the first trillion-dollar company in history — be inspired, take a deep breath, and dive into this reflection that will challenge and reorient your concept of organizational justice.

The Illusion of Equality and the Complexity of Justice
We live in a time when the word “justice” echoes with strength and urgency, yet is often applied with a superficiality that robs it of substance. In the legitimate eagerness to be just, we stumble into the perverse trap of treating everyone as if they were equal, disregarding the multiple layers of complexity that shape each individual’s uniqueness. But after all, what is justice? A philosophical abstraction? A fixed and universal ruler? Or is it, in fact, a dynamic exercise that demands authentic presence, reflective courage, and a clinical eye for the nuances of differences?
This misunderstood equality not only fails to promote justice — it corrupts it. Treating everyone as if they start from the same point erases the richness of asymmetries that weave our stories: invisible inherited privileges, emotional wounds healed with sweat, and resilience forged in the fire of adversity.
Social neuroscience makes this clear: the human brain is not an identical replicated machine but a singular organism, constantly reshaped by synaptic plasticity and the uniqueness of emotional patterns developed through lives marked by unique interactions. Expecting homogeneous responses from such diverse minds is, at best, naïve; at worst, a silent violence — a crime against human essence.
Imagine a leader who, in the name of justice, imposes uniform KPIs for the entire team. It seems reasonable, even fair, right? But what if, behind the numbers, there is a collaborator fighting invisible barriers — gender, race, social class discrimination — while another walks on fertile ground with privileged support networks? Ignoring these differences is not justice; it is exposing inequalities under the veil of illusory impartiality. As Aristotle taught, true justice lies in treating unequals unequally, calibrating our actions to repair these profound asymmetries.

A Systemic View on Equity
Equity is not a static mathematical equation nor a rigid policy; it is a living, fluid, and deeply relational process. Social psychology alerts us to the complexity of “distributive justice”: the reallocation of resources — whether material, emotional, or cognitive — must consider, above all, the singular needs and context of each individual.
Imagine a teacher who refuses to apply a single teaching recipe for their heterogeneous class. They are not being unfair to the more advanced students by adapting their methodology for those who learn differently. On the contrary, they are designing an environment conducive for each student, regardless of their starting point, to expand their maximum potential. A conscious leader must act the same way: not as an enforcer of rigid rules but as a builder of spaces where individual singularities are not obstacles to be bypassed but forces that amplify collectivity.
Imagine two professionals competing for a promotion. One enjoyed the best institutions, has emotional stability, and was guided by inspiring mentors; the other came from a scarcity scenario, transformed adversities into resilience, and reached the same position with near-heroic effort. Who deserves greater merit? This question is a trap that drags us into a superficial, linear, and unjust vision.
Merit, in its deepest sense, transcends the visible result: it inhabits the journey traveled, the stones removed from the path, the invisible struggle that does not appear in reports. Ignoring this is perpetuating the invisibility and erasure of those who defy opposing structural and emotional forces. It denies the impact of internal processes that shape not only performance but the very essence of what it means to achieve.
True equity demands a radical revision of the lenses through which we evaluate people and processes. It is an invitation to abandon the temptation of simplistic judgment and embrace a complexity that recognizes: potential is not a fixed point, but a singular and multifaceted trajectory. It is the art of seeing the human being beyond uniforms, metrics, and reports — recognizing their story, their battles, and their unique space for growth.

Nietzsche and the Revolution of Self-Poetry
If Aristotle calls us to recognize the other in their singularity, Nietzsche compels us to an even deeper revolution: the radical authorship of one’s own existence. “We must become the poets of our lives” is not a phrase to be superficially flipped through, much less a shallow self-help invitation. It is an existential manifesto, a call to insurgency against passivity and alienation.
How many of us, trapped in imposed scripts — whether family expectations, organizational pressures, or invisible algorithms dictating behavior — live as mere extras in the plot of our own lives? How many alien narratives imprison us, bind us, while our true self, fluid and dynamic, is relegated to silence?
Behavioral psychology makes it clear that the “self” is not a fixed, immutable essence but a relentless construction, the result of conscious choices, deep reflections, and intentional actions. An executive entangled in a rigid system — focused only on meeting targets, pleasing stakeholders, and avoiding conflict — may be living a story written by others, a script that does not belong to them.
Adopting the Nietzschean perspective is to transcend this condition. It is to redefine your role: to cease being a mere order executor and become a creator of purpose, a conscious author of your trajectory. To poetize existence is, above all, to transform internal and external chaos into a vibrant narrative that resonates with authenticity and meaning.
This transformation requires courage — the courage to look inward, face personal abysses, deconstruct old certainties, and build an identity defined not by conformism but by continuous creation. Neuroscientifically, this practice activates neural circuits linked to intrinsic motivation, brain plasticity, and the strengthening of emotional resilience.
To poetize life is, therefore, an act of subversion and freedom. It is to reclaim authorship of one’s own destiny, to give shape to one’s own chaos, sculpting meaning where before there was only survival. It is the silent revolution that begins within but reverberates in the world — in the way we lead, create, and relate.

