Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology and Work

OXFORD LIBRARY OF PSYCHOLOGY

Editor-in-Chief
Peter E. Nathan
Oxford Handbook of
Positive Psychology
and Work
Edited by
P. Alex Linley
Susan Harrington
Nicola Garcea

1
2010
1
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Oxford handbook of positive psychology and work / edited by P. Alex Linley,
Susan Harrington, Nicola Garcea.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-19-533544-6 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Positive psychology. 2. Leadership. I. Linley, P. Alex.
II. Harrington, Susan, 1962– III. Garcea, Nicola.
BF204.6.O954 2010
150.190 88—dc22
2009011022

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed in the United States of America

on acid-free paper
CONTENTS

Oxford Library of Psychology vii

About the Editors ix

Contributors xi

Contents xv

Chapters 1– 334

Index 335

V
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OXFORD LIBRARY OF PSYCHOLOGY

The Oxford Library of Psychology, a landmark series of handbooks, is published by

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who are established scholars in the areas about which they write. Many of the

OXFORD LIBRARY OF PSYCHOLOGY VII

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to edit Library handbooks or write authoritative chapters in their areas of expertise.
For whom has the Oxford Library of Psychology been written? Because of its
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In summary, the Oxford Library of Psychology will grow organically to provide a
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Editor-in-Chief
Oxford Library of Psychology

viii OXFORD LIBRARY OF PSYCHOLOGY

ABOUT THE EDITORS

P. Alex Linley
Alex Linley is the Founding Director of the Centre of Applied Positive Psychology
(www.cappeu.com), as well as a Visiting Professor in Psychology at the University
of Leicester, UK. He has written, co-written, or edited more than 100 research
papers and book chapters and four books, including Positive Psychology in Practice
(Wiley, 2004) and Average to A+: Realising Strengths in Yourself and Others (CAPP
Press, 2008). He is an Associate Editor of the Encyclopaedia of Positive Psychology
and the Journal of Positive Psychology, as well as Co-editor of the International
Coaching Psychology Review, and a regular reviewer for a number of journals,
publishers, and grant awarding bodies. Through his consulting work, he applies
the principles of positive psychology and strengths to organization and people
development.

Susan Harrington
Susan Harrington is a Chartered Occupational Psychologist and a Teaching Fellow
in the School of Psychology at the University of Leicester, UK. Her occupational
practice has included developing and running assessment and development centers
and performance appraisal systems, psychometric training and application in
organizations, and workplace bullying interventions. Her work has been published
in the Journal of Positive Psychology, the International Coaching Psychology Review,
and Personality and Individual Differences. Susan is currently reading for her PhD in
occupational psychology, the focus of which is workplace bullying.

Nicola Garcea
Nicola Garcea is a Chartered Occupational Psychologist and Consulting Director
at the Centre of Applied Positive Psychology (CAPP, www.cappeu.com). Nicola’s
areas of research and consulting expertise span recruitment, development, and
performance management. She has designed and delivered consulting assignments
for a range of private and public sector clients in the UK, Nigeria, Argentina,
Venezuela, the United States, and Canada. In recent years she has led a team of
psychologists at CAPP to deliver pioneering organizational projects that integrate
positive psychology and best practice occupational psychology. Nicola has pub-
lished her work in a variety of journals including HR Director, PersonalFuhrung,
and Selection and Development Review. She has also edited a special issue of
Organisations and People on ‘‘Applying Positive Psychology in Organisations’’ and
is a regular speaker at HR and occupational psychology events.

IX
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 CONTRIBUTORS

JIM ASPLUND JOCELYN S. DAVIS

Gallup, Minneapolis, MN University of Maryland
BRUCE J. AVOLIO Center for Excellence in Project Management
Michael G. Foster School of Business Nelson Hart L.L.C.
University of Washington Arlington, VA
Seattle, WA BRYAN J. DIK
BORIS B. BALTES Department of Psychology
Department of Psychology Colorado State University
Wayne State University Fort Collins, CO
Detroit, MI BARBARA L. FREDRICKSON
LYNN BARENDSEN Department of Psychology
Harvard Graduate School of University of North Carolina
Education Chapel Hill, NC
Harvard University MARTIN GALPIN
Cambridge, MA Work Positive Ltd.
NIKKI BLACKSMITH Woodstock, Oxfordshire
Workplace Management United Kingdom
Gallup, Inc. NICOLA GARCEA
Washington, DC Centre of Applied Positive Psychology
KIM S. CAMERON University of Warwick Science Park
Ross School of Business and School of Coventry, United Kingdom
Education HOWARD GARDNER
University of Michigan Harvard Graduate School of Education
Ann Arbor, MI Harvard University
STACY M. CAMPBELL Cambridge, MA
Department of Management and JILL GARRETT
Entrepreneurship Caret, Lancaster House Birmingham
Kennesaw State University Kennesaw, United Kingdom
Georgia ANTHONY M. GRANT
WAYNE F. CASCIO Coaching Psychology Unit
The Business School School of Psychology
University of Colorado University of Sydney
Denver, CO Sydney, Australia
MADHURA CHAKRABARTI JAKARI GRIFFITH
Department of Psychology Global Leadership Institute
Wayne State University College of Business Administration
Detroit, MI University of Nebraska–Lincoln
MALISSA A. CLARK Lincoln, NE
Department of Psychology SUSAN HARRINGTON
Wayne State University Occupational Section
Detroit, MI School of Psychology

CONTRIBUTORS XI
 University of Leicester JONATHAN PASSMORE
Leicester, United Kingdom School of Psychology
JAMES K. HARTER University of East London, London
Workplace Management & Well-Being United Kingdom
Gallup, Inc. LYNN PERRY WOOTEN
Omaha, NE Ross School of Business and School of Education
MALCOLM HIGGS University of Michigan
School of Management Ann Arbor, MI
University of Southampton CHRISTOPHER PETERSON
Southampton Department of Psychology
United Kingdom University of Michigan
TIMOTHY D. HODGES Ann Arbor, MI
Gallup SHAWN QUINN
Omaha, NE Lift Consulting
ROBERT B. KAISER Ann Arbor, MI
Kaplan DeVries Inc. CHARLOTTE RAYNER
Greensboro, NC Portsmouth Business School
ROBERT E. KAPLAN University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth
Kaplan DeVries Inc. United Kingdom
Greensboro, NC JOANNE RICHARDSON
FIONA LEE Aston Business School
Department of Psychology
Aston University
University of Michigan
Birmingham, United Kingdom
Ann Arbor, MI
LESLIE E. SEKERKA
P. ALEX LINLEY
Departments of Management and Psychology
Centre of Applied Positive
Menlo College, Atherton, CA
Psychology
MARTIN E. P. SELIGMAN
University of Warwick Science Park
Department of Psychology
Coventry, United Kingdom
University of Pennsylvania
FRED LUTHANS
Philadelphia, PA
Department of Management
University of Nebraska–Lincoln GORDON B. SPENCE
Lincoln, NE Coaching Psychology Unit
OBERDAN MARIANETTI School of Psychology
Business Psychologist University of Sydney
Learning and Organizational Sydney, Australia
Development Consultant MARTIN STAIRS
London, United Kingdom Martin Stairs Consulting
DANNY MORRIS Oxford, United Kingdom
MBA Program MICHAEL F. STEGER
Caret, Lancaster House Department of Psychology
Birmingham, United Kingdom Colorado State University
DON MROZ Fort Collins, CO
Post University JOHN PAUL STEPHENS
MBA Program Director Department of Psychology
Waterbury, CT University of Michigan
NANSOOK PARK Ann Arbor, MI
Department of Psychology JEAN M. TWENGE
University of Michigtan Department of Psychology
Ann Arbor, MI College of Sciences

xii CONTRIBUTORS
 San Diego State University TARA S. WERNSING
San Diego, CA Global Leadership Institute
DAVE ULRICH University of Nebraska
School of Business Lincoln, NE
University of Michigan MICHAEL A. WEST
Ann Arbor, Michigan Aston Business School
The RBL Group Aston University, Birmingham
Alpine, Utah United Kingdom
FRED O. WALUMBWA THOMAS A. WRIGHT
Department of Management Department of Management
W.P. Carey School of Business Kansas State University
Arizona State University, Phoenix, AZ Manhattan, KS
SAMANTHA WARREN CAROLYN M. YOUSSEF
The School of Management College of Business
University of Surrey, Guildford Bellevue University
Surrey, United Kingdom Bellevue, NE

CONTRIBUTORS XIII
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CONTENTS

Foreword: The Abundant Organization xvii

Preface xxiii

1. Finding the Positive in the World of Work 3

P. Alex Linley, Susan Harrington, and Nicola Garcea
Part One  Positive Psychology and the Changing World of Work
2. The Changing World of Work 13
Wayne F. Cascio
3. Generation Me and the Changing World of Work 25
Jean M. Twenge and Stacy M. Campbell
Part Two  Positive Organizational Leadership
4. What is Authentic Leadership Development? 39
Bruce J. Avolio, Jakari Griffith, Tara S. Wernsing, and Fred O. Walumbwa
5. Enablers of a Positive Strategy: Positively Deviant Leadership 53
Lynn Perry Wooten and Kim S. Cameron
6. Change and Its Leadership: The Role of Positive Emotions 67
Malcolm Higgs
7. Working Positively Toward Transformative Cooperation 81
Leslie E. Sekerka and Barbara L. Fredrickson
8. Strengths: Your Leading Edge 95
Danny Morris and Jill Garrett
9. Toward a Positive Psychology for Leaders 107
Robert E. Kaplan and Robert B. Kaiser
Part Three  Positive Work Environments for Individuals and
Organizations
10. Employee Engagement and the Psychology of Joining, Staying in,
and Leaving Organizations 121
James K. Harter and Nikki Blacksmith
11. Work as Meaning: Individual and Organizational Benefits of Engaging in
Meaningful Work 131
Michael F. Steger and Bryan J. Dik

