7
A BRIEF SUMMARY OF POSITIVE
LEADERSHIP PRACTICES

Positive leadership refers to the implementation of multiple positive practices that help individuals and organizations achieve their highest potential, flourish at work, experience elevating energy, and achieve levels of effectiveness difficult to attain otherwise. The practices included in this book have proven to be effective in producing extraordinarily positive results.

Positive leadership is much too rare in organizations because people tend to pay more attention to negative factors than positive factors and because “bad is stronger than good.”¹ Crises and difficulties dominate agendas, and organizations are usually in the business of solving problems. Managers’ daily tasks tend to focus primarily on addressing challenges and overcoming obstacles. The daily pressures organizations face frequently drive out positive practices.

This is why the practices and activities introduced in this book can be helpful. The activities provide very specific tools that you can implement almost immediately. The practices can enable positive performance and overcome the effects of the negative. Each of these practices is based on empirical evidence and sound theory, and all have been successfully applied in organizations pursuing extraordinarily positive performance.

These practices are based on the four key strategies associated with positive leadership introduced in an earlier book, Positive Leadership. They provide practical guidelines for implementing these strategies, as illustrated in Figure 17.

Chapter 2 explains how to create a culture of abundance. This is in contrast to an organization that focuses mainly on solving problems, overcoming crises, or achieving targets and goals. Abundance goes beyond that. Because culture is usually the primary factor that determines whether or not organizational change will be successful, building an organization’s culture based on abundance is essential if you are looking for positively deviant results.² Here are the guidelines:

Developing a Culture of Abundance

CREATE READINESS

• Provide comparison standards

• Modify language, labels, logos, or symbols

OVERCOME RESISTANCE

• Reduce restraining forces

• Increase driving forces

ARTICULATE A VISION OF ABUNDANCE

• Identify both right-brain and left-brain elements

• Identify a legacy

• Communicate what is interesting

FIGURE 17
Positive Leadership Practices That Lead to Positive Strategies

GENERATE COMMITMENT

• Highlight small wins

• Encourage public commitments

FOSTER SUSTAINABILITY

• Produce metrics, measures, and milestones

• Identify relevant stories

• Foster social support

• Demonstrate personal sacrifice

Chapter 3 shows that positive leadership and positive energy are closely tied together. Positive energy is not an inherent attribute of personality or charisma. It is developed, rather, by demonstrating a set of skills and behaviors that can be learned. By constructing diagrams of the energy networks in your organization, you can see how to utilize positive energy and foster positive performance. Here are some guidelines:

Developing Positive Energy Networks

VALUE-ADDED CONTRIBUTIONS PRACTICE

• Produce positive and developmental feedback for each other

• Distribute it

• Provide time for interpretation

• Encourage public commitments aimed at added contribution

CONTEMPLATIVE PRACTICE

• Engage in a short period of lovingkindness meditation each day

• Keep a gratitude journal

RECREATIONAL WORK

• Incorporate recreational attributes into work

• Structure fun into daily work

POSITIVE ENERGY NETWORKS

• Generate an energy network among your people using statistical mapping

• Generate a bubble chart to identify positive energizers

• Conduct a pulse survey to track energy

Chapter 4 addresses an almost universal challenge of positive leaders: how to give negative or corrective feedback, solve problems, and mitigate conflict and disagreements while maintaining strong, positive relationships. Supportive communication provides guidelines for how to deliver negative feedback, address tensions, and resolve difficult interpersonal problems in ways that enrich and strengthen relationships rather than cause them to deteriorate. Here are the guidelines:

Providing Negative Feedback Positively

POSITIVE-TO-NEGATIVE RATIO

• Make at least three positive statements (and preferably five) for every negative statement

• Ensure honesty and genuineness

CONGRUENCE, NOT INCONGRUENCE

• Ensure that statements are consistent with thoughts and feelings

• Display authenticity and sincerity in statements

DESCRIPTIVE, NOT EVALUATIVE

• Objectively describe the behavior

• Describe consequences and/or feelings

• Make suggestions for acceptable alternatives

PROBLEM ORIENTED, NOT PERSON ORIENTED

• Focus on problems, not personal attributes

• Identify comparison standards, not opinions

• Avoid using “you”

VALIDATING, NOT INVALIDATING

• Avoid superiority, rigidity, indifference, and imperviousness

• Communicate egalitarian, flexible, two-way, and consensus-building statements

Everest goals are different from normal goals. Chapter 5 shows how Everest goals extend beyond common stretch goals by including not just SMART attributes (specific, measurable, aligned, realistic, and time-bound) but also five unique attributes: positive deviance, goods of first intent, affirmative orientation, contribution, and sustainable positive energy. These attributes help elevate the Everest goal beyond mere personal achievement. The guidelines are:

How to Establish and Achieve Everest Goals

ESTABLISHING EVEREST GOALS

SMART Goal Attributes

• Specific

• Measurable

• Aligned

• Realistic

• Time-bound

Positive Deviance

• Focus on abundance gaps

• Target extraordinary performance

Goods of First Intent

• Emphasize inherent value

• Ensure that it is not a means to another end

Affirmative Orientation

• Highlight possibilities, not just probabilities

• Capitalize on strengths

Contribution

• Target providing benefit to others more than personal achievement

• Create unique value

Sustainable Positive Energy

• Focus on what provides intrinsic motivation

• Capitalize on relational energy

ACHIEVING EVEREST GOALS

Specify the Everest Goal

Identify Specific Action Steps

• The more difficult the goal, the more numerous the action steps

• Produce numerous small wins

Measures and Accountability

• Make it more difficult to fail than succeed

• Close loopholes

Effects and Contributions

• Focus on the meaningful contribution

• Identify the inherent value

Chapter 6 helps respond to critics’ claims that positive leadership ignores the nard-nosed, competitive, challenging aspects of leadership. It discusses how to apply positive leadership in organizational settings where complex dynamics make it difficult to rely on only one set of practices or activities. The Competing Values Framework is used as an organizing framework for highlighting the trade-offs needed to practice positive leadership in complex circumstances.³ Here are guidelines for identifying those trade-offs:

Using the Competing Values Framework to Apply
Positive Leadership in Organizations

MARKET QUADRANT: CUSTOMER LOYALTY

Clan Quadrant: Empowering Employees

• Self-efficacy

• Self-determination

• Personal consequence

• Meaning

• Trust

ADHOCRACY QUADRANT: RECIPROCITY NETWORKS

HIERARCHY QUADRANT: ELIMINATING EFFICIENCIES

CONCLUSION

Positive leadership practices can help you begin the process of enabling your organization to achieve extraordinarily successful performance. The suggestions and applications offered here are just a start, but they have proven to be effective in producing positively deviant performance in a variety of settings. Additional tools and positive practices are available, and for additional assistance, books and articles, videos and media, course syllabi and lecture notes, and events and conferences, please see the website of the Center for Positive Organizations at the University of Michigan, www.centerforpos.com.