APPENDIX 1

Interview Questions,
Story Prompts, and
Contributions

As we have noted elsewhere, the leaders who contributed to this book came from many walks of life and various sectors—education, community development, social work, health care, business, and government. Some were CEOs, some have held other formal positions of leadership, and others have been informal leaders. All of them have histories of leadership in various positions. Some have moved around from the public to the private sector and back. Some have become consultants. A few have retired since contributing to this book. They range in age from their thirties to their sixties. They all have a practice of appreciative inquiry, either through formal study or informally as leaders who seek what is powerfully positive in the world. We have held their names, titles, and positions confidential because these are complex and personal topics.

We didn’t set out to conduct a formal study, and we didn’t. We were inviting leaders, through their responses and stories, to contribute ideas to our commentary. The response to our call was wonderful, and we received more than we could include in the book. These leaders’ contributions have been included in the book in various ways: verbatim; in edited or descriptive versions; or as inspiration for the Harry stories in chapter 6.

We profoundly appreciate their input to our commentary on resilience.

Interview Questions

At the beginning of each interview, we provided an introduction to the appreciative resilience model and the concepts we were engaging with. What follows are the questions we asked everyone. Further questions arose as the conversations evolved.

1. Tell us [me] a story of resilience in your leadership life.

2. What strengths did you exercise in that story?

3. What enabled that strength?

4. What role did hope play in your story?

5. What was your greatest strength in times of despair?

6. How did you find your way to forgiveness?

7. AI inquires into what works or what is right in a situation no matter how complex. In what ways did you practice AI in your story?

8. In what ways do you practice AI in your daily leadership life?

9. If you could talk to other leaders directly about fostering resilience, what would you say to them about

a. Practicing hope and a hopeful view in leadership

b. Amplifying their core strengths in times of despair

c. Fostering forgiveness

d. Practicing appreciative inquiry

Invitation to Write a Story

As noted in the prologue, our exploration of resilience has been an evolving journey. Part of that evolution was to invite several leaders to write on the ideas of hope, despair, and forgiveness. We seeded the story writing by providing leaders with some early drafts of our ideas and insights into the leadership states (tenets) of hope, despair, and forgiveness. We left the request very open ended and encouraged leaders to write in whatever form that moved them—poetry, narrative, and so on. These were our instructions:

We are asking each of you to write three stories of no greater than 250 words (a page). Story 1 is about how hope has played a part in your leadership. Story 2 is about despair and its role in leading. Story 3 is about the tenet of forgiveness.

Other Contributions

A few other leaders offered narrative contributions beyond the interviews and invitations to storytelling.