Positively Energizing Leadership

This practical guide, the first to show how leaders can achieve extraordinary results through the positive energy generated by virtuous interactions with employees, is written by one of the giants in the study of positive leadership. This book reveals one of the most important but frequently ignored factors that lead to spectacular performance in organizations. Kim Cameron, a true pioneer in the study of positive leadership, offers validated scientific evidence that all individuals are inherently attracted to and flourish in the presence of positive energy, a principle known in biology as heliotropism. Further, he shows that the positive relational energy generated by leaders' virtuous behaviors—such as generosity, compassion, gratitude, trustworthiness, forgiveness, and kindness—is tightly linked to extraordinary organizational outcomes like greater innovation, higher profits, and increased engagement and retention. Cameron has not written a feel-good tome about the power of positive thinking, “happiology,” or unbridled optimism. This research-based explanation shows how to achieve performance that exceeds expectations. He provides practical suggestions, assessments, and exercises showing how leaders can improve their own positive energy and increase positive relational energy in their organizations. Positively Energizing Leadership is a major contribution to the theory and practice of leadership.

This practical guide, the first to show how leaders can achieve extraordinary results through the positive energy generated by virtuous interactions with employees, is written by one of the giants in the study of positive leadership. This book reveals one of the most important but frequently ignored factors that lead to spectacular performance in organizations. Kim Cameron, a true pioneer in the study of positive leadership, offers validated scientific evidence that all individuals are inherently attracted to and flourish in the presence of positive energy, a principle known in biology as heliotropism. Further, he shows that the positive relational energy generated by leaders' virtuous behaviors—such as generosity, compassion, gratitude, trustworthiness, forgiveness, and kindness—is tightly linked to extraordinary organizational outcomes like greater innovation, higher profits, and increased engagement and retention. Cameron has not written a feel-good tome about the power of positive thinking, “happiology,” or unbridled optimism. This research-based explanation shows how to achieve performance that exceeds expectations. He provides practical suggestions, assessments, and exercises showing how leaders can improve their own positive energy and increase positive relational energy in their organizations. Positively Energizing Leadership is a major contribution to the theory and practice of leadership.

Plenty of research has been done on why companies go terribly wrong, but what makes companies go spectacularly right? That’s the question that Kim Cameron asked over a decade ago. Since then, Cameron and his colleagues have uncovered the principles and practices that set extraordinarily effective organizations apart from the merely successful. In his previous book Positive Leadership, Cameron identified four strategies that enable these organizations, and the individuals within them, to flourish: creating a positive climate, positive relationships, positive communication, and positive meaning. Here he lays out specific tactics for implementing them. These are not feel-good nostrums—study after study (some cited in this book) have proven positive leadership delivers breakthrough bottom-line results. Thanks to Cameron’s concise how-to guide, now any organization can be “positively deviant,” achieving outcomes that far surpass the norm.

This is a guide to positive climate, positive relationships, positive communication, and positive meaning and how to apply each of them in work.

We are not positive because life is easy. We are positive because life can be hard. As a leader, you will face numerous obstacles, negativity, and tests. There will be times when it seems as if everything in the world is conspiring against you and your vision seems more like a fantasy than a reality. That’s why positive leadership is essential! Positive leadership is not about fake positivity. It is the real stuff that makes great leaders great. The research is clear. Being a positive leader is not just a nice way to lead. It's the way to lead if you want to build a great culture, unite your organization in the face of adversity, develop a connected and committed team and achieve excellence and superior results. Since writing the mega best seller The Energy Bus, Jon Gordon has worked and consulted with leaders who have transformed their companies, organizations and schools, won national championships and are currently changing the world. He has also interviewed some of the greatest leaders of our time and researched many positive leaders throughout history and discovered their paths to success. In this pioneering book Jon Gordon shares what he has learned and provides a comprehensive framework on positive leadership filled with proven principles, compelling stories, practical ideas and practices that will help anyone become a positive leader. There is a power associated with positive leadership and you can start benefiting yourself and your team with it today.

