It’s not typically the wickedness of leaders (or of boards, for that matter) that gets companies into trouble. It’s their failure to effectively manage the wickedness of the problems they face — problems that resist obvious solutions. Wicked problems are being tossed up by the exploding complexity of our modern world — complexity originating from the increasing interconnectedness of everything we do. Not only are there more of these problems, but the degree of their wickedness is increasing. The race is on between the complexity that is confronting organizations and their ability to respond to it. Leaders are behind and need to catch up.