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Who Do We Choose To Be?
Book

Who Do We Choose To Be?

Facing Reality, Claiming Leadership, Restoring Sanity

Margaret J. Wheatley
Berrett-Koehler, 2023
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  • Inspiring

Recommendation

To lead amid change and upheaval, you must serve others, clarify your identity, follow your values, and create islands of sanity. Today’s world can be chaotic and, as Margaret J. Wheatley writes, no one can turn back disruption. Instead, she contends, progress rests with the individual. Society needs purposeful servant leaders, “Warriors for the Human Spirit,” who act based on shared values – not social media manipulation – and help people adopt a new path forward. She advocates being of service, learning to adapt, weighing information based on its value, and expressing meaning with stories. Along with insightful quotations and striking photographs, Wheatley provides guidance for leaders who want to shape a better future.

Summary

Humanity is living through a “Chaos Cycle.”

The world seems in serious disarray with political crises, social conflict, violence, environmental disasters, economic problems, disease, and much more. Many people feel alienated and confused, which can make them more vulnerable to cynicism, depression, exploitation, and substance abuse. However, even in times of crisis, leaders emerge who want to serve. They reconnect people with their better angels and the possibility of meaningful work and a purposeful life, and they enable everyone to move forward.

Societal progress is not inevitable or continuous. Even great civilizations, such as Rome, rise, flourish, decline, and fall. But even in troubled societies, mission-driven leaders can offer alternative outcomes. Instead of exploiting anxious people who are drawn to manifestations of great power for protection, leaders who want to be of service offer their people a sense of their own agency, adaptability, identity, and future possibilities.

Living systems must learn, adapt, and progress even under difficult circumstances.

Most of the cosmos operates as a linear, closed system. All else being equal, it moves ...

About the Author

Consultant, teacher, and frequent public speaker Margaret J.Wheatley also wrote Finding Our Way: Leadership for an Uncertain Time, as well as How Does Raven Know?, Perseverance, Turning to One Another, Leadership and the New Science, and So Far from Home: Lost and Found in Our Brave New World. She also co-authored Walk Out Walk On with Deborah Frieze and A Simpler Way with Myron Kellner-Rogers.

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