Restoring Sanity

"We are living in chaotic and contentious times. Tensions between people are reaching dangerously hateful proportions. Margaret Wheatley calls on leaders to resist, to forge communities that protect people from the destructive dynamics so prevalent today and rediscover and reawaken our common humanity. To become what she calls Warriors for the Human Spirit. Pushing back against the prevailing culture of chaos requires leaders to work on themselves and their organizations-to do inner and outer work. Wheatley offers practices to help leaders: Calm the mind and avoid impulsive reactions; Communicate honestly and fearlessly; Become aware of the stories they tell themselves that shape their view of the world; Develop their organization's capacity for self-organizing; Conduct after-action reviews that replace blaming with learning; Leverage diversity to provide more perspectives on the critical problems of today. Sane leadership is the unshakable confidence that people can be generous, creative, and kind. The leader's work, Wheatley insists, is to create the conditions for those capacities to manifest in meaningful work, to establish islands of sanity in these seas of delusion"--