CONTENTS XV
 12. More than Meets the Eye: The Role of Employee Well-Being in Organizational
Research 143
Thomas A. Wright
13. Positive Engagement: From Employee Engagement to
Workplace Happiness 155
Martin Stairs and Martin Galpin
Part Four  Enabling a Positive Working Life
14. Using Coaching and Positive Psychology to Promote a Flourishing
Workforce: A Model of Goal-Striving and Mental Health 175
Anthony M. Grant and Gordon B. Spence
15. Mindfulness at Work: Paying Attention to Enhance Well-Being and
Performance 189
Oberdan Marianetti and Jonathan Passmore
16. Work-Life Balance: The Roles of Work-Family Conflict and Work-Family
Facilitation 201
Boris B. Baltes, Malissa A. Clark, and Madhura Chakrabarti
17. Strengths Development in the Workplace 213
Timothy D. Hodges and Jim Asplund
18. Strengths of Character and Work 221
Christopher Peterson, John Paul Stephens, Nansook Park, Fiona Lee, and
Martin E. P. Seligman
Part Five  Models for Positive Organization
19. Dream Teams: A Positive Psychology of Team Working 235
Joanne Richardson and Michael A. West
20. Positive Organizational Scholarship Leaps into the World of Work 251
Don Mroz and Shawn Quinn
21. Look Before You Leap or Dive Right In? The Use of Moral Courage in
Response to Workplace Bullying 265
Susan Harrington and Charlotte Rayner
22. An Integrated Model of Psychological Capital in the Workplace 277
Carolyn M. Youssef and Fred Luthans
23. Building the Positive Workplace: A Preliminary Report from the Field 289
Jocelyn S. Davis
Part Six  Looking to the Future: Challenges and Opportunities
24. Good for What? The Young Worker in a Global Age 301
Lynn Barendsen and Howard Gardner
25. What’s Wrong with Being Positive? 313
Samantha Warren
26. Building Positive Organizations 323
Nicola Garcea, Susan Harrington, and P. Alex Linley

Index 335

xvi CONTENTS
FOREWORD: THE ABUNDANT ORGANIZATION

Dave Ulrich
In 1988 Bobby McFerrin produced and sang the #1 hit ‘‘Don’t worry, be happy.’’
His message was to relax in times of trouble, to not worry, but be happy. In the
ensuing 20 years, this simple message of being happy has become a complex
collection of theories around the quest to help people find enduring joy. The
quest for personal peace is ever more important in an increasingly hectic world
where technological, global, economic, demographic, and social change has
increased emotional demands on people (Cascio, Chapter 2, this volume).
People need to find places and ways to find a respite from the inevitable pressures
of modern life.
Traditionally, people find happiness in families, friendship groups, social net-
works, neighborhoods, and community based organizations. While these settings
continue to be a place for emotional reprieve, work organizations are increasingly
becoming a primary setting where people may (or may not) meet their personal
needs because we spend an increasing amount of time at work, because with
technology the boundaries of work and non-work have blurred (Grantham,
Ware, & Williamson, 2007), because organizations have become a primary
social setting for many people, and because work shapes so much of our personal
identity. Too many organizations have failed to help people find happiness in work
settings because leaders have not appreciated that employee well-being relates to
organization success and have not fully understood the ways that they can shape
organization settings for individual well-being.
This outstanding handbook synthesizes the ways that people can find meaning and
purpose in work settings. The mindset shift from deficit based thinking (what is
wrong?) to abundance thinking (what is right?) underlies this work (Linley,
Harrington, & Garcea, Chapter 1, this volume). Abundance emphasizes building
on the positive, expanding opportunities, and focusing on the future. This collection
of thoughtful chapters answers three questions (see Figure F.1), each discussed below.

What is Abundance?
The search for happiness is not new. Traditional management and organization
scholars like Douglas McGregor and Peter Drucker have emphasized positive

2 3
1 What are
What are
What is outcomes of
antecedents of
abundance? abundance?
abundance?

Figure F.1 Overview of abundance.

FOREWORD: THE ABUNDANT ORGANIZATION XVII

 assumptions that shape how leaders think and behave. More recently, the quest for
abundance can be discovered through insights from diverse disciplines, each
offering unique perspectives into how people find enduring happiness. These
diverse views are well represented in this handbook (see Figure F.2):

Positive
psychology

Work-Family Commitment

Community Abundant Appreciative

based Organization inquiry
organizations

High
performing Demographics
teams
Social
responsibility

Figure F.2 Overview of disciplines focusing on abundance.

Positive psychology. In psychology, the traditional metaphor has been to focus on

what’s wrong, not what is right. A Rorschach Test diagnoses underlying patholo-
gies so that they can be solved rather than highlighting and building on what is
right. Into this space, Martin Seligman and his associates have suggested that true
happiness is not just avoiding what’s wrong, but discovering what is right
(Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). Researchers in positive psychology have
discovered that when we identify and build on our strengths, we feel better about
ourselves and those around us; we find greater happiness (Hodges & Asplund,
Chapter 17, this volume). Positive organization scholarship (Cameron, Dutton, &
Quinn, 2003) has adapted these principles into an organization setting to build a
positive work environment (Mroz & Quinn, Chapter 20, this volume).
Commitment. The study of talent has evolved from competence (ability to do the
work) to commitment (willingness to do the work). Employees who are competent but
not committed will not perform to their full potential. Commitment comes from
building an employee value proposition that engages employees to use their discre-
tionary energy to pursue organization goals (Stairs & Galpin, Chapter 13, this volume).
Appreciative Inquiry (AI). In the field of organization development and change,
problem solving has traditionally focused on fixing problems. Appreciative inquiry
processes of discovery, dream, design, and destiny provides a positive alternative to
problem-solving in organizations (Sekerka & Fredrickson, Chapter 7, this volume).
Demographics. In the field of demographics, scholars try to figure out what
engages each generation. The GenMe generation (Generation Y, the millennials)

xviii FOREWORD: THE ABUNDANT ORGANIZATION

has grown up concerned with self-esteem, narcissism, and leisure time, which
affects how they define fulfillment at work (Twenge & Campbell, Chapter 3;
Barendsen & Gardner, Chapter 24, this volume).
Social responsibility. With an awareness of scarce resources, many organizations
have begun to engage in a triple bottom line where the organization is concerned
about its carbon footprint, its philanthropy, and its core values (Savitz & Weber,
2006).
High performing teams. As the nature of work becomes more complex, indivi-
duals increasingly work in teams. High performing teams operate with clear
purposes, good governance, positive team member relationships, and the ability
to learn (Gratton, 2007; Wageman, Nunes, Burruss, & Hackman, 2008;
Richardson & West, Chapter 19, this volume).
Community based organizations. People often seek meaning through the com-
munity organizations they join. The book Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren has
sold over 30 million copies, indicating a market for finding purpose in community
organizations (Warren, 2002).
Work-family. Lessons from non-work settings clearly apply to finding abun-
dance at work. Gottman’s work on marriage, for example, offers thoughtful
insights on enduring relationships (Gottman, 1994; Gottman & Silver, 2004).
Also, work-family issues clearly affect how employees experience work (Baltes,
Clark, & Chakrabarti, Chapter 16, this volume).
As shown in Figure F.2, each of these distinct disciplines offers insights into how
to create an abundant organization where positive, expansive, and future-focused
actions occur.

What are the Antecedents of Abundance?

Leaders throughout an organization make choices that increase (or decrease)
abundance. At times, leaders model through their actions what they hope others
will do. Avolio, Griffith, Wernsing, and Walumbwa (Chapter 4, this volume)
define authentic leadership as a way for leaders to be self-aware so that they can
shape others’ behavior. At other times, leaders craft organization policies and
practices that embed abundance into the culture and fabric of the organization
(Wooten & Cameron, Chapter 5, this volume). When these policies are imple-
mented effectively, they build positive emotion among employees (Higgs, Chapter
6, this volume). Either acting by themselves or through organization systems, there
are eight factors that should be considered in building abundant organizations.

Identity (Who am I?). Individuals with a strong sense of identity clarify their
personal values, are self-aware, appropriately build on their strengths, and connect
their personal identity to the organization brand. They contribute psychological
capital to their workforce (see Morris & Garrett, Chapter 8; Kaplan & Kaiser,
Chapter 9; Hodges & Asplund, Chapter 17; Peterson, Stephens, Park, Lee, &
Seligman, Chapter 18; Youssef & Luthans, Chapter 22, this volume).
Purpose/meaning (Where am I going?). Individuals may align their personal and
organizational goals (Gratton, 2009). These employees own and personalize their
company’ vision or mission, and find their work energizing and enjoyable because

FOREWORD: THE ABUNDANT ORGANIZATION XIX

 it gives them purpose and meaning and allows them to work on problems of
importance to them. These employees experience mindfulness where they slow
down to speed up (Steger & Dik, Chapter 11; Marianetti & Passmore, Chapter 15,
this volume).
Relationships (Whom do I travel with?). Social relationships in a work setting help
people join and stay in their organization. Positive emotions come from transfor-
mative cooperation where people cooperate in mindful and meaningful ways. Many
of these relationships come from working in high performing teams. Meaningful
work friendships also give people a sense of community and connection (Harter &
Blacksmith, Chapter 10; Sekerka & Fredrickson, Chapter 7; Richardson & West,
Chapter 19, this volume).
Challenging work (What growth do I experience from work?). Inherent in a positive
view of organizations is the opportunity for people to learn and to grow from work
experiences. Growth comes from doing hard things, from finding and doing
challenging work (Steger & Dik, Chapter 11, this volume).
Positive work environment (What culture can I create at work?). When trying to
understand how people found happiness, positive psychology researchers discov-
ered common spiritual disciplines in most major religious movements, such as
grace, forgiveness, charity, service, and gratitude. When leaders translate these
ideals into organization practices, they create a positive work environment that
endures over time (Mroz & Quinn, Chapter 20; Davis, Chapter 23, this volume).
Using resources (How do I manage the temporal elements of work?). Shaping
physical space, scheduling time, and accessing tools for accomplishing work (e.g.,
technology) help employees get work done in a timely way (Higgs, Chapter 6, this
volume).
Resilience (How do I learn?). Failure is one of the most powerful ways to grow.
When employees take risks, work outside their comfort zone (Gratton, 2007;
2009), and learn from failure, they become resilient. Resilience reflects a positive
outlook on work and shapes learning for the future rather than lamenting on the
past (Warren, Chapter 25, this volume).
Delight (What enlivens me?). Finding joy at work takes many different forms. It is
laughing at oneself, appreciating the moments, relishing beauty in work routines,
and having fun at work (Warren, Chapter 25, this volume).
These are clearly not the only factors (and questions) leaders should attend to in
creating an abundant organization, but they are a good start. Leaders and HR
professionals using these ideas can act with moral courage, which helps them do
hard things (Harrington & Rayner, Chapter 21, this volume). Leaders can use these
ideas as criteria for how they define strategy, create organizational processes, make
decisions, and coach others (Grant & Spence, Chapter 14, this volume). By so doing
they turn the idea and ideal of abundance into actions for both individuals and
organizations.

What are the Outcomes of Abundance?