Bergson, the Flow of Duration and the Freedom to Create
Henri Bergson offers us a powerful lens to rethink justice and authorship through the notion of duration — a temporal experience that transcends the rigidity of the clock and unfolds as a continuous flow, where past, present, and future intertwine in the unrepeatable singularity of each existence.
For Bergson, lived time — la durée — is not a linear sequence fragmented into isolated, measurable moments. It is an organic, fluid, and creative experience, where memory, intuition, and consciousness coexist and mutually influence one another. Thus, justice cannot be reduced to fixed rules, protocols, or universal metrics: it requires deep immersion into the other’s duration — the ability to hear their story as a living process, constantly transforming, rather than a static catalogue of past events.
This perspective directly resonates with contemporary understandings of how reality is constructed. As Gregory Bateson wisely taught, “the map is not the territory” — the mental model we hold of the world will never be the fullness of the world itself. When applied to management and leadership, we might say the real territory is the person — with their existential uniqueness, vivid experiences, and internal and external worlds that never repeat. The map — processes, policies, evaluations — is merely an imperfect approximation that should never override the richness of lived life.
To become the poet of one’s own life, according to Bergson, is to embrace creativity as the highest expression of freedom. In Creative Evolution, he reveals the élan vital — that creative life force that transcends the mechanistic conventions of society, crystallized hierarchies, and rigid systems. When we live in duration, connected to our intuition and the flow of existence, we become capable of generating something genuinely new — something unbound by pre-established expectations or homogenizing standards that dilute our essence.
As I write in my book, “the map is not the territory — the territory is you.” This provocation invites us to understand that the mental model we hold of the world is always a simplification. The real territory is the individual in their singular complexity — a constant flow of experiences and transformations that can never be fully captured by static maps, metrics, or processes.
Imagine a leader who abandons blind attachment to fixed protocols and metrics, and instead listens deeply to intuition — attuned to the unique nuances of their team. A leader who understands that the most powerful decisions arise from a courageous dive into the flow of each team member’s lived duration, allowing their uniqueness to blossom in dialogue with the collective.
Or imagine an individual who, upon revisiting their path, realizes that their most transformative choices were not born of linear logic, but from deep contact with their lived time — a time where past and future constantly speak and reconfigure one another.
Bergson reminds us that justice and authorship are not merely rational constructs: they are, first and foremost, intuitive processes — born of sensitivity and the courage to create in the pulse of the present.
In this scenario, the challenge for leaders and individuals alike is to abandon the false safety of total control and embrace the creative risk of duration. It means accepting that every human being is a singular territory — a universe in motion, whose richness can only be fully honored and nurtured when we recognize that the maps we draw are always only guides — never the entirety of the experience.

Duration as a Bridge to Equity
Bergson’s philosophy casts clarifying light on the concept of equity, revealing it as a living bridge — one that connects attentive presence with the duration of the other — their intertwined stories of struggle and resilience, their singularities that escape cold definitions of résumés or standardized metrics.
To treat unequals unequally, then, is to accept that each person carries their own temporality — a unique trajectory that cannot be compressed into uniform measurements. A leader who overlooks this personal duration — the ruptures, reconstructions, and metamorphoses each team member undergoes — risks imposing a mechanical form of justice, empty of humanity and sensitivity, which not only suffocates talent but also perpetuates silent inequalities.
Similarly, as we write it, our own life calls us to break the chains of chronological time — the time of clocks and calendars, as Bergson pointed out — and instead inhabit authentic duration, where the present expands into infinite creative possibilities.
It is in this lived space-time that each choice ceases to be a mere reflex or repetition and becomes a radical act of creation — capable of reframing pain, rewriting limiting narratives, and building meaning that transcends the urgency of the immediate, embracing the horizon of a future filled with purpose and transformative potential.
By absorbing duration as the key to equity, leaders and individuals can reconfigure their practices — rescuing the human depth behind statistics and decisions, and fostering environments where true justice flourishes — not as the imposition of homogeneous rules, but as reverence and cultivation of singularity in its dynamic flow.

