Who Do We Choose to Be?: Facing Reality, Claiming Leadership, Restoring Sanity

In a world we cannot recognize, how do we find a way forward? In this world we do not understand, how do we know what to do? When so little is comprehensible, what is meaningful work? What is genuine contribution?

Bestselling author Margaret Wheatley has summoned us to be courageous leaders who strengthen community and rely on fully engaged people since her 1992 classic book, Leadership and the New Science, and eight subsequent books. In response to how quickly society is changing and the exponential increase in leadership challenges, this second edition of her latest bestseller is 80% new material.

How do we see clearly so that we can act wisely? Wheatley brings present reality into clear and troubling focus using multiple lenses of Western and Indigenous sciences, and the historic patterns of collapse in complex civilizations. With gentle but insistent guidance to face reality, she offers us the path and practices to be sane leaders who know how to evoke people’s inherent generosity, creativity, and kindness.

Skillfully weaving science, history, exemplars, poetry, and quotes with stories and practices, Wheatley asks us to be Warriors for the Human Spirit, leaders and citizens who stay engaged, choose service over self, stand steadfast in the midst of crises, and offer our reliable presence of compassion and insight no matter what.

Margaret J. Wheatley has been a consultant and speaker since 1973 and has worked with almost all types of organizations and people. She is the cofounder and president emerita of the Berkana Institute, a global nonprofit founded in 1991. She has served as full-time graduate management faculty at two institutions, Cambridge College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the Marriott School of Management at Brigham Young University. She is the author of nine books.