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Leadership and the New Science
by Margaret J. Wheatley

In searching for a better understanding of organizations In organizations, the fields that bind people include
and leadership, Margaret Wheatley looked to science for vision, shared values, culture, and information.
answers. In the world of Newtonian physics, every atom • Organizations, like all open systems, grow and change
moves in a unique predictable trajectory determined by the in reaction to disequilibrium, and disorder can be a
forces exerted on it. Prediction and control are accomplished source of new order.
by reducing wholes into discrete parts and carefully regulat-
ing the forces that act on those parts. Applied to organiza-
IMPLICATIONS FOR LEADERSHIP
tions, this view of the world led to rigid vertical hierarchies,
These new understandings provide a new way to see,
division of labor, task description, and strict operating proce-
understand, and lead today’s organizations. The new
dures designed to obtain predictable, controlled results.
sciences can influence leaders to:
Just as Newton’s law broke down as physics explored
ever-smaller elements of matter and ever-wider expanses • Nurture relationships and the fields between people
of the universe, rigid, control-oriented leadership doesn’t with a clear vision, statements of values, expressions
work well in a world of instant information, constant of caring, the sharing of information, and freedom
change, and global competition. The physical sciences from strict rules and controls.
responded to the failure of Newtonian physics with a new • Focus on the whole, not on the parts in isolation.
paradigm called quantum mechanics. In Leadership and • Reduce boundaries between departments and
the New Science, Wheatley explores how leaders are organizations to allow new patterns of relationships.
redesigning organizations to survive in a quantum world. • Become comfortable with uncertainty and recognize
that any solutions are only temporary, specific to
CHAOS, RELATIONSHIPS, AND FIELDS the immediate context, and developed through the
From quantum mechanics and chaos theory emerge new relationship of people and circumstances.
understandings of order, disorder, and change. Individual • Recognize that healthy growth of people and organiza-
actions, whether by atoms or people, cannot be easily tions is found in disequilibrium, not in stability.
predicted and controlled. Here’s why:
Wheatley believes leaders can learn from the new
• Nothing exists except in relationship to everything sciences how to lead in today’s fast-paced, chaotic world,
else. It is not things, but the relationships among suggesting that “we can forgo the despair created by
them that are the key determinants of a well-ordered such common organization events as change, chaos,
system we perceive. Order emerges through a web information overload, and cyclical behaviors if we recog-
of relationships that make up the whole, not as a nize that organizations are conscious entities, possessing
result of controls on individual parts. many of the properties of living systems.”
• The empty space between things is filled with fields,
Leadership and the New Science, by Margaret J. Wheatley, is
invisible material that connects elements together. published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

The contingencies most important to leadership as shown in Exhibit 3.1 are
the situation and followers. Research implies that situational variables such as
task, structure, context, and environment are important to leadership style, just
as we saw in the opening examples. The nature of followers has also been identi-

fied as a key contingency. Thus, the needs, maturity, and cohesiveness of followers
make a signifi cant difference to the best style of leadership.
Several models of situational leadership have been developed. The contin-
gency model developed by Fiedler and his associates, the situational theory of
Hersey and Blanchard, path-goal theory, the Vroom–Jago model of decision
participation, and the substitutes for leadership concept will all be described

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