What we can not learn form horses about Positive Leadership

Do you know how many books are currently available on Leadership & Management? I'll tell you: Depending on the language, you can now choose between more than 100.000 books! The market for management literature has become confusing. Many of these books have been written by people reporting on their own leadership success.

A large amount of management literature has been written by authors who have never led, but who have done something else with passion, such as climbing mountains, running marathons or seeking their own purpose in life.

A significant number of these books have been written by people who even work with horses. Managers can now decide whether their employees are more like a rock or like horses to train and buy the matching book. Without irony, of course, these books can be an inspiration to think about one's own leadership-style. Nevertheless, it makes more sense for me to familiarize myself with management approaches that have already been successfully implemented in companies and organizations, i.e. with "real people".

One leadership style, that has grown in hype in recent years is Positive Leadership. What part of this approach is myth and what part is reality? A few years ago, the University of Vienna, where I teach, dedicated itself to the so-called "Third Mission". Among other things, the “Third Mission” is about better linking science-based knowledge and practice in addition to teaching and research. (see https://thirdmission.univie.ac.at/)

Over 10 years ago, I started making Positive Leadership the content of my professional life. On one hand, I used it as a scientist and organizational psychologist, to thoroughly investigate the effect. On the other hand, I used it as a practitioner to review and integrate this approach, in practice as a coach and trainer with numerous executives and companies. I encountered meaningful and effective strategies, but also ineffective information, under the guise of Positive Leadership. For my current and future blogs I have set myself the goal, in line with the "Third Mission", to inspire all those who are leaders or those who work with executives, with exciting knowledge and practical tools about Positive Leadership.

The roots of Positive Leadership

"Every personal assessment must first and foremost refer to what a person is capable of. An employee should never be assigned a leadership role when he struggles with people's skills deficits rather than using their strengths." One might think that this phrase comes from a radical social romantic who has never been involved with real organizations or leadership. But far from it! In fact, the statement comes from Peter Drucker (1909-2005), one of the best-known US economists with Austrian roots. He is considered the pioneer of modern management science and his books have been sold more than 5 million copies. The "Leadership through Objective" approach, or Management by objectives (MbO), was developed by him in the 1950s and is still a widely used method of leadership.

Putting on strengths is a leadership approach that was described decades ago in common management theories. The roots of today's Positive Leadership approach, however, are different. They come directly from the science, specifically from the organizational-psychological research. But first things first.

Positive Psychology: Exploring Success

It was the year 1999 when Martin Seligman, one of the world's most prestigious university professors, had become President of the American Psychological Association, the largest and most influential umbrella organization for psychologists. In his inaugural address, he criticizes the fact that the science-based psychology has dealt with only a part of the people so far; namely with those who suffer. But if people think that in their life everything is good, psychology has little scientific knowledge to offer, to further enrich their lives.

Hence, Seligman called on the science-based psychologists to focus also on those human beings who are happy, strong, successful, and joyful and who face the challenges and adversities of life without lasting harm. "Positive Psychology" was chosen as the name for this approach.

Positive Psychology deals with the positive aspects of life as an adjunct to classical psychology and not to what one might presume to be negative psychology. He certainly could not have foreseen that he would trigger a tremendous and sustainable flow in psychology and later in all other areas.

The logic behind it was that the absence of something negative does not necessarily lead to something positive. Thus, the absence of depression, anxiety or other mental illnesses does not mean that one feels the highest level of life satisfaction, happiness and purpose. You can think of a scale that ranges from minus 10 to plus 10. Zero would be a neutral situation in which one neither suffers nor experiences special joy.

Clinical psychology therefore has the task of developing diagnostic options, interventions and treatments that are helpful for people in the negative range. Positive psychology now complements with diagnostic options, interventions and (simple) techniques that are scientifically reviewed and intended for people in everyday life situations. This refers to people who do not have a clinically diagnosed condition of suffering and still want to benefit from the methods of psychology. In the sense of this supplement, Positive Psychology, for example, poses the question of how satisfied and happy people reflect on everyday life-events and how this kind of retrospective affects future perceptions, interpretations and actions. The resulting step is the development of methods and their evidence-based evaluation to deduce what people can meaningfully and effectively integrate into their lives.

Burn out or grow?

In addition to these topics, psychology has also begun to deal with the systematic research of resilient people, those who remain healthy despite potentially damaging living and working conditions. For example, as early as the 1970s, well before the founding of Positive Psychology, burnout was a major issue that was particularly addressed in the United States in the context of the nursing profession. Descriptions and analyses of various stages, processes and conditions of origin of burnout can be found in literature and research. This part of the research is extremely significant.

But what about those people who work in high burnout-endangered jobs or with little security and are not burnt out? Are there perhaps people who flourish and even evolve in this environment?

It is with these people that Positive Psychology probes to find out what views, actions (so called coping strategies in psychology), or other resources that support or even lead to growth in difficult or pathological situations. Current research even suggests that potentially harmful situations can lead some people to grow and thrive as opposed to resulting in post-traumatic stress disorder. The technical term for this phenomenon is post-traumatic growth syndrome.

These findings have an impact on establishing criteria for healthy work-places. The questions become, what kind of working conditions must prevail for companies and their people to realize their potential and stand out from the average in a sustainable manner - without burning people out? What exactly should executives do, to ensure their employees are not only committed to be above average, but also satisfied? These questions have been investigated by many researchers worldwide and we have found many answers. These answers will be explored and explained in the upcoming episodes of this blog series.

Read in the next episode: From Positive Psychology to Positive Leadership

Many thanks to Alex Zachariah Chaligné for proofreading the English version