Leadership should be about much more than hitting targets and avoiding mistakes. Kim Cameron shows how to reach beyond ordinary success to achieve extraordinary effectiveness, spectacular results, and what he calls ''positively deviant performance'' - performance far above the norm. Positive leadership enables thriving and flourishing rather than simply addressing obstacles and impediments. It helps bring out the best in human nature. Cameron is one of the founders of the new field of Positive Organizational Scholarship, which studies unusually high - performing organizations. In Positive Leadership he draws on discoveries in this field and in the allied field of positive psychology - which focuses on high - functioning individuals - as well as positive organizational change methodologies. He identifies four interrelated leadership strategies: Positive Climate: fostering emotions such as optimism, compassion, and gratitude Positive Relationships: building positive energy networks and developing strength - based activities Positive Communications: fostering best - self feedback and supportive communication patterns Positive Meaning: helping people find profound purpose and a sense of callingCameron cites the empirical research that these strategies are rooted in and that supports their bottom - line effectiveness, lays out a proven process for implementing them, and includes a self - assessment instrument and a guide to assist leaders in the implementation process. Positive Leadership is a concise, thoroughly researched, and practical guide that any leader can use to generate truly amazing results.

NEW EDITION, REVISED AND UPDATEDThis is the bestselling and leading introduction to the new field of positive leadership, which helps leaders in all types of organizations reach beyond ordinary success to achieve extraordinary effectiveness, spectacular results, and positively deviant performance.

Although many organizations see the need to transform and to reinvent themselves, for far too many leaders, "change" and "failure" are virtual synonyms. In fact, most organizational change efforts fail. But that needn’t be the case, and help is at hand. Leading Positive Organizational Change, an alternative way to think about organizational change and development, is a strategic, learnable discipline that can re-energize and re-imagine your enterprise, and release the potential for change – delivering a positive, creative future and breakthrough bottom-line results. Written by an award-winning expert in positive organization development and change leadership, this book provides executives, change leaders, and change leadership teams with a step-by-step guide for collaboratively crafting and executing a change strategy that aligns with organizational objectives so as to fuel their future. With a strong science-backed and field-tested "how to" approach, and with a radical focus on organizational positivity, super-flexibility and renewal, collective design thinking and applied imagination, this highly practical book features: A ToolBox of 30 powerful, imaginative (and time-saving!) tools for you to use in practicing leading positive organizational change and carrying through your change program – with example templates and worksheets, concise notes and ideas from numerous complex global projects. Lead-ins to each chapter that are a fundamental feature of the book, representing a springboard to a chapter and serving the purpose of awakening interest in the topic. Dialogic Reflection for Professional Team Development, at the start of each chapter, that enables you (and your team as a whole) to reflect on and discuss some thought-provoking questions, linking to the chapter and helping to contextualize your learning. Industry Snapshots that explore current issues and trends in one of the fastest-growing professions and industries – coaching and consulting. Windows on Practice that demonstrate how issues are applied in real-life business situations, offering a range of interesting topical illustrations of positive change leadership in practice, relating the core concepts of the book to real-world settings. Summary Propositions, at the end of each chapter, that recap and reinforce the key takeaways from the chapter. References to help you take your learning and development further. Tkaczyk’s engaging, reflective, task-based book equips the change leader and leadership teams with the skills needed to navigate chaos and the unexpected, to renew your business and create winning change. This action-based workbook can be used in a variety of business settings, among others, executive leadership team meetings, organization development and change consulting, design-led strategy retreats, human resource development consultancy, executive 1:1 and team coaching, leadership boot camps, design thinking workshops and sprints, innovation labs, and executive education and MBA courses – as a handy additional text in either an organization development and change or human resource management class. It can also be used in a flexible strategic transformation program – with the flow of the change execution process mapped within the context of a specific change initiative.