Margaret Wheatley and Servant-Leadership as a Natural.

Back on October 19, Trevor mentioned Dr. Margaret Wheatley and listed some of her books. One of my favorite books on leadership is her book Leadership and the New Science- Discovering Order in a Chaotic World.

A section of her book that I enjoyed was in the first chapter titled “Discovering an Orderly World” where she wrote about sitting by a stream in the Rocky Mountains and trying to understand what streams could teach her about organizations. She wrote, “I am attracted to the diversity I see, to these swirling combinations of mud, silt, grass, water, rocks. This stream has an impressive ability to adapt, to change the configurations, to let the power shift, to create new structures. But behind this adaptability, making it all happen, I think, is the waters need to flow. Water answers to gravity, to downhill, to the call of ocean. The forms change, but the mission remains clear. Structures emerge, but only as temporary solutions that facilitate rather then interfere. … Streams have more then one response to rocks”.

Reading that passage and the rest of her book helped me to accept some things I had tried to do in the past but struggled with. And that was to let things naturally evolve, and not try and force where they would go. The idea that relationships, whether they be work related or personal, were natural processes much like the process of water flowing to the ocean was a powerfully freeing one. For me, that meant I did not have to try to be in control of how I talked to someone, how I planned my day, or how I tried to motivate others. I had always struggled with trying to keep set schedules, following to-do lists or trying to influence other people’s decisions. Realizing that it was ok to respond to the events that happened to me in a day, rather then trying to control those events was a big source of energy for me and a source of much motivation.

Some of Dr. Wheatley other writings can be found at her website and some other interesting leadership information can found at the Berkana Institute website that she is involved with.

Tom