Margaret J. Wheatley Quotes

• In this present culture, we need to find the means to work and live together with less aggression if we are to resolve the serious problems that afflict and impede us.

  Margaret J. Wheatley

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Problems

• 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.

  Margaret J. Wheatley

  Topics in Intelligence

• In the past, it was easier to believe in my own effectiveness. If I worked hard, with good colleagues and good ideas, we could make a difference. But now, I sincerely doubt that.

  Margaret J. Wheatley

  Topics in Work

  Tags in Good

• 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

  Topics in Life

• I’ve wanted to see beyond the Western, mechanical view of the world and see what else might appear when the lens was changed.

  Margaret J. Wheatley

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in World

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Great

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Think

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Think, Need

• 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.

  Margaret J. Wheatley

  Topics in Leadership

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Need

• I believe that our very survival depends upon us becoming better systems thinkers.

  Margaret J. Wheatley

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Believe

• Hopelessness has surprised me with patience.

  Margaret J. Wheatley

• For us, someone who is willing to step forward and help is much more courageous than someone who is merely fulfilling the role.

  Margaret J. Wheatley

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Courage

• For me, this is a familiar image – people in the organization ready and willing to do good work, wanting to contribute their ideas, ready to take responsibility, and leaders holding them back, insisting that they wait for decisions or instructions.

  Margaret J. Wheatley

  Topics in Work

• For example, I was discussing the use of email and how impersonal it can be, how people will now email someone across the room rather than go and talk to them. But I don’t think this is laziness, I think it is a conscious decision people are making to save time.

  Margaret J. Wheatley

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Think

• For eons, humans have struggled to find less destructive ways of living together.

  Margaret J. Wheatley

• Everyone in a complex system has a slightly different interpretation. The more interpretations we gather, the easier it becomes to gain a sense of the whole.

  Margaret J. Wheatley

• 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.

  Margaret J. Wheatley

  Topics in Work

• 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

  Topics in Risk

• Circles create soothing space, where even reticent people can realize that their voice is welcome.

  Margaret J. Wheatley

Margaret J. Wheatley (50)

Nationality:	American
Profession:	Writer, Consultant

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