Margaret J. Wheatley Quotes

Without reflection, we go blindly on our way, creating more unintended consequences, and failing to achieve anything useful.

Margaret J. Wheatley

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.

Margaret J. Wheatley

Whatever life we have experienced, if we can tell our story to someone who listens, we find it easier to deal with our circumstances.

Margaret J. Wheatley

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.

Margaret J. Wheatley

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!

Margaret J. Wheatley

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.

Margaret J. Wheatley

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

Margaret J. Wheatley

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.

Margaret J. Wheatley

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

Margaret J. Wheatley

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

Margaret J. Wheatley

The things we fear most in organizations -- fluctuations, disturbances, imbalances -- are the primary sources of creativity.

Margaret J. Wheatley

Hopelessness has surprised me with patience.

Margaret J. Wheatley

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

Margaret J. Wheatley

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

Margaret J. Wheatley

Many people have their reputations as reporters and analysts because they are on television, batting around conventional wisdom. A lot of these people have never reported a story.

Bob Woodward

Most people associate command and control leadership with the military.

Margaret J. Wheatley

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

Margaret J. Wheatley

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.

Margaret J. Wheatley

In our daily life, we encounter people who are angry, deceitful, intent only on satisfying their own needs. There is so much anger, distrust, greed, and pettiness that we are losing our capacity to work well together.

Margaret J. Wheatley

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

Margaret J. Wheatley