Summary

Leadership Requires Systemic Awareness

True leadership begins with a simple yet profound realization: it’s the system that leads—not the leader.

Jan Jacob Stam and Barbara Hoogenboom challenge you to rethink, deepen, and reconnect your understanding of leadership and organizations through a systemic lens. What if the answers leaders have been searching for aren’t found in traditional models but in the unseen forces shaping teams and organizations?

Looking at leadership systemically dissolves outdated dichotomies—old vs. new, big vs. small, hierarchical vs. flat, innovative vs. conventional. It helps leaders move beyond these artificial divides, working both with and against the current to create sustainable impact.

Systemic leadership doesn’t replace financial, organizational, or HR perspectives—it complements them by revealing what leadership is truly needed in a given context. Sometimes, leadership means swimming upstream, understanding the deeper origins of a challenge, and then allowing the power of the organizational system to carry the transformation forward.

This book is not about personal leadership development or self-improvement. It’s about what organizations need from leadership to truly thrive. Once you grasp the core principles that govern systems, you’ll intuitively find ways to bring systemic leadership to life in your own role.

If you hold a leadership position, you already have both the responsibility and the power to make a difference. This book shows you how organizations can flourish and flow through a systemic perspective—and what kind of leadership is needed to make that happen.