Leadership and the New Science:  Discovering Order in a Chaotic World  (2^nd edition)

by Margaret J. Wheatley
Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 1999

A completely original approach to discussing leadership in organizations is created in Wheatley’s “Leadership and the New Science:  Discovering Order in a Chaotic World.”  Through revision of her original book, one that was recognized as the best management book for the year it came out, Wheatley has managed to make her book even more accessible and clarified her concepts to a finer degree. 

This book uses exciting advances in the world of science as a way of describing new methods for organizational management and change.  She cites interesting ideas from biology, chemistry, quantum physics, and even chaos theory, to illustrate inventive approaches to leading in an organization.  Through comparisons that at first glance seem to be a bit of a stretch, the author manages to not only make science seem extremely relevant to management, but also to inspire the book’s readers to thinking in a completely new way about how to approach their roles as leaders.  This book does not lay out your conclusions and steps to success for you; instead, it is more of an inspiration for new approaches.

Through a depiction of nature in it’s most intricate forms, Wheatley discusses how, instead of trying to control everything, we might stop to see how it is orderly by nature.  She describes how the stream always finds a way around the rocks in its path.  It does not demand on going the same direction every time, but adapts to its surroundings.  Likewise, as leaders, we should recognize the number of ways we can accomplish each task.  She describes organizations as being “Newtonian” in that everything exists in accordance with laws.  Organizations like to divide things into parts - they try to break everything down in order to fully understand it.  They try to fit everything into a box where each piece has its place.  However, a mechanical organization does not fit well in the quantum world outside.  In a world where you can even break things down into the most elementary particles, the smallest, most inexplicable changes will continue to occur and we will still not be able to fully understand them.  To facilitate organizations living in this world, Wheatley describes the need for flexibility, and a larger concentration on processes rather than individual tasks.  In a similarly intriguing analogy, the author describes how there are things in our atmosphere that cannot be seen, but impact us just the same.  What appears to be empty space is really filled with particles and forces unseen.  Likewise, in organizations, things like a vision, shared values, a culture, and ethics all work to impact us in our work and in how we lead.  Wheatley also discusses how the nature of our universe is participative, with all sorts of relationships and interactions between even the simplest particles.  This is similar to organizations and the importance of creating a participative environment where everyone might feel a sense of ownership.  Relationships are of primary importance and impact organizations greatly.  Later, the author describes how self-organizing systems go through periods of change, stability, and renewal, as a means toward equilibrium.  She highlights the importance of things like positive feedback and making the organization an open system in order to achieve adaptability. 

Wheatley makes parallels between our “orderly universe” and organizations (similar to those highlighted above) consistently and effectively throughout the book.  She discusses the importance of creativity in leading organizations, how even in chaos you can find order by looking at the system rather than the parts, and the importance of finding meaning and creating significant change.  Wheatley concludes by discussing how our world can lead us into a new method of management…one that encompasses the whole and tries to find the natural order.  This book is an excellent choice for any leader who enjoys an insightful and original read and is driven to creativity in their role.

Relevant Competencies:

Intellectual Curiosity, Continuous Learning, Energy, Independence, Adaptability, Optimism, Self Confidence, Humility, Suspending Prejudices, Communicating Outside the Organization, Social Perceptiveness, Nurturing Relationships, Cooperating, Empowering, Inspiring, Reinforcing Success, Delegating, Coordinating Work Activities, Providing Feedback, Analytic Thinking, Designing Work Systems, Generating Ideas, Critical Thinking, Synthesis/Reorganization, Creative Problem Solving, Problem Identification, Seeking Improvement, Independent Thinking, Sensitivity to Situations, Challenging the Status Quo, Intelligent Risk-Taking, Reinforcing Change, Perceiving Systems, Visioning, Openness to Ideas, Communicating with the Community, Philosophy and Theology, Work-Place Ethics, Courage of Convictions, Valuing Diversity

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