On this day of honouring women who inspire us, I want to celebrate the person and work of Margaret Wheatley.
I grew up in an era and culture that appreciated women as long as they stayed within boundaries.
We enjoyed the gifts that women brought but didn’t hear their voices or recognise their leadership. And especially their thought leadership.
So much has changed. Yet we often still see through old eyes and hear through old ears.
Margaret Wheatley knew the cultural significance of academic rigour and dared to cross the boundary with different ways of knowing.
Although her seminal book ‘Leadership and the New Science’ is brilliant, other expressions of who she is and what she sees have been revolutionary for me.
The opening of ‘A Simpler Way’ is a small, beautifully positioned quote on an uncluttered sage green page before a series of extraordinary photographs. Words come later…
Thus, the task is not so much to see
+ Schopenhauer
what no one has yet seen,
but to think what nobody has yet thought
about that which everybody sees.
And the words are good. But it’s not about arguing a point of view as inviting us to see with fresh eyes.
Meg has been a courageous, indeed prophetic, voice in a world asking for assurance that we are in control. That we understand.
And perhaps someone is going to save us.
When we are the ones we are waiting for. And we are only a tiny part of the whole.
Brave space to pause, see differently and re-story 🌿
~ For more about Meg and her work, take a lovely wander on her website: Margaret J Wheatley