The Neuroscience of Authorship
Contemporary neuroscience offers a revolutionary lens to understand authorship of one’s own existence. Robust studies on brain plasticity reveal that our conscious choices — whether learning a new skill, reprogramming a limiting thought pattern, or confronting deep-seated fears — are not just abstract decisions, but true physical agents of transformation, capable of reconfiguring the neural circuits and synapses that define who we are.
Being the poet of one’s own life, then, transcends metaphor; it is a real neurobiological practice — an ongoing process of meaning-making that challenges existential inertia. By breaking away from automatic patterns, we activate the dopaminergic circuits responsible for motivation and reward, triggering a virtuous cycle of positive, self-sustaining change.
Yet this radical authorship requires courage — a subversion of conformity and of the prefab narratives society and organizations often try to impose upon us. To poetize life is to assume the deep responsibility of shaping both inner and outer chaos — transforming accumulated pain into raw material for evolution, and frustration into fuel for reinvention.
It is the recognition, at last, that life is not a problem to be solved with ready-made formulas — but a singular work, under constant construction, that demands our ethical and creative protagonism.

A Matter of Lenses
We live in an era of profound paradox. We celebrate diversity in speeches and policies, yet we often, almost unconsciously, surrender to the invisible pressure of organizational cultures and algorithms that seek to homogenize behaviors, profiles, and thinking. Social psychology reveals an intrinsic dilemma: our brain is simultaneously tribal — seeking the comfort and safety of belonging — and deeply individual — yearning for the unique, unrepeatable expression of our singularity.
How do we navigate this constant tension between the collective and the singular? How do we reconcile these seemingly opposing impulses that coexist within each human being?
Behavioral psychology offers a crucial insight: meaning acts as the bridge and mediation between the individual and the collective. A truly conscious leader not only accepts but actively cultivates environments where differences are celebrated as indispensable elements in the collective mosaic of the organization. They understand that true merit does not reside solely in the final outcome, but in the journey — in the inner and outer battles, the invisible challenges, and the victories that shaped that result.
Imagine two professionals competing for the same recognition: one followed a linear path, blessed with resources and structural ease; the other overcame systemic barriers, deep-rooted biases, and emotional adversity — yet delivered equivalent results. Who deserves more recognition? The answer transcends common sense.
True equity only emerges when we are able to exchange the lenses of superficiality for the depth of duration — when we look beyond the numbers and see the complexity of the journey, the invisible battles, and the disproportionate effort behind each accomplishment.
So, I ask:
Are you truly recognizing the talents in your team — or merely rewarding those who had the easiest path?
Is talent effort, or is it outcome?
And you, leader, are you willing to change your lenses — to leave behind the comfort of metrics and dive deep into the richness of each person’s story? Or will you continue handing out the same trophy to those who ran a marathon and those who ran on crutches?

When the Human Being Stops Being a Function
There is an ancestral unease within us — the certainty that life must mean more than merely functioning. And that “more” cannot be measured in job titles, bonuses, or monthly deliveries. It is built where almost no one dares to look: in the invisible layers of human experience.
The point of convergence between Aristotle, Nietzsche, and Bergson is not a concept — it is a silent cry: give form to what pulses within you before the world molds you completely.
When we treat unequals unequally — with ethics and awareness — we give name to the invisible, we bring underused talents out of the shadows, and we create ecosystems where the human being can flourish beyond function.

THE BRAIN WIRED FOR PURPOSE
In a world obsessed with performance, uniqueness has become background noise. But neuroscience has already proven:
• The human brain activates more powerfully when connected to a perceived purpose — not an imposed one.
• We live longer, suffer less, and become more adaptable when we feel we are under meaningful construction, not trapped in automated repetition.