Abundant organizations are not just inherently good in and of themselves,
but lead to both individual and organizational outcomes. Individuals who

xx FOREWORD: THE ABUNDANT ORGANIZATION

work in abundant organizations will have greater commitment to their
organization goals, but also mental and physical health. Commitment shows
up in employees joining, engaging, and staying in their organization (Harter
& Blacksmith, Chapter 10, this volume). Mental health shows up in emo-
tional well-being (Wright, Chapter 12, this volume). Physical health benefits
also occur, reflected in lower rates of illness (Stairs & Galpin, Chapter 13,
this volume).
But abundant organizations also have impact on organization stakeholders.
Employee well-being relates to retention, commitment, and productivity.
Leaders who align their behaviors to those outside the organization create a
leadership brand that turns customer expectations to leader behaviors and intan-
gibles that build confidence from investors (Ulrich & Smallwood 2003, 2007).
Customers’ attitudes about doing business with an organization are often corre-
lated with the attitude of the employees who work in the organization. Employee
experience is a lead indicator of customer experience. Investors who have con-
fidence in future earnings (often called intangibles) increase the market value of
an organization. Communities create shared reputations for how organizations
work.

Conclusion
‘‘Don’t worry, be happy’’ is a clever and memorable reggae tune. But enduring
abundance comes when the diverse principles presented in this Oxford Handbook
can be studied and applied in work settings (Garcea, Harrington, & Linley,
Chapter 26, this volume). When scholars and researchers continue rigorously to
assess the ideas in this volume, the science of abundance will move forward. When
leaders learn and apply these insights, organizations become settings where
employees, customers, and investors discover abundance. When such noble aspira-
tions lead to specific organization actions, we are not just able to build on our
strengths, but we build on our strengths that strengthen others.

References
Cameron, K. S., Dutton, J., & Quinn, R. E. (2003). Positive organization scholarship: Foundations for a new
discipline. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.
Gottman, J. M. (1994). What predicts divorce? The relationship between marital processes and marital outcomes.
Hilldale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Gottman, J. M., & Silver, N. (2004). Seven principles for making marriage work: A practical guide from the country’s
foremost relationship expert. Three Rivers Press.
Grantham, C., Ware, J., & Williamson, C. (2007). Corporate agility: A revolutionary new model for competing in a
flat world. New York: AMACOM.
Gratton, L. (2007). Hot spots: Why some teams, workplaces, and organizations buzz with energy—and others don’t.
San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.
Gratton, L. (2009). Glow. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.
Savitz, A.W., & Weber, K. (2006). The triple bottom line: How today’s best-run companies are achieving economic,
social and environmental success—and how you can too. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Seligman, M. E. P., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2000). Positive psychology: An introduction. American Psychologist,
55, 5–14.
Ulrich, D.O., & Smallwood, N. (2003). Why the bottom line isn’t. New York: Wiley.
Ulrich, D.O., & Smallwood, N. (2007). Leadership brand. Boston: Harvard Business Press.
Wageman, R., Nunes, D. A., Burruss, J. A., & Hackman J. R. (2008). Senior leadership teams: What it takes to make
them great. Boston: Harvard Business Press.
Warren, R. (2002). The purpose driven life: What on earth am I here for? Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

FOREWORD: THE ABUNDANT ORGANIZATION XXI

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PREFACE

In editing this volume, we have sought to navigate the intersection of four worlds:
research and practice, and positive psychology and work. Indeed, each of our
personal work histories is, in many ways, an amalgam of the intersection of these
four worlds, since each of us has been involved with both academic research and
workplace applications over the course of our careers. In 2004, Linley edited the
first book about the broad applications of positive psychology, Positive Psychology in
Practice (Linley & Joseph, 2004). It says much about the emergence of positive
psychology applications to work settings that now we are able to dedicate the 26
chapters of this handbook to the topic, as well as being actively engaged, through
our activities at the Centre of Applied Positive Psychology, in both positive
psychology research and its applications in organizational life.
Positive psychology offers an organizing principle for how we view both orga-
nizations and the people within them. It also informs, therefore, how we go about
seeking to engage with these organizations, their processes, their procedures, their
policies, their practices. Positive psychology gives us a framework for approaching
organizational issues that is focused on discovering the best of what is and creating
the conditions that will enable that ‘‘best’’ to flourish. It provides a means of looking
at the people in organizations that is grounded in the strengths that enable those
people to succeed in what they do, the well-being that they achieve through doing
so, and the meaning and fulfilment that gives coherence and direction to their
activities along the way. Positive psychology also allows a different perspective on
the management and development of people, one which is grounded in looking at
their inherent potential for growth and development, their desire to contribute and
make a difference, and the realization that when these factors are aligned with an
organization’s strategy, great things will result.
It is for these reasons that we embarked upon this project. Our desire, our
passion, has been to take the potent lessons of positive psychology from the
research laboratory and the survey questionnaire, and to implement them in
ways that deliver the double-win of improved organizational performance through
enhanced individual performance, well-being and fulfillment. The lessons of
positive psychology contained within this volume should be in the hands of
every CEO, every manager, every practitioner of Human Resources and
Organization Development, and every consultant and coach who works to support
them. Our mission at the Centre of Applied Positive Psychology is summed up in
three words: ‘‘Strengthening the World.’’ If through this volume we are able, even in
some small way, to enhance the lives of those millions of people working in
organizations, we will have achieved our aim. Can you help us in making work a

XXIII
 more positive experience for all? We hope that through this volume, we have been
able to help you in doing so.

P. Alex Linley
Susan Harrington
Nicola Garcea
Coventry, UK, January 2009

Reference
Linley, P. A., & Joseph, S. (Eds.). (2004). Positive psychology in practice. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

xxiv PREFACE
Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology and Work
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 C H A P T E R

1 Finding the Positive in the World of Work

P. Alex Linley, Susan Harrington, and Nicola Garcea

Abstract
The chapter opens by re-telling the story of the closure and clean-up of Rocky Flats, a nuclear facility in
the United States that was closed and cleaned up in 10 years, 60 years ahead of a 70-year schedule, and at
a cost of only $6 billion against projected costs of $36 billion, by adopting an abundance approach to
change rather than the more traditional deficit approach. Tracing the central ideas of abundance
approaches to the early work pioneered by management thinkers such as Douglas McGregor and Peter
Drucker, the chapter then goes on to give a brief history of the positive in the world of work, reviewing
appreciative inquiry, applied positive psychology, positive organizational scholarship and positive
organizational behavior. Having set this historical and conceptual context, the chapter then introduces
the reader to the structure of the volume and provides brief introductions to each of the subsequent
chapters.

Keywords: abundance approach, applied positive psychology, work psychology, I/O psychology,
organizations

Rocky Flats was regarded as America’s most dan- ceilings, ductwork, the surrounding soil, and poten-
gerous nuclear weapons production facility. Built on tially the groundwater too. The largest industrial fire
the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains, at the in the history of America had blazed at Rocky Flats
base of the beautiful Flatirons, Rocky Flats—as it in 1969, and protests, lawsuits, and antagonism
was christened by the U.S. Department of Energy— characterized the constant climate of the facility,
began the production of plutonium and enriched leading to a siege mentality whereby razor wire
uranium triggers for nuclear weapons in 1953, con- fences and guards with M-16 rifles kept outsiders
tinuing until 1989, during which time it was known outside and the perceived secrets of Rocky Flats
as the most productive and efficient facility of its securely inside.
kind in the world. Employee relations were almost constantly antag-
The Rocky Flats site covers some 6,000 acres, onistic, with the three unions representing Rocky
consisting of approximately 800 buildings. Flats employees—steelworkers, construction workers,
Employees worked with many of the most dan- and security guards—commonly filing grievance
gerous materials known to mankind, such that complaints. In keeping with this dire image, safety
more radioactive waste existed at Rocky Flats than was significantly worse than at other government
at any other nuclear facility in America—in fact so facilities, and in 1989 the FBI raided the facility,
much so, that in 1994 an ABC Nightline program opting to close it down on suspicion of unreported
claimed that several of the buildings on the site were pollution activity. In one fell swoop, therefore, the
‘‘the most dangerous buildings in America.’’ workers at Rocky Flats were put out of future employ-
Contamination from the nuclear activities at Rocky ment, their previous expertise and mission now ren-
Flats was to be found throughout walls, floors, dered largely irrelevant.

3
 This was the context in which the decision was undertaking, the fundamental assumption of the
taken by the U.S. Department of Energy to close the manager (and of the organization more broadly) is
facility permanently and clean it up. A study of the that of taking on the role of problem-solver—
residual pollution at the site in 1995 concluded that dealing with the deficit, their role being to overcome
this closure and clean up operation would take the challenges and solve the problems the
around 70 years and cost at least a staggering $36 organization faces. Success here is defined by the
billion over that time. Clearly, there was not much optimal solution of problems and satisfactory plug-
positivity in the climate of Rocky Flats at this time— ging of deficits, but by definition, therefore, the
and yet what went on to be achieved can only be focus is always squarely on the negative, in the form
described as extraordinary. of the problems to be solved and the deficits to be
Within 10 years, by October 1995, nothing filled.
less than what had previously seemed impossible In contrast, an abundance approach starts
had been achieved. First, all 800 buildings had from a differing fundamental assumption: that
been demolished. Second, all radioactive waste the role of the manager and the organization is
had been removed. Third, all soil and water to embrace and enable the highest potential of
had been treated and returned to levels of clean- both the organization and its people. The abun-
liness that exceeded federal standards by a factor dance approach begins, first, by identifying the
of 13. Fourth, all of this was done—not only peak experiences of when the organization and
within 10 years—but with cost savings of $30 its people have been at their best; second, by
billion, using only one-sixth of fees and one- identifying and understanding the enablers of
seventh of the time put forward in the original these optimal performances; third, by creating
clean-up estimates.1 sustainable impact through seeing what of these
enablers of optimal performance can be con-
tinued and replicated in the future; and fourth,
The Abundance Approach and the Deficit designing interventions to create an ideal, desired
Approach future characterized by extraordinary perfor-
The story of the Rocky Flats clean-up is a mance. Starting from these differing fundamental
story of remarkable success, which could be one assumptions, one observes how we arrive at two
reason why we have opted to open the Oxford very different end points: one that is concerned
Handbook of Positive Psychology and Work with with solving problems and filling deficits (the
reference to it. But there is also a second—and deficit approach), the second that is concerned
far more important—reason for our choice. with identifying, understanding, enabling, and
Quite simply, as described by Cameron and sustaining the highest potentials of what people,
Lavine (2006), the single consistent theme that both individually and collectively, have to offer
emerges from their analysis of the Rocky Flats (the abundance approach).
story is that of taking an abundance approach, With the advent of the ‘‘triple bottom line,’’ and
rather than a deficit approach. As they describe the increasing need for environmental and corpo-
it, and go on to explore in depth, the over- rate responsibility—this realization of potential
arching lesson to be learned from the Rocky could be argued now to extend beyond the rela-
Flats story is that ‘‘The impossible was made tively narrow confines of the organization, its
possible by adopting an abundance approach to people, and its stockholders, also to embrace the
change rather than a deficit approach’’ (Cameron organization’s local community, their environ-
& Lavine, 2006, p. 6, original italics). mental impact, and their lasting legacy for future
A deficit (or problem-solving) approach is char- generations. As such, the abundance focus on
acterized by, first, identifying the key problems and embracing and enabling our highest potentials her-
challenges; second, generating alternative solutions alds real promise for positive psychology in the
to these problems that are based on the identification world of work—a theme to which we return in
of the root causes of those problems; third, evalu- our concluding chapter (Garcea, Harrington, &
ating and then choosing the most optimal of these Linley, Chapter 26, this volume).
different solutions; and fourth, putting this chosen With the distinction between an abundance
solution into practice, and following up on it to approach and a deficit approach drawn as starkly as
ensure that the problem is actually solved this, it seems inconceivable that any right-thinking
(Cameron & Lavine, 2006). Throughout this leader, board of directors, or organization could have

