Who Do We Choose to Be?, Second Edition

Book excerpt: Bestselling author Margaret Wheatley issues the call for leaders to restore sanity in an insane time and become the presence of insight and compassion in the face of chaos. This book offers a path for leaders to engage well and wisely with the destructive dynamics of this time. Deepening the insights in her classic book, Leadership and the New Science, Wheatley uses two lenses to understand where we are and how we got here: the science of living systems and the pattern of collapse in complex civilizations. Using a combination of commentary, practices, quotes, and stories, Wheatley addresses questions like, what is good leadership in this crazed, conflicted world? What skills and sensitivities do leaders need in order to serve well this time? How do we lead as an Island of Sanity, creating the conditions for people to be generous, creative, and kind? Three new chapters provide richer and deeper insight for informing our choices as leaders and citizens. The first two explain why uncertainty, confusion and conflicts can only increase, touching on topics like the weaponization of information and the loss of a shared reality as we retreat to our own bubbles. The last offers practices for leaders willing to become what she calls Warriors for the Human Spirit: decent human beings serving an indecent, inhumane time.