Essay on Wheatley Leadership

Margaret Wheatley in 2006 Leadership and the new science: Discovering order in a chaotic world discusses management development and education. This book attempts to educate people to be better leaders through a scientific mentality. In this paper I will discuss theories of her book and leadership, I will also discuss and relate these principles into real life experiences, and business realities in relation to her principle theories.

The problem is that, while the market has changed beyond recognition, leadership has not. Many companies still use leadership styles and practices better suited to the boom years. For example, we found that nearly half the leaders in financial companies rely on a "directive or coercive" leadership style, compared to just one-third of leaders across all sectors.

Leadership is, and always has been, a vital aspect of social and economic constructs. It is essential to the survival of societies, industries, organizations, and virtually any group of individuals that come together for a common purpose. However, leadership is difficult to define in a single, definitive sense. As such, theories of leadership, what constitutes a great leader, and how leaders are made have evolved constantly throughout history, and still continue to change today in hopes of improving upon our understanding of leadership, its importance, and how it can be most effective in modern organizational cultures.

The essays that comprise Traditional Classics on Leadership present varying notions of authority and of challenging authority. This is largely due to the fact that this manuscript is comprised of essays from 31 contributors, ranging from well-known political theorists to some of the more salient voices for individuality that the world has known. Still, there are some points of commonalities in these essays that present a synthesized viewpoint of the concept of challenging authority.

What is leadership, and how do we attain the best and most effective leaders? These are questions that are as old as civilization itself. Bass (1974) wrote that, “from its infancy, the study of history has been the study of leaders” (as cited in Wren, 1995, p. 50). Since the study of history in the West is commonly held to begin with Herodotus of ancient Athens, it is not surprising that we should examine the historical views of leadership through the eyes of two titans of Greek thought: Plato and Aristotle.

Leadership and management is an ever-changing world. The word “leadership” is quite recent and did not emerge until the early nineteenth century in governmental writings and before was known through titles of sovereigns who were distinguished from the public. Society did the distinguishing of the authorities, which creates one individual over another and a hierarchical leadership from top to bottom or vertical ranking. The development and movement of information systems and communication are increasing universal decisions for society that such thinking is unfair (Bass, 1990).

Leadership is a term that cannot be defined or simplified with a standard definition (Bethel, 2011). The term’s complexity is a phenomenon, as it carries a different meaning for each person. During the

This writer decided to read the first three chapters of the book Leaders Without Titles by Steve Sampson. The first chapter was called “Intellectual Dimension” which was mainly an introduction to the book as a whole and introduced some of the main topics to be discussed throughout the rest of the book. What was interesting about this chapter and caused this writer to pause and seriously rethink the idea of leadership was the statement retold by Sampson (2011) which was originally spoken to him by one of his mentors (Kindle Location 224). The mentor stated that “to influence without authority was the key to leadership” (Sampson, 2011, Kindle Location 224).

Leadership is a big deal in today’s culture and in history. A good leader with great leadership has the potential to lead a sports team to a championship. It can be the deciding factor in a war between two nations because whoever has the better leader in the war with the right strategies will come up with a victory. A right leader in the government system can also lead the nation to prosperity and wealth or, can break a nation and drive the nation into a state of depression. Leadership is everywhere and the right leader will lead you to do remarkable things.

Leadership is one of social science’s most examined phenomena. The scru¬tiny afforded to leadership is not

This paper illustrates reflections on the first four chapters of Leadership and the New Science written by Margaret J. Wheatley. I picked up some key points and personal learning ideas that I found interesting to share in this paper. Organization rules, relationship, field theory, first impression, and truth versions are the themes that will be highlighted in next paragraphs. I added some examples related to my personal experiences as long as they are connected to the points.

The principal aspects of leadership are oft debated; to attempt to define what leadership is would most certainly result in broad and varied definitions dependent on who is queried. Nonetheless, in the preeminent

The book begins by exploring reasons for the interest in leadership today. The authors suggest a variety of reasons, including the rapid pace of change, and they also set out some parameters for understanding leadership, including the question of ‘leader’ or ‘leadership’. Here, as throughout the book, what I found most stimulating was the way in which the authors take a step back and ask questions which are not always being asked elsewhere.

There has been vast amounts of research done on the topic of leadership, and yet despite this it continues to be ‘‘riddled with paradoxes, inconsistencies, and contradictions’’

Chapter 1: The Nature of Leadership 1. What is the best explanation for so many different definitions of leadership? a. scholarly nitpicking about trivial issues b. disagreement about what should be included in the definition c. little opportunity for rigorous scientific analysis d. leadership is a very old topic with centuries of definitions Answer: b. 2.