4 FINDING THE POSITIVE IN THE WORLD OF WORK

done anything less. With the statutory-enshrined Fourth, and most insidious, is that these deficit
duty to maximize returns to stockholders, if an approaches are based on implicit fundamental
abundance approach is shown to do so, then surely assumptions about human nature and the nature of
it must be the case that such an approach is the status humans in organizations, something which
quo of organizational life. Unfortunately, what McGregor identified almost fifty years ago
makes the Rocky Flats story all the more compelling, (McGregor, 1960). Further, as Joseph and Linley
is that it is not: organizations—typically at least—are (2004) have described in relation to therapeutic
characterized by deficit approaches built on implicit approaches, these implicit assumptions about
assumptions about the way people work and fol- human nature are all the more powerful because
lowing from this, how best to manipulate their they are unrecognized as such, and so proceed
levers in order to have them deliver what the orga- blindly accepted and unchallenged, becoming the
nization requires—McGregor’s (1960) Theory status quo and attracting research evidence that
X writ large—arguably the original identification of appears to support them, as we have made the case
the prevalent deficit approach—characterizes the above. Deficit approaches, four, abundance
typical modus operandi of organizations. approaches, nil.
In this context, it is not difficult to see why
I/O psychology (in the United States) or occupa-
Challenges to Introducing an Abundance tional psychology (in the UK) have become
Approach dominated by deficit-based approaches to both
There are four major challenges that immediately their research and practice (Hill, 2003)—much
face any organization which steps out to overturn the same as can be said for psychology generally,
this deficit-based status quo. First, is the fact that the a status quo ante that positive psychology set out
deficit approach is the status quo, ‘‘the way things are explicitly to challenge and reframe (Seligman &
done round here.’’ Typically, both the people within Csikszentmihalyi, 2000).
organizations, and the organizations themselves While the philosophical assumptions of psy-
(through their process, policies, procedures, and his- chology as a whole provide one context for the
tories) are resistant to change. Deficit approaches challenges facing I/O or occupational psychology,
one, abundance approaches nil. Second, as the others lie closer to home. For example, Cascio
status quo, deficit-based approaches are supported (1995) posed the question of ‘‘Whither industrial
by an apparent wealth of management and organiza- and organizational psychology in the changing world
tional literature, testifying in support of the status of work?’’ arguing that I/O and occupational psy-
quo ante, and the ‘‘correctness’’ of the deficit chology needed to adapt if they were to keep pace
approach. Unfortunately, as Rosenthal and with the global forces reshaping patterns of employ-
Jacobson (1968) originally demonstrated with the ment and organizational life, a theme to which he
Pygmalion effect, we tend to find what we’re looking returns in his context-setting chapter for this volume
for, and so deficit-based researchers find deficit- (Cascio, Chapter 2, this volume).
based explanations. Deficit approaches, two, abun- Further, squeezed between science and practice,
dance approaches, nil. Third, whether we like it or and with arguably irreconcilable demands from
not, as human beings we seem to be programmed each, Anderson, Herriot, and Hodgkinson (2001)
from evolution to pay attention to the negative made the case that work psychologists needed to
(Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Finkenauer, & Vohs, strive for pragmatic research (characterized by good
2001; Rozin & Royzman, 2001). The simple science and solid application), while guarding
reason for this is that it is adaptive—our ancestors against being lured toward the other false gods of
who did not pay attention to problems and threats pedantic (high academic value but with no applica-
simply did not survive. Yet the challenge comes tion), populist (strong application but weak science),
when we pay attention to the negative at the exclu- and puerile research (neither strong science nor
sion of what is going right—a challenge exacerbated application). So, whether the challenge is keeping
in times of challenge and stress, two cultures that pace with the speed of global change, or steering an
could be taken to characterize much of organiza- appropriate course between the Scylla of academic
tional life, and so which lead to this negativity bias research, and the Charybdis of real world applica-
of deficit approaches becoming even further tion, work psychology has been considered by some
embedded. Deficit approaches, three, abundance (e.g., Hill, 2003) to be facing an uphill battle. This
approaches, nil. battle, combined with the challenge of the

LINLEY, HARRINGTON, GARCEA 5

traditional deficit approach and its attendant psychology does (see, e.g., Harter, Schmidt, &
implicit assumptions has meant that work psy- Keyes, 2003).
chology could be argued so far to have missed its The early roots of our modern—and still emer-
chance to offer a brave new paradigm for organiza- ging—focus on the positive in organizations can
tional life, based on the fundamental assumptions arguably be traced at their earliest to two scions of
and methodological approaches of the abundance modern management thinking. First, in 1960,
approach, instead allowing itself to become the ser- Douglas McGregor published his timeless classic,
vant of the status quo ante of deficit approaches. The Human Side of Enterprise, introducing the dis-
tinction between Theory X (the view that workers
need to be cajoled or even forced to work) and
The Emergence of Positive Approaches in the Theory Y (the view that workers are self-motivated
World of Work and self-directed).
Yet, slowly but surely, over the last twenty or so Several years later, Peter Drucker, in The
years, the potential new paradigm of the abundance Effective Executive, argued that ‘‘To make strength
approach for work psychology has been emerging. It productive is the unique purpose of organization’’
goes by different names—including names such as (Drucker, 1967, p. 60), thereby giving the clarion
appreciative inquiry, the strengths approach, applied call to strengths-based organization that we are only
positive psychology, positive organizational scholar- now beginning to see today, some 40 years later
ship, or positive organizational behavior—but (Smedley, 2007; Stefanyszyn, 2007; see also
whatever the appellation, the shift in perspective is Garcea, Harrington, & Linley, Chapter 26, this
clear, and growing clearer. Traditional approaches, volume). As is now being recognized, making
assuming that fixing weaknesses and dealing with strength productive should be fundamental to the
problems, are the royal roads to high performance, role of Human Resources practitioners and work
simply have not delivered. psychologists, who both have abundant opportu-
We need another way and, just as Kuhn (1970) nities to use their own strengths in the identifica-
described in his prescient volume The Structure of tion, engagement, and orchestration of the
Scientific Revolutions, that other way has been slowly strengths of others in the organization (Ulrich,
gaining ground. The first reason for this shift is that 2008).
findings in both research and practice gradually Fast-forward then to 1987, and the work of David
build up over time that cannot be explained by the Cooperrider and Suresh Srivastva (1987), and their
traditional models or theories. Initially these find- development of Appreciative Inquiry, based on the
ings are dismissed as aberrations, anomalies in the core principle that the assumptions with which we
data, since we prefer to stay with the models and approach a situation, and the methodologies we use
theories we know, rather than risk admitting that we to investigate it, largely create the findings that we
might be wrong. But then, second and subsequently, then go on to discover. Simply put, if we look for
comes the realization that these findings cannot problems, we find them. If we look for solutions, we
simply be dismissed as aberrations—the patterns find them. On this basis, Appreciative Inquiry adopts
are becoming too common to be simply ignored. an appreciative, celebratory approach, and in doing so
And third, with the particular assistance of the forces is able to unlock possibility and potential that pre-
of the competitive marketplace where work psy- viously could not even have been imagined
chology is concerned, the rejection of our extant (Cooperrider & Sekerka, 2003; see also Sekerka &
dogma and tradition by the organizations who pur- Fredrickson, Chapter 7, this volume).
chase our services as work psychologists. Unbound A similarly uplifting focus on the positive is
by academic politesse or the demands of research found in the seminal work of Donald O. Clifton,
journal gatekeepers, organizations are interested and his colleagues at The Gallup Organization.
only in answering a single, simple, powerful, effec- Starting from the question of ‘‘What would happen
tive question: What works? Show me what will make if we studied what was right with people?’’ Clifton set
a difference to my bottom line, and I’ll do it— about studying, cataloguing and assessing people’s
irrespective of what theory it has been developed talents, which, he argued, with the addition of
from, or of whose reputation may be challenged in knowledge and skill, could be honed into strengths
the process. For us, this is the joy of applying positive (see Buckingham & Clifton, 2001; Hodges &
psychology at work, because organizations are inter- Clifton, 2004; Hodges & Asplund, Chapter 17,
ested, quite simply, in what works. And positive this volume).

