Invitation
Some leaders have developed a special set of capabilities, captured in their ability to see possibilities for greatness in people and their team. Other leaders know that small actions can have tremendous impact. We have become believers in both abilities: the power of seeing possibilities and the awareness that small actions can have great impacts for bringing out the best in people and their organizations.
We did not come to this conclusion easily. We have struggled together with our students of all ages as they experience the limits of applying traditional models of leadership in their own lives. Most of us live in systems with scarce resources, where we increasingly must do more with less. Sometimes we lack courage and settle for results that are just “good enough.” Over time, fueled by the hope for something more—some oxygen for action—we started exploring new pathways for seeing how leaders could make a difference. We became inspired to write this book to collect and to apply some of the best wisdom available on bringing out the best in people and work organizations. If your job affords opportunities to bring out the best in people at work, then this book is for you. Even if your job does not directly afford you these opportunities, but you care deeply about this goal, this book is for you. Although grounded in strong scholarship and the latest research, we’ve written this book for you, the leader, not for the researcher.
We have witnessed firsthand the changes made possible when leaders see, know, and act in ways that bring out the best in people and organizations. During the past decade, we have built the Center for Positive Organizations, devoted to understanding how small changes in leaders’ actions, particularly if part of “normal practice” in organizations, can be a powerful path toward sustained excellence. Important indicators that an organization and people within it are on this path include meaningful and measurable changes toward increasing greatness. These indicators may be greater task and financial performance, increased thriving and engagement at work, more creativity, greater resilience, and greater overall well-being of individuals and the organization.
A positive leader expects that capacities for excellence can always be expanded. In graphical terms, a positive leader believes in enlarging the zone of possibility for excellence, where today’s small actions can change the amount of capacity for excellence inherent in a person or collective over time (see Figure 1). As the figure suggests, “normal” leaders work along the normal path of improving their own or their organization’s capacity for excellence. A positive leader believes it is possible to shift the rate and level at which one’s own or the organization’s capacity for excellence can improve, moving from a normal improvement rate to a more extraordinary improvement rate. The perspectives shared in this book can lift up and accelerate the rate of improvement, increasing the capacity for excellence in significant ways. Expanding the zone of possibility requires new ways of thinking and acting, which are at the heart of positive leadership. How to Be a Positive Leader offers a compelling set of evidence-based perspectives and practices that leaders can embrace, expanding the possibilities for excellence by tapping into the best in people and organizations.
FIGURE 1 Positive leaders increase capacities for excellence.
Three features of How to Be a Positive Leader are distinctive. First, the book takes the perspective that small actions by leaders can and do have big impact. The authors identify small actions that make a big difference in the potential for enlarging capacities for positive impact. Second, the book uses a dual lens, focusing on what leaders can do to expand their own capacities for excellence while they seed directives for sustaining the capacities for excellence through more organizational-level actions. Third, the book is inspirational. It invites leaders to see the possibilities for expanded and improved human capacities enabled by small actions.
Who Is This Book For?
We do not assume that you or other leaders require formal power to be positive leaders. In fact, we believe that leaders, inside and outside of formal organizational roles, have the power to change trajectories of excellence in organizations. They can unlock resources, foster positive relationships, tap into the good, and engage generative change. This book is written for anyone with aspirations to become a more positive leader: anyone who seeks to increase capacities for excellence. It offers important lessons for senior leaders in a corporation, middle managers, directors of a nonprofit, entrepreneurs, or individual contributors. Many of these lessons apply not only to the world of work but also to family and social life, as well as to involvement in community, civic, and volunteer activities.
Why This Book Now?
This book could not come at a better time because leaders—and all people in organizations—are being asked to do more with less. It is also a time when too many employees and leaders are less than fully engaged and not fully developing their potential. Against the backdrop of the squeeze for greater performance and languishing work engagement, leaders need new visions and new actions for how to increase individual and organizational capacities for excellence. The purpose of this book is to ignite and to inspire new possibilities for action as a positive leader.
Who Is Offering Insights?
We have assembled some of the most respected thought leaders in the vibrant field of positive organizational scholarship (POS) to offer their best evidence-based recommendations. They discuss how to be a positive leader, that is, how to bring out the best in themselves as leaders as well as in organizations. POS is the intellectual discipline behind the research grounding these chapters. We invited each scholar to identify and make the case for positive leadership using a “seed idea,” which is a core action-based idea that expands possibilities for excellence in individuals or organizations. We use the image of a seed to emphasize that leadership actions can start out small but expand and grow capacities inside people and organizations. Each author also offers strategies for germinating the seed idea in organizations, along with examples of positive leaders in action. Together, the chapters provide a compelling mandate and enriched portfolio for positive leaders who wish to have big impact.
Four clusters of positive leader strategies form the structure of the book. The first cluster covers positive relationships as the keystone for positive leadership. Jane E. Dutton describes the power and strategies for building high-quality connections, Adam M. Grant advocates outsourcing inspiration through connecting people to their impact on others, and Shirli Kopelman and Ramaswami Mahalingam illuminate how to negotiate mindfully.
The second cluster focuses on ways positive leaders can unlock resources from within people, within relationships, and within teams by activating and expanding key renewable resources such as energy, initiative, optimism, meaning, and creative thinking. Three chapters address this approach to positive leadership: Gretchen M. Spreitzer and Christine Porath detail how to enable thriving at work, Laura Morgan Roberts describes how to cultivate positive identities, and Amy Wrzesniewski illuminates the power and practices of job crafting.
The third cluster focuses on how to lead positively by tapping into the good in people and in collectives. These chapters examine how leaders can foster the best of the human condition for individuals and for organizations as a whole. Kim Cameron explains how to activate virtuousness, David M. Mayer describes how to lead an ethical organization, and Robert E. Quinn and Anjan V. Thakor articulate how to create organizations of higher purpose.
A final cluster envisions positive leaders as change makers and unpacks how to think and act in ways that generate resourceful change. Resourceful change implies that leaders build strength and capability while they foster change. Oana Branzei articulates how to cultivate hope, Karen Golden-Biddle describes how to create micro-moves that engage people in change, Scott Sonenshein makes the case for how to foster resourcefulness during change, and Lynn Perry Wooten and Erika Hayes James focus on how to learn from crises.
Each chapter explains why the specific leadership approach produces positive impact by drawing on the most compelling research evidence. The chapters describe what leaders can do to make their leadership approach a reality for themselves and how to put the approach into practice within a work organization. Each chapter concludes with an example that documents how a specific leader or organization deployed this positive leadership approach. These examples capture a range of leader types, such as founders, senior leaders, and middle managers, from a variety of industries, such as health care and retail, and market conditions ranging from fast growth to decline. This book ignites possibilities for bringing out the best in work organizations and broadens any positive leader’s repertoire of actions to create enduring and beneficial impacts.
We invite you to share this journey on the road to becoming a positive leader. We hope the ideas and practices shared will be a kind of oxygen for action for you to see how small actions can have big impact for you and your organization.