I'm sad to report that in the past few years, ever since uncertainty became our insistent 21st century companion, leadership has taken a great leap backwards to the familiar territory of command and control.
Margaret J. WheatleyRead
Let's just keep asking ourselves this question: 'Is what I'm about to do strengthening the web of connections, or is it weakening it?'
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote encourages reflection on how our actions impact our relationships and connections with others.
Margaret J. Wheatley's quote prompts us to consider the effects of our choices on our relationships and social ties. By asking whether our actions strengthen or weaken our connections, we cultivate a mindful approach to interpersonal dynamics, ultimately fostering a more supportive and connected community.
Themes
ConnectionsRelationshipsStrengtheningCommunityMindfulness
In practice
Example use cases
During a team meeting, this quote can remind members to focus on collaboration over competition.
More from Margaret J. Wheatley
All quotes →In our daily life, we encounter people who are angry, deceitful, intent only on satisfying their own needs. There is so much anger, distrust, greed, and pettiness that we are losing our capacity to work well together.
Margaret J. WheatleyRead
Even though worker capacity and motivation are destroyed when leaders choose power over productivity, it appears that bosses would rather be in control than have the organization work well.
Margaret J. WheatleyRead
Our willingness to acknowledge that we only see half the picture creates the conditions that make us more attractive to others. The more sincerely we acknowledge our need for their different insights and perspectives, the more they will be magnetized to join us.
Margaret J. WheatleyRead
They have eliminated rigidity, both physical and psychological, in order to support more fluid processes whereby temporary teams are created to deal with specific and ever-changing needs. They have simplified roles into minimal categories; they have knocked down walls and created workplaces where people, ideas, and information circulate freely.
Margaret J. WheatleyRead
It's not differences that divide us. It's our judgments about each other that do.
Margaret J. WheatleyRead
Similar quotes
Strange how one person can saturate a room with vitality, with excitement. Then there are others, and this dame was one of them, who can drain off energy and joy, can suck pleasure dry and get no sustenance from it. Such people spread a grayness in the air about them.
John SteinbeckRead
Present-day American society-whether through pop culture, religion, or institutions-conflates sexuality and morality constantly. Idolizing virginity as a stand-in for women’s morality means that nothing else matters-not what we accomplish, not what we think, not what we care about and work for. Just if/how/whom we have sex with. That’s all.
Jessica ValentiRead
Tragically, one of the rarest commodities in our culture is empathy. People are hungry for empathy, They don't know how to ask for it.
Marshall B. RosenbergRead
ah, you always go for the ones who don't really want you
Jack KerouacRead
I don't think there should be anything that women are embarrassed to talk about in the 21st century, because for the last 100,000 years, men have said everything that's on their minds and described everything they have done.
Caitlin MoranRead
I think for people who are inside these relationships that are really hard to leave, there is always a compelling reason to stay. It's not that they are wholly bad people.
Tara WestoverRead