Margaret J. Wheatley, Ed.D.

Margaret (Meg) Wheatley writes, teaches and speaks about radically new practices and ideas for organizing in chaotic times. She has worked in virtually every type of organization and on all continents (except Antarctica), and has been a dedicated global citizen since her youth. The consistent focus of her work has been to encourage people to organize as life does–cooperatively, generously, systemically and nonhierarchically. She seeks to create organizations where people are known as the blessing, not the problem.

Meg is co-founder and president emerita of The Berkana Institute, a global charitable leadership foundation she co-founded in 1992. Berkana has worked in dozens of countries, many of them in the third world, supporting local leaders to create positive change in their communities, villages, and organizations. Berkana has discovered that the world is blessed with tens of thousands of these courageous leaders. They are young and old, in all countries, working in all types of organizations and communities.

Her work appears in many award-winning books: Leadership and the New Science (1992, 1999, 2006), A Simpler Way (coauthored with Myron Kellner-Rogers, 1996), Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future (2002), and Finding Our Way: Leadership for an Uncertain Time (2005)– plus many articles, videos, and DVDs. Meg draws her ideas from many places, beginning with the discoveries in new science that profoundly shift our worldview. To her science background, she now adds the perspectives and wisdom from many different cultures and spiritual traditions that she has learned from.

Meg has been an organizational consultant and researcher since 1973, and professor of management in two graduate programs. She received her doctorate in Administration, Planning and Social Policy from Harvard University, a Masters in systems thinking from New York University and received her undergraduate degree in History and English from the University of Rochester and University College London. Her first work was as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Korea from 1966-68, and then as an urban educator in New York.

She has served in a formal advisory capacity for leadership programs in England, Croatia, Denmark. Australia and the United States, and through her work in Berkana, with leadership initiatives in India, Senegal, Zimbabwe and South Africa. Over the years, she has received several awards and honorary degrees. In 2002, The American Society for Training and Development honored her for “distinguished contribution to workplace learning and development” and dubbed her “a living legend.”

Meg has raised a large family and lives in the mountains of Utah, where she rests in the peace of wilderness after long journeys, and delights in the company of her adult children, grandchildren, horses, pets, and good friends.

Books:

Finding Our Way: Leadership for an Uncertain Time, Margaret J. Wheatley.
Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. San Francisco, 2005.

Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future.
Margaret J. Wheatley. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. San Francisco, 2002.

Leadership and the New Science (3rd Edition). Margaret J. Wheatley.
Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. San Francisco, 2006.

A Simpler Way. Margaret J. Wheatley & Myron Kellner-Rogers. Berrett-Koehler
Publishers, Inc. San Francisco, 1996.

Her articles, videos, and speaking schedule are at http://www.margaretwheatley.com/.