Leadership and the New Science

Most management thinking still runs on a mechanical, Newtonian picture of the world — predictable, controllable, assembled from separate parts. Wheatley's argument is that the picture is wrong, and that the new sciences offer a truer one.

Drawing on quantum physics, chaos theory, and the biology of living systems, Leadership and the New Science reframes organizations as webs of relationship rather than machines to be engineered. Wheatley traces how order in nature emerges without central control — how self-organizing systems, fields, and participation generate coherence out of apparent chaos — and from these findings draws a different practice of leadership, grounded in trust, meaning, and the relationships that actually hold a system together. First published in 1992 and revised across later editions, it remains a foundational text for rethinking how organizations live and change.

• Author: Margaret J. Wheatley
• Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
• Published: 1992 (revised and expanded edition)

About the Author — Margaret J. Wheatley

Writer, teacher, and management consultant who has worked with organizations and leaders on every continent for more than four decades. Co-founder of the Berkana Institute, she holds a doctorate from Harvard's program in administration, planning, and social policy, and has authored numerous influential books on leadership and living systems, including Turning to One Another and Who Do We Choose to Be? Her work bridges organizational science with a deeply humane view of how people find their way together in uncertain times.