6 FINDING THE POSITIVE IN THE WORLD OF WORK

 These early shoots of positivity in organizational psychology, and positive organizational scholarship,
life were all given added impetus and the oxygen and extending our knowledge and practice further
of publicity through the advent of the with our own consulting experiences and innovation
positive psychology movement, launched by (see, for example, Linley, 2008; Smedley, 2007;
American Psychological Association President, Stefanyszyn, 2007).
Martin E. P. Seligman (see Seligman & This, then, is the context in which we have
Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). Seligman argued that, as sought to invite, edit, and collate the chapters of
both a discipline and as an applied practice, psy- this volume on the broad church of ‘‘positive
chology had been too focused on the study of what psychology and work.’’ As the chapters—and their
was wrong with people, ignoring the much bigger authors—will testify, we are not exclusionary parti-
question of understanding and enhancing what was sans of ‘‘positive psychology,’’ or even exclusionary
right with people. To redress this, he called for a new partisans of our own consulting techniques and
‘‘positive’’ psychology—and his call was answered approaches. Rather, we strive to be open-minded,
willingly and expansively, with an explosion of inclusive, and collaborative, recognizing that we all
research, conferences, books, journal special issues, learn more by opening the doors of our experience
and even a dedicated journal focused on this appre- than by walling-up what we know against the threats
ciative study of what is right with people (see Linley, of others’ adoption of it. This, in essence, is how
Joseph, Harrington, & Wood, 2006). positive psychology should be lived in practice, as
In the organizational world specifically, positive well as in research.
approaches flourished under the banners of positive
organizational scholarship (POS; Cameron, Dutton, The Structure of the Volume
& Quinn, 2003), positive organizational behavior We open with two chapters that set something of
(POB; Luthans, 2002) and applied positive psy- the global, cultural, and generational organizational
chology (Linley & Joseph, 2004a). POS focuses on context for what is to follow. Following on from his
identifying and developing positive organizational hugely influential American Psychologist article
characteristics that lead to exceptional individual ‘‘Whither Industrial and Organizational Psychology
and organizational performance, investigating posi- in a Changing World of Work?’’ (Cascio, 1995),
tive deviance, that is, the ways in which organiza- Wayne Cascio revisits this same question more
tions and their members may flourish and prosper by than a decade later, providing a wider perspective
developing strengths such as resilience, restoration, and context for the forces that are shaping I/O
and vitality (see Wooten & Cameron, Chapter 5; psychology and the world of work, and to which
Mroz & Quinn, Chapter 20, this volume). POB positive psychology applied to the world of work
seeks to improve employee performance and organi- will need to respond. Jean Twenge and Stacy
zational competitive advantage by focusing on state- Campbell focus their analysis specifically on the
like strengths and psychological capacities that are generational challenge of the new workforce
positive, measurable, developable, and performance- entrants, Generation Me. While some commenta-
related, with four key components including self- tors will argue that there have always been generation
efficacy, optimism, hope, and resiliency (Luthans, clashes between older managers and younger work-
Avey, Avolio, Norman, & Combs, 2006; see also force entrants, Twenge and Campbell take this argu-
Youssef & Luthans, Chapter 22, this volume). ment several steps further, making the compelling
Applied positive psychology is broader in per- case for why Generation Me is more starkly different
spective (as testified by the breadth of topics from the generations from which it has emerged,
included in Positive Psychology in Practice; Linley & with attendant implications for their entry into,
Joseph, 2004b), but applied to organizational life, is and accommodation by the world of work.
concerned with the applications of positive psy- In Part 2, Positive Organizational Leadership, we
chology in the organizational context (see, for turn our attention to the role of the leader in creating
example, Page & Linley, 2008). In our consulting and leading organizations positively. Bruce Avolio
work at the Centre of Applied Positive Psychology and colleagues answer the question What is authentic
(CAPP; where Linley and Page are based), we draw leadership development? in exploring how authentic
extensively from these diverse approaches, having leaders can be developed. Lynn Perry Wooten and
learned much from the early roots of the study of Kim Cameron, working from a positive organiza-
positivity in organisations, nurturing those roots tional scholarship perspective, explore the operation
with the later lessons of appreciative inquiry, positive of positively deviant leadership in enabling positive

LINLEY, HARRINGTON, GARCEA 7

strategy execution and delivery. With a focus on Part 5, Models for Positive Organization, draws
leading change, Malcolm Higgs unlocks the role of out the lens for a wider perspective, looking at
leadership and positive emotions in successful organization-wide initiatives and approaches for
change initiatives, a theme expanded further by organizing work positively. The section opens with
Leslie Sekerka and Barbara Fredrickson as they Joanne Richardson and Michael West reviewing the
examine positive emotions in transformative coop- extensive literature on teamworking, and proposing
eration. Concluding the section with a strengths how dream teams can be created through blending
emphasis, Danny Morris and Jill Garrett look at this literature with the principles and practices of a
how leaders deploy different leadership strengths as positive psychology approach. Don Mroz and
their leading edge, while Bob Kaplan and Rob Kaiser Shawn Quinn share with us their exploration of
ensure a balanced strengths focus through their positive organizational scholarship in practice,
exploration of a positive psychology for leaders. while Susan Harrington and Charlotte Rayner deal
Turning to consider the organizational climate with the issue of moral courage, and how it is an
created by leaders and their leadership practices, integral component of combating and preventing
Part 3, Positive Work Environments for Individuals workplace bullying. Carolyn Youssef and Fred
and Organizations, explores the roles of engagement, Luthans describe their integrated model of psycho-
meaning, and well-being in the workplace. James logical capital in the workplace, while the section
Harter and Nikki Blacksmith open the section concludes with Jocelyn Davis’s account of her prac-
with a review of the extensive Gallup work on tical experiences of consulting with organizations to
employee engagement, examining why employees create the positive workplace.
join, stay in, and leave organizations. Michael Finally, Part 6 of the volume, Looking to the
Steger and Bryan Dik focus on a specific element Future: Challenges and Opportunities, opens up the
of the engagement experience, looking at the role of positive psychology perspective on work to the chal-
meaning in work, while Thomas Wright examines lenge of contrary views, and the exploration of future
the role of employee well-being in organizational trends and opportunities. Lynn Barendsen and
life. In the final chapter of this section, Martin Howard Gardner revisit the generational issue with
Stairs and Martin Galpin’s integrative chapter which the volume opened, but this time posing the
superbly blends what is known about employee opportunity for ‘‘good work’’ as the solution to many
engagement and well-being, both at work and of the challenges and needs of the younger genera-
more broadly, to propose a true positive psychology tion. Samantha Warren strikes a constructively cri-
shift in organizational research and practice—from tical stance, challenging some of the assumptions of
employee engagement to workplace happiness. the positive psychology movement, and especially its
Examining some of the factors that contribute to actions in practice, before we conclude with a view
a positive working life is the focus of Part 4, Enabling from the field, and an eye to the future, of what
a Positive Working Life. Anthony Grant and Gordon building positive organizations is all about.
Spence open the section with their examination of Positive psychology applied to the world of work
the role of coaching in promoting a flourishing is not a modern panacea for all organizational ills.
workforce, while Oberdan Marianetti and But we do genuinely believe that it has immense
Jonathan Passmore explore the increasing focus on potential to make a positive and constructive con-
mindfulness at work, and the benefits—both tribution to the debates about the future of work and
individual and organizational—that it can bring. organizations in a global world, and in editing this
Boris Baltes and colleagues highlight the importance volume, we have striven to play our small part in
of finding the right balance between work and non- enabling that to happen.
work, emphasizing that there is no single right way
to do this, but only the way that is right for those
involved, both individuals and organizations. In the Directions for Research
final two chapters of this section, Tim Hodges and • What evidence—academic or applied—can be
Jim Asplund look at strengths development in the garnered in support of strengths-based abundance
workplace, drawing from the Gallup Organization’s approaches to organizational performance and
extensive experience in this area, while Chris development?
Peterson and colleagues report on their findings of • Is it possible to conduct controlled trials in the
occupational strengths patterns using the VIA real world of organizational life that would compare
Classification of Strengths. abundance approaches with deficit approaches?

8 FINDING THE POSITIVE IN THE WORLD OF WORK

 • Can it be shown that positive approaches to Cooperrider, D. L., & Sekerka, L. E. (2003). Toward a theory of
organizational life deliver the triple bottom line positive organizational change. In K. S. Cameron,
J. E. Dutton, & R. E. Quinn (Eds.), Positive organizational
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being, and social responsibility? Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler.
Cooperrider, D. L., & Srivastva, S. (1987). Appreciative inquiry
Implications for Practice in organizational life. In R. W. Woodman & W. A. Pasmore
• Don’t assume that just because deficit models (Eds.), Research in organizational change and development
(Vol. 1, pp. 129–169). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
are the status quo they are the right solution or the
Drucker, P. F. (1967). The effective executive London. Heinemann.
only solution. Increasing evidence points to the value Harter, J. K., Schmidt, F. L., & Keyes, C. L. M. (2003).
and efficacy of adopting abundance approaches to Well-being in the workplace and its relationship to business
organizational performance and development. outcomes: A review of the Gallup studies. In C. L. M. Keyes
• Examine the opportunities that already exist & J. Haidt (Eds.), Flourishing: Positive psychology and the life
well-lived (pp. 205–224). Washington, DC: American
within your organization and within your remit for
Psychological Association.
you to introduce more positive ways of working, Hill, J. (2003). Bleak future or new dawn? The Psychologist, 16,
including strengths-based approaches to traditional HR 137–138.
responsibilities such as performance management, Hodges, T. D., & Clifton, D. O. (2004). Strengths-based
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Positive psychology in practice (pp. 256–268). Hoboken, NJ:
leadership development. What opportunities are open
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to you? What is the smallest change that you could Joseph, S., & Linley, P. A. (2004). Positive therapy: A positive
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• Consider whether internal HR and OD teams S. Joseph (Eds.), Positive psychology in practice (pp. 354–368).
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Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
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not, identify and retain external consultants who will others. Coventry, UK: CAPP Press.
partner with the organization to provide this Linley, P. A., & Joseph, S. (2004a). Applied positive psychology:
education and capability building. A new perspective for professional practice. In P. A. Linley &
S. Joseph (Eds.), Positive psychology in practice (pp. 3–12).
Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Note Linley, P. A., & Joseph, S. (Eds.). (2004b). Positive psychology in
1. In writing this introductory section about Rocky Flats, we have practice. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
drawn extensively from the exemplary work on this topic of Linley, P. A., Joseph, S., Harrington, S., & Wood, A. M. (2006).
Kim Cameron and Marc Lavine (2006) Making the impossible Positive psychology: Past, present, and (possible) future. The
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we go from here? Journal of Occupational and Organizational tated edition). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Psychology, 74, 391–411. Page, N., & Linley, P. A. (2008). Applying positive psychology with
Baumeister, R. F., Bratslavsky, E., Finkenauer, C., & Vohs, K. D. people in organisations. Organisations and People, 15 (2), 2–3.
(2001). Bad is stronger than good. Review of General Rosenthal, R., & Jacobson, L. (1968). Pygmalion in the classroom.
Psychology, 5, 323–370. New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston.
Buckingham, M., & Clifton D. O. (2001). Now, discover your Rozin, P., & Royzman, E. B. (2001). Negativity bias, negativity
strengths. New York: Simon & Schuster. dominance, and contagion. Personality and Social Psychology
Cameron, K. S., Dutton, J. E., & Quinn, R. E. (Eds.). (2003). Review, 5, 296–320.
Positive organizational scholarship: Foundations of a new discipline. Seligman, M. E. P., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2000). Positive
San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler. psychology: An introduction. American Psychologist, 55, 5–14.
Cameron, K., & Lavine, M. (2006). Making the impossible Smedley, T. (2007). The powers that BAE. People Management,
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Psychologist, 50, 928–939. Workforce Management, 87 (5), 28–29.

