Recent literature, e.g. Laszlo (2006), has drawn attention to a number of critical problems that typify contemporary global reality. The global community has been unable to address many pressing societal and environmental problems. This is not new. Churchman (1968) wrote of our collective inability to solve real large scale social, political and economic problems, even though the material means to do so did (and still does) exist. Although both writers are separated in time by a period of approximately 40 years, their messages are not different and represent the essence of this paper. Both infer a failure of leadership thinking and practice as forming a central area of concern. This paper will argue that there are two focal areas in which this is true. The first is that systems thinking is fundamentally important to the future of successful organisational and global practices. In brief, the ability to understand and successfully solve large scale problems will depend on the ability of leadership to comprehend the dynamic complexity of the systems that it seeks to change and redirect. The second, but closely related area, is that our ability to be successful in moving toward a more 'globally sensitive' and sustainable set of practices will require understanding (and adoption) of a leadership that is more "collective" and less "individualistic" in its orientation. The paper will present some case material to show the significant role that change agents, including business, can play in both areas and how systems thinking and complexity theory can inform the practice of leadership intended to bring about large systems change both within organisations and between the institutions of society in general.
