In a world we cannot recognize, how do we find a way forward? In a world we do not understand, how do we know what to do? When so little is comprehensible, what is meaningful work? What is genuine contribution?

Best-selling author Margaret Wheatley has summoned us to be courageous leaders who strengthen community and rely on fully engaged people since her 1992 classic book Leadership and the New Science and eight subsequent books. In response to how quickly society is changing and the exponential increase in leadership challenges, this second edition of her latest best seller is 80 percent new material.

How do we see clearly so that we can act wisely? Wheatley brings present reality into clear and troubling focus using multiple lenses of Western and Indigenous sciences and the historic patterns of collapse in complex civilizations. With gentle but insistent guidance to face reality, she offers us the path and practices to be sane leaders who know how to evoke people’s inherent generosity, creativity, and kindness.

Skillfully weaving science, history, exemplars, poetry, and quotes with stories and practices, Wheatley asks us to be warriors for the human spirit, leaders and citizens who stay engaged, choose service over self, stand steadfast in the midst of crises, and offer our reliable presence of compassion and insight no matter what.