LINLEY, HARRINGTON, GARCEA 9

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 PART
1
Positive Psychology and
the Changing World of
Work
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 C H A P T E R

2 The Changing World of Work

Wayne F. Cascio

Abstract
The chapter explores some key trends that will affect work, workers, and management in the coming
decades. It begins by examining how change itself has changed, followed by the impacts of technology and
e-commerce on companies in a variety of industries, demographic changes, and the impending issue of
global demand exceeding the supply of people with needed skills. Building on these themes, the chapter
then examines the relationship between demographic changes and knowledge management, and what
some U.S. companies are doing to find and keep older workers. Other key trends include the global
distribution of generations, with special emphasis on generational similarities and differences. The chapter
concludes by examining the types of new jobs being created, together with career-management strategies
that will allow members of all generations to capitalize on the current and emerging changes described in
the chapter.

Keywords: demographic trends, knowledge management, global labor markets, 21st-century change

The world of work is as dynamic as ever, with dra- The Nature of Change in the 21st Century
matic changes underway that will affect employees, Hamel (2000) points out that we have entered a
managers, and consumers for years to come. Whether new age—the age of revolutions in business con-
publicly traded or privately held, large or small, cepts. The age of incremental progress, little by
domestic or global, the world of work is changing little, in tiny steps, a little cheaper, a little better, a
dramatically, and in this chapter we will explore little faster, is over. Today, the nature of change itself
several of the most obvious ways in which this has changed. No longer is it additive. No longer does
change is occurring. The coverage of the topics pre- it move in a straight line. In the 21st century,
sented here is by no means exhaustive, but it is change is discontinuous, abrupt, and distinctly
representative of some important changes that are non-linear.
occurring all over the globe. The chapter begins by To a large extent, this is so because the Internet
examining briefly how the nature of change has has rendered geography meaningless. Global capital
changed. Then it considers the impact of technology flows have become a raging torrent. The cost of
and e-commerce, and how these affect the global storing a megabyte of data has dropped from hun-
dispersion of work. Following that, the chapter dreds of dollars to essentially nothing. In this new
reviews some structural changes in organizations, age, a company that is evolving slowly is already on
including demographic changes in the United States its way to extinction. In the past age of incremental
and elsewhere, and the effects of multiple generations progress, industrial giants like DuPont, Mitsubishi,
in the workforce, before concluding with an exam- DaimlerChrysler, and General Motors harnessed the
ination of the types of new jobs that are being created, disciplines of progress: rigorous planning, contin-
and the implications for career management. uous improvement, statistical process control, six

13
sigma, reengineering, and enterprise resource plan- world.’’ To put things into perspective, however, it is
ning. Decade after decade they focused single-mind- important to emphasize that claims of increased
edly on getting better. If they happened to miss change and instability in the ‘‘current’’ environment
something that was changing in the environment, have been a common and recurring refrain in the
there was plenty of time to catch up. management literature, at least since the 1930s
In the 20th century, the advantages of being the (Daffern, 1960; LaPierre, 1958; Margulies &
incumbent—global distribution, respected brands, a Wallace, 1973). In fact, a large-scale, 20-year ana-
deep pool of talent, steady cash flows—granted them lysis of business performance across a variety of
the luxury of time. Thus, although Apple Computer industries revealed a lack of widespread evidence
got an early start in the micro-computer business, that markets are, in general, any more unstable
IBM quickly reversed Apple’s lead when it threw its now than they were in the recent past. What man-
worldwide distribution might behind the PC. In a agers face today in terms of hyper-competition is
world of discontinuous change, however, a company largely the same as it ever was. Evidence indicates
that misses a critical development may never catch that stable factors at industry, corporate, and busi-
up. To illustrate, consider this example. ness-unit levels, as well as unstable factors, all sig-
Between 1994 and 2001 the number of mobile nificantly affect business performance (McNamara,
phones sold each year exploded, from 26 million to Vaaler, & Devers, 2003).
more than 400 million. At the same time, the tech-
nology changed from analog to digital. Motorola,
Technology and E-Commerce
the world leader in the mobile-telephone business
Many factors are driving change, but none is
until 1997, missed the shift to digital wireless tech-
more important than the rise of Internet technolo-
nology by just a year or two. In that sliver of time,
gies (Friedman, 2005; 2008). The Internet, as it
Nokia, a hitherto unknown company perched on
continues to develop, has certainly changed the
the edge of the Arctic Circle, became the world’s new
ways that people live and work. Indeed, in some
number one. A decade earlier Nokia had been
industries, such as music and e-commerce, it has
making snow tires and rubber boots. Suddenly, it
completely revolutionized the rules of the game,
was one of Europe’s fastest-growing high-tech com-
but the Internet and e-commerce are not ubiquitous,
panies. As of early 2008, Nokia’s worldwide market
as many might assume. To appreciate this, consider
share in mobile phones was 40 percent (46% in Asia,
that it certainly simplifies things if one assumes that
57% in India, 66% in Africa; Ewing, 2008), and its
the world is flat, that work can be done anytime,
stock price had nearly doubled since beginning of
anywhere, via the Internet, and that global collabora-
the year (www.advfn.com, 2007). And Motorola? It
tion in work is seamless (Cascio, 2007a). Yet even a
is now a leader in the manufacture of network and
brief examination of the nighttime electricity grid, as
other communications equipment (Fortune, 2007).
displayed on Google Earth, shows vast areas of dark-
Its stock price fell 21 percent over the same period
ness in different parts of the world. Thus it is more
(Silver, 2007). The lesson is clear: in today’s fast-
correct to speak of the world as ‘‘spiky,’’ at least in
moving world of business, 100-year-old companies
terms of the availability of electricity and access to
with venerated brands are as vulnerable as yesterday’s
the Internet. At the same time, mass collaboration
Internet start-ups that defined the dot-com
through file-sharing, blogs, and social networking
revolution.
services, is making leaps in creativity possible, as
Here is further evidence. In one Gallup poll, 500
well as changing the way companies in a variety of
CEOs were asked, ‘‘Who took better advantage of
industries do business (Hof, 2005). Here are some
change in your industry over the past 10 years—
examples:
newcomers, traditional competitors, or your own
company?’’ The #1 answer was newcomers. Then • Research and Development
they were asked whether the newcomers had won by Procter & Gamble makes use of outside
changing the rules of the game or by executing scientific networks to generate 35 percent of new
better. Fully 62% of the CEOs said the newcomers products from outside the company, up from 20
had won by changing the rules of the game (Hamel, percent three years ago. That has helped boost sales
2000). per R&D person by 40 percent;
With all of this breathless talk of the speed of • Software Development
change, it is easy to become convinced that organi- By coordinating their efforts online,
zations are competing in some kind of ‘‘brave new programmers worldwide volunteer on more than

14 THE CHANGING WORLD OF WORK

100,000 open-source projects, such as Linux, that the company was three to eight months late
thereby challenging traditional software; in giving them final specifications for structures
• Telecommunications and systems. The lesson? Program managers
More than 41 million people use Skype thought they had adequate oversight of suppliers,
software to share computer-processing power and but learned later that there were many details
bandwidth, allowing them to call each other for that they knew nothing about. They needed
free over the Internet. That has cut revenues insight into what was actually going on in sup-
sharply at traditional telecom providers; pliers’ factories so they could help suppliers deal
• Retail with the challenges they faced. This underscores
With 61 million active members, eBay has a key finding from a global outsourcing study
created a self-sustaining alternative to retail stores. (Miller, 2007), namely, that managing such an
extended network of relationships requires more
The Internet gives everyone in the organization, transparency, better communication, greater
at any level and in every functional area, the trust, and genuine reciprocity, as client–service
ability to access a mind-boggling array of infor- provider relationships shift from adversarial to
mation—instantaneously from anywhere. Instead collaborative, from procurement to partnership.
of seeping out over months or years, ideas can be Whether it is outsourcing business processes or
zapped around the globe in the blink of an eye. managing knowledge, one thing is clear: intellectual
By 2009, one quarter of the world’s workforce, capital will be critical to business success. The advan-
or 850 million people, will use remote access and tage of bringing breakthrough products to market
mobile technology to work on the go or at first will be shorter than ever because technology will
home, according to research firm IDC let competitors match or exceed them almost
(Schweyer, 2006). That means that the 21st- instantly. To keep ahead of the steep new-product
century organization must adapt itself to man- curve, it will be crucial for businesses to attract and
agement via the Internet. It must be predicated retain the best thinkers. Companies will need to
on constant change, not stability; organized build a deep reservoir of talent—including both
around networks, not rigid hierarchies; built on employees and free agents—to succeed in this new
shifting partnerships and alliances, not self-suffi- era. More than ever, 21st-century organizations are
ciency; and constructed on technological advan- global, and an emerging new demography is helping
tages, not bricks and mortar. to shape them for years to come.
In contrast to the hierarchical organization chart
of the 20th-century organization, the 21st-century Demographic Changes and Their Impacts
organization is far more likely to look like a web: a on Organizations
flat, intricately-woven form that links partners, In the United States, the number as well as the
employees, external contractors, suppliers, and cus- mix of people available to work is changing rapidly.
tomers in various collaborations. The players will According to the Census Bureau, there will be a
grow more and more interdependent, and managing precipitous drop in the growth of the labor force
this intricate network will be as important as mana- among prime-age employees between 2000 and
ging internal operations. 2020, especially college-educated ones. Between
As an example, consider some of the problems 2000 and 2010, the percentage of workers aged 55
Boeing faced in building its Dreamliner 787 aircraft, to 64 will increase by 52 percent, while those aged
scheduled for delivery in 2009 (Lunsford, 2007). To 65+ will increase by 30 percent. Similar trends are
lower the $10 billion or so that it would cost to underway in almost all developed countries
develop the plane by itself, Boeing authorized a (Dychtwald, Erickson, & Morison, 2006).
team of parts suppliers to design and build major To appreciate what this means for specific sectors
sections of the aircraft, which it planned to assemble of the U.S. economy, consider the following projec-
at a Seattle-area factory. Unfortunately, outsourcing tions from the U.S. Department of Labor:
so much responsibility turned out to be far more
difficult than anticipated. • Half of America’s 400,000 electric-utility
The supplier problems ranged from language workers will be eligible to retire in the next five
barriers to problems that developed when some years;
contractors themselves outsourced chunks of the • Half the U.S. government’s civilian workforce
work. For their part, some suppliers complained also will be eligible to retire in the next five years;

