Positive Leadership

1. Positive Leadership: Enabling Extraordinary Performance

"Positive leadership refers to the application of principles arising from the newly emerging fields of positive organizational scholarship, positive psychology, and positive change."

Positive leadership defined. Positive leadership focuses on enabling positively deviant performance, fostering an affirmative orientation in organizations, and promoting virtuousness. It goes beyond traditional leadership approaches by emphasizing what elevates individuals and organizations, rather than just solving problems or achieving ordinary success.

Three key aspects:

• Facilitating extraordinary performance (positive deviance)
• Adopting an affirmative bias towards strengths and capabilities
• Fostering virtuousness and eudaemonism (human flourishing)

Impact on performance. Organizations led by positive leaders tend to achieve outcomes that dramatically exceed common expectations. Examples include the cleanup of the Rocky Flats Nuclear Arsenal, completed 60 years ahead of schedule and $30 billion under budget, and Griffin Hospital's transformation from turmoil to becoming a top workplace.

2. Fostering a Positive Climate: Compassion, Forgiveness, and Gratitude

"Expressing compassion involves noticing that pain has been experienced, expressing care and concern, and organizing systematic action to help repair damage or support the person that is suffering."

Compassion in action. Leaders can foster compassion by encouraging awareness of colleagues' difficulties, facilitating public expressions of emotional support, and organizing systematic responses to help those in need. This creates a climate where people feel cared for and supported.

Forgiveness and gratitude. Positive leaders also promote forgiveness by acknowledging harm, maintaining high standards while providing support, and using language that elevates thoughts. They encourage gratitude through practices like gratitude journals, visits, and notes, which have been shown to improve physical and mental well-being.

Benefits of a positive climate:

• Reduced stress, depression, turnover, and cynicism
• Increased commitment, effort, engagement, and satisfaction
• Enhanced physiological health and organizational performance

3. Building Positive Relationships: Energy Networks and Strengths

"Being a positive energizer made individuals four times more likely to succeed than being at the center of an information or influence network."

Positive energy networks. Leaders can identify and nurture "positive energizers" – individuals who create and support vitality in others. These energizers significantly impact organizational success, with high-performing organizations having three times more positive energizers than average ones.

Focusing on strengths. Positive leaders emphasize and build on employees' strengths rather than focusing on weaknesses. This approach leads to higher productivity and engagement.

Key strategies:

• Diagnose and build positive energy networks
• Place positive energizers in key roles and tasks
• Provide more feedback on strengths than weaknesses
• Spend more time with strongest performers

4. Cultivating Positive Communication: Best-Self Feedback and Supportive Dialogue

"The single most important factor in predicting organizational performance—which was more than twice as powerful as any other factor—was the ratio of positive statements to negative statements."

The power of positive communication. Research shows that high-performing organizations have a ratio of about 5.6 positive statements to every 1 negative statement. This positive communication leads to higher levels of engagement, information exchange, and organizational performance.

Best-self feedback. Leaders can implement the reflected best-self feedback process, where individuals receive stories about their unique strengths and contributions from colleagues. This helps people identify and capitalize on their best qualities.

Supportive communication techniques:

• Use descriptive rather than evaluative statements
• Focus on behavior and consequences, not personal attributes
• Suggest acceptable alternatives instead of arguing about fault

5. Creating Positive Meaning: Connecting Work to Purpose and Values

"Work is associated with meaningfulness when it possesses one or more of four key attributes: (1) The work has an important positive impact on the well-being of human beings. (2) The work is associated with an important virtue or personal value. (3) The work has an impact that extends beyond the immediate time frame or creates a ripple effect. (4) The work builds supportive relationships or a sense of community in people."

Fostering meaningfulness. Leaders can enhance the sense of meaning in work by highlighting its positive impact on others, connecting it to personal values, emphasizing long-term effects, and building a sense of community.

Strategies for creating meaning:

• Provide opportunities for employees to interact with beneficiaries
• Connect organizational goals to employees' core values
• Highlight the long-term impact and legacy of the work
• Emphasize contribution goals over self-interest goals

Benefits of meaningful work:

• Higher job and life satisfaction
• Increased trust and commitment
• Better relationships with coworkers
• Improved organizational performance

6. Implementing Positive Strategies: The Personal Management Interview (PMI) Program

"PMIs help eliminate unscheduled interruptions and long, inefficient group meetings. At each subsequent PMI, action items are reviewed from previous meetings, so that continuous improvement and accountability are expected."

The PMI process. The Personal Management Interview program consists of two key steps:

1. An initial role-negotiation session to clarify expectations and responsibilities
2. Regular one-on-one meetings between leaders and direct reports

Benefits of PMIs:

• Improved team performance on subjective and objective measures
• Enhanced employee engagement and reduced burnout
• Increased discretionary time for leaders
• Institutionalized continuous improvement and accountability

Implementing PMIs:

• Hold monthly or more frequent one-on-one meetings
• Focus on problem-solving and positive strategies
• Identify specific action items and maintain accountability
• Adapt the format to fit different organizational contexts

7. Developing Positive Leadership: Principles and Self-Assessment

"Positive leadership is an aspiration to which almost every individual can seek, and the advantages of such an approach can be remarkable."

Key principles of positive leadership:

1. Enable extraordinary performance by fostering a positive work climate
2. Build positive relationships among members
3. Cultivate positive communication
4. Associate work with positive meaning
5. Implement positive strategies through a PMI program

Self-assessment and implementation. Leaders can use a provided assessment tool to evaluate their current positive leadership practices and identify areas for improvement. The process involves:

1. Diagnosing current leadership behaviors
2. Selecting 2-3 high-impact behaviors to focus on
3. Applying these behaviors in both personal and professional contexts

Continuous development. Positive leadership requires conscious effort and attention, as it often goes against natural tendencies to focus on problems and threats. By consistently applying positive leadership principles, leaders can create amplifying effects that enable flourishing and extraordinary performance in their organizations.

Last updated: September 9, 2024