Margaret J. Wheatley

These days, our senses are bombarded with aggression. We are constantly confronted with global images of unending, escalating war and violence.

We know from science that nothing in the universe exists as an isolated or independent entity.

When leaders take back power, when they act as heroes and saviors, they end up exhausted, overwhelmed, and deeply stressed.

Even though worker capacity and motivation are destroyed when leaders choose power over productivity, it appears that bosses would rather be in control than have the organization work well.

Hopelessness has surprised me with patience.

Most people associate command and control leadership with the military.

I think a major act of leadership right now, call it a radical act, is to create the places and processes so people can actually learn together, using our experiences.

I think it is quite dangerous for an organisation to think they can predict where they are going to need leadership. It needs to be something that people are willing to assume if it feels relevant, given the context of any situation.

I believe that the capacity that any organisation needs is for leadership to appear anywhere it is needed, when it is needed.

Successful organizations, including the Military, have learned that the higher the risk, the more necessary it is to engage everyone's commitment and intelligence.

Too many problem-solving sessions become battlegrounds where decisions are made based on power rather than intelligence.

In these troubled, uncertain times, we don't need more command and control we need better means to engage everyone's intelligence in solving challenges and crises as they arise.

I'm sad to report that in the past few years, ever since uncertainty became our insistent 21st century companion, leadership has taken a great leap backwards to the familiar territory of command and control.

We experience problem-solving sessions as war zones, we view competing ideas as enemies, and we use problems as weapons to blame and defeat opposition forces. No wonder we can't come up with real lasting solutions!

Determination, energy, and courage appear spontaneously when we care deeply about something. We take risks that are unimaginable in any other context.

Organisations are now confronted with two sources of change: the traditional type that is initiated and managed and external changes over which no one has control.

Probably the most visible example of unintended consequences, is what happens every time humans try to change the natural ecology of a place.

The nature of the global business environment guarantees that no matter how hard we work to create a stable and healthy organisation, our organisation will continue to experience dramatic changes far beyond our control.

I think we have to notice that the business processes we use right now for thinking and planning and budgeting and strategy are all delivered on very tight agendas.

When we can lay down our fear and anger and choose responses other than aggression, we create the conditions for bringing out the best in us humans.