CASCIO 15
 • 40 percent of the U.S. manufacturing in the world, largely due to its policy of one child per
workforce is expected to retire in the next 10 years; family. To appreciate this, consider that 35 years ago
• Result: A possible shortage of 5 million skilled in China the population proportion of children to
workers between 2010–2012. the aged (65 and older) was 6:1. Today the elderly
population is twice as great as the number of chil-
At the same time, Generations X (born between dren. In Thailand, the elderly will account for 14
1965 and 1980) and Y (born after 1980), with percent of the population within 20 years, while
approximately 50 and 80 million members, respec- children will only represent 12 percent (People’s
tively, in the United States, are large and growing Daily Online, 2004). Among broad regions of the
segments of the labor force that pose both challenges world, Europe has the highest proportion of the
and opportunities (Cascio, 2007b; Guest & Sturges, population aged 65 and older, and it should
2007). Differences among racial and ethnic groups remain the global leader in this category well into
among generations in the United States are the 21st century. However, the most rapid accelera-
becoming more pronounced. In fact, the younger tion in aging, especially in the United States, will
the age cohort, the more racially and ethnically occur after 2010, when the large, post–World War
diverse it tends to be (Generational differences, II baby-boom cohort begins to reach age 65
2007). We will have more to say about (Population Matters, 2006). These trends may not
generational differences (and similarities) in a fol- lead to labor shortages (Cappelli, 2005), but they
lowing section. will likely lead to shorter employment relationships,
Over the next four decades, non-Hispanic whites more contingent work, independent contracting,
will be a slim majority of the U.S. population. To and other free-market arrangements. This is likely
appreciate what this means, consider that in 2005 to occur because when labor markets become ‘‘tight’’
Hispanics represented 14 percent of the U.S. popu- (that is, an excess of demand for labor, relative to its
lation, but 22 percent of its workers. If present supply) in a variety of fields of work, people have
trends continue, Hispanics in 2050 will represent more choices regarding where to work (competing
32 percent of the nation’s population, and 55 per- employers) and also among various types of work
cent of its workers (Cadrain, 2007). arrangements.
Currently, female participation has jumped to Are organizations preparing now for the looming
60% from 50% two decades ago, and much of that retirements of the members of the baby-boom gen-
is in professional jobs. This is not surprising, con- eration? Several sources indicate that the answer is, in
sidering that the number of females per 100 new general, no. In one such study of 526 senior-level
M.B.A. graduates has skyrocketed from 4 in 1972 to executives in global as well as domestic firms, among
42 in 2004 (‘‘Women have prospered,’’ 2007). firms of all sizes, three out of four executives said that
At the same time, the long-term trend toward earlier ‘‘succession planning’’ was their most significant
retirement has recently been reversed. The average challenge for the future. Additionally, approximately
retirement age is now 64; 75 percent of retirees want seven out of ten said the next most pressing pro-
to launch new careers after that, and 42 percent of blems were ‘‘providing leaders with the skills they
those want to cycle between periods of work and need to be successful’’ (71 percent) and ‘‘recruiting
leisure (Greene, 2005). and selecting talented employees’’ (69 percent).
In most developed countries around the world, These survey findings also corresponded to the
we can expect fewer younger workers, and more results of in-depth interviews that were conducted
older workers (Carnell, 2000). Although a fertility with 36 additional top executives (Society
rate of 2.1 children per woman is needed just to for Human Resource Management Foundation,
replace current population, in Europe the fertility 2007).
rate has dropped to 1.42, and in Japan to 1.43. Spain In a second study of senior executives on the
has the world’s lowest fertility rate, at 1.15 (National topic of the impending retirements of the baby-
Center for Policy Analysis, 2006). In the United boom generation, 45 percent said that their
States, the Census Bureau predicts that the number employers were beginning to examine internal poli-
of workers aged 20 to 44 will increase by 0.4 percent cies and management practices, 36 percent were
between 2000 and 2010, and by 4 percent between ‘‘just becoming aware of the issue, while only 9
2010 and 2020 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2004). percent had proposed specific policy and manage-
Of course the flip side of low fertility is an aging ment-practice changes, and only 8 percent had
population. China has the fastest-aging population implemented such practices (Cadrain, 2007).

16 THE CHANGING WORLD OF WORK

 With respect to succession planning per se, one labor pool, wherever it exists. For both developed-
large-scale study of 2,406 organizations revealed that and developing-nation multinationals that often
only 29 percent of them have a succession plan in implies a corporate strategy of labor arbitrage—
place, another 29 percent have an informal plan in periodic moves to lower-wage locations as existing
place, 26 percent have no plan, but intend to ones get too pricey. As wages rise in first-tier offshore
develop one in the near future, and 16 percent cities like Bangalore, Shanghai, and Prague (6 to 15
have no plan and no intention of developing percent in 2006), United States, European, and
one (Society for Human Resource Management, Asian multinationals alike are moving to places like
2006). Jaipur, India; Chengdu, China; and Kiev, Ukraine.
To appreciate what changing demographics Ho Chi Minh City is becoming the new Manila
means for organizations in the United States, con- (Hookway, 2007). For example, in response to cost
sider the following data from the U.S. Department pressures, Intel will open a new $300 million semi-
of Labor. In 2002 the aggregate demand for labor in conductor plant that employs 1,200 workers in
the United States was 141.8 million people. The Ho Chi Minh City instead of expanding existing
aggregate supply was 143.5 million. By 2031 that capacity in China, the Philippines, and Malaysia
picture will change dramatically, if present trends (Hansen, 2006).
continue. The aggregate demand for labor will be
200.2 million people, while the supply of labor Emerging Human Capital Challenges,
available will be only 165 million people. One way Demographic Changes, and Knowledge
that firms are coping with potential labor shortages Management
in their home countries is to seek labor elsewhere Many of the most pressing human-capital chal-
through outsourcing. As the next section shows, lenges identified in the SHRM Foundation’s (2007)
however, in some skilled occupations, supply- survey of senior executives described earlier—
demand imbalances are driving up labor costs for especially the development of responses to them—
multinational enterprises. involve an understanding of generational issues and
the impact of demographic changes that are already
An Impending Problem: Global Demand underway. In that study, the four most significant
Exceeds the Supply of People with Needed future challenges facing companies, regardless of size,
Skills location, or industry were: (1) succession planning;
India is typical. For example, some 1.3 million (2) recruiting and selecting talented employees;
people applied for work at Infosys Technologies Ltd. (3) engaging and retaining talented employees; and
in 2006, but the company says that only 2 percent of (4) providing leaders with the skills to be successful.
them were employable (Coy & Ewing, 2007). The In general, senior executives did not feel confident
big problems include inadequate foreign-language that their companies had a plan to address these
proficiency, lack of practical skills, unwillingness to human-capital challenges, particularly senior execu-
move for a job, and limited or no access to airports tives among smaller companies (Society for Human
and other transportation networks (Despeignes, Resource Management Foundation, 2007).
2005; Pui-Wing & Range, 2007). The seemingly The essence of the demographic predictions is
inexhaustible pools of cheap labor from China, that there will be lots of people coming and going.
India, and elsewhere are drying up as demand out- With respect to those going, namely, the aging baby-
strips the supply of people with the needed skills. boomer generation (born 1946–1964), that genera-
Thus a 2007 survey of nearly 37,000 employers in tion represents 37 percent of the workforce and most
27 countries by Manpower, Inc. found that 41 of senior corporate leadership (Washburn, 2007).
percent of them are having trouble hiring the Many of those individuals will be gone in the next
people they need (Coy & Ewing, 2007). As a decade, although many may choose to continue
result, the McKinsey Global Institute predicts that working past ‘‘normal’’ retirement age. A major con-
the supply of suitable labor will be squeezed in cern is the potential loss of mission-critical institu-
Prague as early as 2007, that pockets of skills tional knowledge. Knowledge management—the
shortages in India will appear by 2008 (e.g., in identification and capture of institutional knowledge
Hyderabad), and that workforce growth will decline and individual expertise—has great potential to
in China starting in 2012. address this problem.
An ongoing challenge for multinational corpora- Too often, unfortunately, knowledge manage-
tions, therefore, is to make the most of the global ment has been associated with specific technologies

CASCIO 17
or narrow processes like records management. While government has adopted a four-pronged strategy:
this is valuable, organizations must not ignore how (1) encouraging immigrants to come to Finland;
to capture, catalog, and retain other, more tacit (2) encouraging older workers to keep working;
knowledge (e.g., judgment, decision making, and (3) pushing students to finish their studies earlier;
‘‘how work really gets done’’) when employees leave and finally, (4) to encourage the unemployed to
(Davidson, Lepeak, & Newman, 2007). Evidence seek jobs, the government is offering opportunities
from 2,046 organizations that responded to a recent for retraining and subsidized moving expenses, as
survey indicates, unfortunately, that only 4 percent well as offering economic incentives to employers
of them have a formal process of transferring knowl- to hire workers in high-unemployment areas
edge from retiring boomers to other employees. (Anderson, 2007).
Slightly less than a quarter of them have an informal
process, but 44 percent do not have a process and Finding and Keeping Older Workers:
have no plans to develop one (Gurchiek, 2007). The Response of Some U.S. Companies
Knowledge-transfer programs may assume sev- In the United States, progressive companies are
eral different forms, from those that are tech- taking steps now to recruit and retain workers over
nology-based, to ample documentation, to pairings 50. In recruitment, Home Depot and the CVS
of baby boomers with younger managers for this drugstore chain offer programs to bring retirees
specific purpose. That process should begin with a back to the workforce. Both companies feature pic-
clear understanding of the retention, retirement, tures of older workers on their websites and have
recruitment, and training dynamics of current made their hiring and screening practices age-neu-
employees, not a reactive approach to monitoring tral. In terms of flexibility, some employers have
the workforce (Davidson et al., 2007). One useful implemented so-called phased-retirement programs,
place to begin is by examining the retirement elig- in which employees can move into retirement gra-
ibility of current workers, coupled with an analysis of dually by reducing their work schedules and pro-
the time and costs required to fill a vacant position rating their salaries and benefits. Carondelet Health
(Cascio & Boudreau, 2008). This type of informa- Network of Tucson, Arizona, has a seasonal-worker
tion can prove particularly useful in guiding strategy program, where older employees work under three-,
and future plans to respond to retiring or exiting six-, or nine-month contracts. Finally, in terms of
workers. improving the work environment, particularly for
older workers, Baptist Health of South Florida
Baby-Boomer Retirements in Europe: raised the height of its hospital beds in order to
The Case of Finland ease back strain on employees caring for patients,
In Europe, Finland will be the first country to and Pinnacol Assurance of Denver implemented an
experience the rapid retirements of baby boomers, ergonomics program that reduced its workers’ com-
beginning in 2010. The exodus has dire implications pensation costs by 38 percent (Cadrain, 2007).
for the supply of workers available for hire, and for
the financing of the country’s generous pension and Global Distribution of Generations
health systems (Anderson, 2007). Finland faces Thus far the chapter has described the baby-
Europe’s demographic challenge first because its boom generation from North American and
baby-boom generation was comparatively large, European perspectives. Unlike those areas, however,
and it came immediately after World War II. where the biggest leap in population growth
Between 2005 and 2020 fully 40 percent of the occurred after World War II, many developing
baby boomers are set to leave the workforce, nations experienced this leap in the late 1970s to
bringing the proportion of people over 65 to 25 early 1990s. As a result, the baby-boom generation
percent of the population. By 2030, the size of the in many countries is actually several decades younger
population over 65 will increase by 70 percent, while than that of the North American and European
the working-age population will fall by 10 percent. world, where the term emerged. The differences in
According to the Organization for Economic timing of the baby booms, and disparities in the sizes
Cooperation and Development (OECD), these of different generations, have a major impact on two
changes mean that the number of employed workers key issues: immigration and the global competition
to each welfare-benefit recipient will drop from 1.7 for jobs (Generational differences, 2007).
in 2007 to 1.0 by 2030. Shortages of skilled workers Much of the increase in immigration—legal and
are appearing already. To counter these trends, the illegal—is a result of the baby boomers of the