Meaning Is Not Something You Find — It’s Something You Build
Forget the idea that meaning is a magical insight that falls from the sky during a spiritual retreat.
Meaning is a daily act of sculpture.
It’s born when you:
• See a once-invisible talent in your team.
• Have the courage to stand by an unpopular decision because it aligns with values, not trends.
• Refuse a “success model” because it silences your intuition.
• Transform inner chaos into a choice with direction — even when the path ahead is unclear.
Meaning, then, is not a noun — it’s a verb.
It happens when we lead with presence, when we make space for others, when we allow ourselves to be an unfinished work of art without fearing exposure.

What If Your Life Didn’t Need to Be Productive, But Meaningful?
Let’s be honest —
We live in a society that turned people into spreadsheets and biographies into KPIs.
But real life — the one that pulses, wounds, and transforms — doesn’t fit inside frameworks.
In this light, if Aristotle calls us to equitable justice, Nietzsche provokes us to authorship, and Bergson invites us to live time with depth…
Then what right do we have to keep leading in a shallow way?
Have you ever stopped to wonder whether your life story is being written by conviction or by convenience?

So After All, What Does It Mean to Be a Leader in Times of Accelerated Existence?
• It means being a cartographer of the invisible.
• It means creating spaces where no one has to pretend to be the same in order to be accepted.
• It means holding the tension between performance and humanity without falling into either extreme.
• It means realizing that a leader does not simply manage processes — they support narratives in the making.
Now ask yourself —
What if your team isn’t asking for more goals,
but for more meaning?
Are you extracting results…
Or awakening legacies?
Do you lead to fulfill…
Or to awaken those your people haven’t yet discovered they can become?

BE THE SCULPTOR OF YOUR EXISTENCE
And what about you?
Have you had the courage to ask yourself whether the “equality” you practice is actually an elegant injustice — painted with the brush of convenience and signed by the fear of feeling?
• How many talents have you silenced — not out of cruelty, but out of inertia?
• How many times have you killed someone’s authenticity… by clinging to a standard someone once told you was “fair”?
• How many chapters of your life are still being written by hands that don’t belong to you?
Maybe you’re waiting for the right moment.
Or a new course.
Or a leader who will “allow” you to bloom.
But here’s a raw, brutal, transformative truth:
You don’t need permission to be whole.
• You need courage.
• Courage to admit that your map no longer serves the territory your soul longs to inhabit.
• Courage to acknowledge that treating everyone the same is the fastest way to erase what’s most alive in each person — including yourself.
• Courage to throw away the molds and, with your own hands, begin to sculpt a new way of leading, living, existing.

YES, IT’S TRUE — THIS IS NOT A TEXT. IT’S A FREE FALL INTO YOURSELF.
But… this is not an ending.
It’s the shattering of the automatic.
The collapse of shallow narratives.
The beginning of a crossing — where you don’t just think differently, but you feel differently.
The kind of crossing that transforms leaders into presence, managers into sculptors, and professionals into authors of their own existence.
Because now you know:
• Real justice is not about standardizing — it’s about holding the tension of difference with love, respect, and discernment.
• Meaning isn’t something you find — it’s something you build, with every choice that honors who you truly are.
• And the time that matters isn’t the one on your clock — it’s the one measured by your courage to be.

QUESTIONS THAT WON’T LET YOU GO BACK TO WHO YOU WERE:
1. What talent have you been suffocating by treating it as “equal” to the rest?
2. What narratives still live inside you — even without your consent?
3. If your life were a work of art, what verse do you need to write before it’s too late?

IF SOMETHING STIRRED WITHIN YOU…
If some part of you was disrupted by this text —
…if something hurt, if something ignited, if something whispered “do it differently”…
Then you understood.
And I’m here.
To walk alongside you.
To provoke, sustain, guide, and witness the birth of a new narrative — one that is more just, more yours, more alive.
After all, as I once wrote:
“Each of us is an abyss seeking form.
Justice is found in recognizing the abyss of the other,
in their unique duration,
without giving up the sculpting of our own
within the flow of life.”
— Marcello de Souza
If this text stripped you of certainties and dressed you in courage, share in the comments.
Leave your insight, your question, your break from the norm.
And if you want to go beyond the text — to dive into the construction of your new narrative — get in touch.
Remember: Life is not a problem to be solved.
It is a work of art.
And you always have the choice to sculpt it in your own way.

#MarcelloDeSouza #CoachingEVoce #HumanDevelopment #ConsciousLeadership #Equity #SelfAuthorship #PhilosophyAndLife #EmotionalIntelligence #AppliedNeuroscience #HenriBergson