The more complex society gets, the more sophisticated leadership must become. This book is about how leaders can focus on certain key change themes that will allow them to lead effectively under messy conditions. Chapter 1 identifies theoretical reasons why change occurs as it does. They include moral purpose, understanding change, developing relationships, knowledge building, and coherence making; they have developed independently but are deeply compatible. Chapters 2 through 6 take each theme in turn and examine in more detail its inner workings. Through these five chapters, a comprehensive theory of leadership is developed. The matter of becoming a leader and how systems can foster leadership development are taken up in chapter 7. In recent times, the knowledge base for what makes for success under conditions of complexity is getting better--deeper and more insightful. Case examples of large-scale transformation in both business and education provide an ever-increasing body of experiences from which to gain insight. This book draws from these new ideas and finds remarkable convergences in what is being discovered about how to lead in a culture of complex change. (Contains 71 references and an index.) (RT)