18 THE CHANGING WORLD OF WORK

developing world reaching working age in countries offshoring as manufacturing jobs are. To illustrate,
where there are not enough jobs for all of these new consider a recent study by Princeton economist and
young workers to fill. Higher emigration rates from former Vice-Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan
developing countries may also be an opportunity, Blinder (Wessel & Davis, 2007). He ranked 817
however, for those countries that are able to take occupations described by the Bureau of Labor
economic advantage of these outflows. Economists Statistics in terms of how likely each is to go overseas.
describe the demographic balance that has the ideal His conclusion: 30 to 40 million jobs are vulnerable,
proportion of prime working-age people between not the 3 to 4 million that have been proposed
the ages of 25 and 54 (compared to children and previously. While it is well known that manufac-
retirees) as the ‘‘demographic sweet spot.’’ India and turing jobs have been migrating to places like China
the developing countries of East Asia, in particular, and Eastern Europe, it is less widely recognized that
have been cited as places that have benefited greatly many service jobs also are vulnerable. A key distinc-
from this ‘‘demographic dividend’’ (Generational tion is services that must be done in the United
differences, 2007). States versus those that can—or will—be delivered
electronically. Figure 2.1 shows graphically the
Global Competition for Jobs results of his analysis.
Among young workers entering the labor mar- Jobs with characteristics like the following are
kets of industrialized countries in North America most likely to be targeted for offshoring (Bardhan
and Europe, intense global competition with other & Kroll, 2006):
young workers around the world for the best jobs is • No face-to-face customer-service requirement;
now a fact of life. When the members of Generations • High information content;
X (born from 1965 to 1980) and Y (born after 1980) • Internet-enabled work processes that can be
were growing up, trends such as the large-scale accomplished via telework;
entrance of women into the workforce, the off- • Large differentials in wages in an occupation
shoring of white-collar jobs, and the decline of between target and source countries;
unions and the manufacturing sector were already • Low set-up barriers;
well under way. Today’s young workers, however, • Low requirements for social networking.
are the first to begin their careers in a world where
many white-collar, knowledge-based jobs that As the need for highly educated workers has
require a college education are as vulnerable to grown, firms have used advances in information

Computer
programmers,
Financial 389,090
analysts, 180,910
Microbiologists, Data-entry
15,250 keyers, 296,700
Actuaries, 15,770

Film/video
editors, 15,200

Medical
transcription,
90,380
Interpreters/translators,
21,930
Bookeeping,
auditing clerks, Economists,
1,815,340 12,470

Graphic
designers,
178,530

Figure 2.1 Types and numbers of jobs that are ‘‘highly offshorable.’’ Source data presented by Blinder, A., in Wessel, D., & Davis, B.
(2007, March 28). Pain from free trade spurs second thoughts. The Wall Street Journal, p. A4.

CASCIO 19
and communications technology, facilitated by the be able to trust his or her supervisor and few people
Internet, to employ skilled knowledge workers wher- actually relish change, while we all like feedback and
ever they may be. This has created a highly compe- rewards that are distributed fairly.
titive environment where education, coupled with Unfortunately there is often a disconnect
basic and applied skills, is crucial to ensuring earning between what people want and what they actually
power. Basic knowledge comprises areas such as the get, as a study by RainmakerThinking of more than
following: written, spoken, and reading comprehen- 500 managers in 40 different organizations found.
sion of the English language, mathematics, science, Results indicated that few managers consistently
economics, arts and humanities, foreign languages, provide their direct reports with what Rainmaker
history, and geography. Applied skills include critical calls the five management basics. These are: clear
thinking and problem solving, teamwork and colla- statements of what’s expected of each employee;
boration, applications of information technology, explicit and measurable goals and deadlines; detailed
leadership, creativity and innovation, self-reliance, evaluation of each person’s work; clear feedback; and
and a commitment to lifelong learning (Genera- rewards distributed fairly. Only 10 percent of man-
tional differences, 2007). agers provided all five of the basics at least once a
At the same time that higher education is more week. Only 25 percent did so once a month. About a
critical than ever to sustained earning power, the third failed to provide them even once a year
proportion of workers with high school diplomas (Tulgan, 2004)! Clearly, there is much room for
and college degrees in the United States could actu- improvement in these areas.
ally be set to decline, at least modestly. This scenario The Center for Creative Leadership study also
is possible because the greatest increase in popula- suggests that many differences in values and atti-
tion growth in the United States is among the racial tudes that people perceive across generations are
and ethnic groups that have, on average, lower levels actually the result of different contexts. For example,
of educational attainment (Stoops, 2004). In con- the study found that resistance to change had much
trast, workers in the baby-boom generation, many of more to do with what a person stood to gain or lose
whom are expected to retire in the next decade, are from the change than with his or her age (Deal,
among the most highly educated. To be sure, the 2006). In general, older workers have more to lose,
nation still has the world’s highest proportion of but many younger workers have identical anxieties.
workers over the age of 40 with a college degree. Other research has debunked similar myths. Here
With respect to the proportion of young people with are three of them (Kadlec, 2007):
college degrees, however, many emerging economies
appear poised to surpass the United States, and 1. Members of Generations X and Y Lack a Strong
already have the balance of their educated popula- Work Ethic
tion tipped toward their youngest workers Fact: It’s more a matter of work style. Members
(Generational differences, 2007). At the very time, of the younger generations observed that work was
therefore, when the members of Generations X and central to their parents’ identities. They saw them
Y are facing growing competition for jobs from get downsized despite their company loyalty, and
young people in other countries, as a group they watched them strain to juggle their careers and
may be less equipped to deal with it because of a their families. Younger generations want job
comparative lack of education. experience as well as balance between their lives at
work and outside of work. That doesn’t mean they
What Everyone Wants: Similarities in Values won’t get the job done. If they have to, they will
Across Generations work from the beach on their laptops. In the office,
Differences across generations by size, diversity, they focus, finish, and leave. The lesson is clear: look
and rates of education do affect generations in at the results, not the process.
unique ways, but research also reveals that younger 2. Members of Generations X and Y Disrespect
and older generations actually share many values in Their Elders
common. Thus a seven-year study of more than Fact: Rather than take things on faith, 20- and
3,000 corporate leaders by the Center for Creative 30-somethings want to know why they are being
Leadership found that employees of all ages want asked to perform a task. This is not disrespect. They
similar things from their work and they share just have more options than baby boomers did at
common values about what matters most—family, their age. Baby boomers got ahead by doing what
respect, and trust (Deal, 2006). Everyone wants to they were told, and many of them expect younger

20 THE CHANGING WORLD OF WORK

workers to fall in line similarly. Yet if older workers environmental engineer; biochemist and biophysi-
are clear in what they expect and explain the reasons cist; sales manager; epidemiologist; computer-
behind a particular assignment, younger workers will system analyst; and marketing manager. Note how
respond. virtually all of them are tacit in nature. Before we get
3. Members of Generations X and Y Prefer to Go It too carried away with this theme, however, consider
Alone that after the expected wave of baby-boomer retire-
Fact: Baby boomers accustomed to face time, ments over the next several years, experts predict
as in a meeting, may misread the preference of robust hiring in such ‘‘old-line’’ industries as utilities,
younger workers for tech time (communicating railroads, community colleges, and local govern-
online using e-mail or text messaging) as ments (Washburn, 2007).
isolationist. In fact, it is anything but that—if one
knows how to use the tools. Career-Management Strategies
Although the primary and final responsibility for
The final two sections of the chapter examine
career development rests with each employee, orga-
topics that should be of major interest in the chan-
nizations have complementary responsibilities.
ging world of work: the types of new jobs being
Organizations are responsible for communicating
created, and career-management strategies to capita-
to employees where they want to go and how they
lize on the kinds of trends we have described.
plan to get there (the overall strategy), providing
employees with as much information about the
Types of New Jobs Being Created business as possible, and responding to the career
Study after study has shown that talent has initiatives of employees with candid, complete infor-
become the world’s most sought-after commodity, mation. One of the most important contributions an
and the changing nature of work makes knowledge organization can make to each employee’s develop-
workers ever more critical to organizational (and ment is to provide him or her with honest perfor-
national) competitiveness (The Economist, 2006). mance feedback about current job performance.
To illustrate, consider three types of jobs identified Employees, in turn, are responsible for knowing
by the McKinsey Global Institute: what their skills, strengths, and capabilities are,
what assistance they need from their employers,
• Transformational—extracting raw materials
asking for that assistance, and preparing themselves
and converting them into finished goods;
to assume new responsibilities—if that is what they
• Transactional—interactions that can be
want. If not, then employees are responsible for
scripted or automated;
communicating their intentions to their bosses.
• Tacit—complex interactions involving a high
Career self-reliance, or career resilience, does not
level of judgment. Tacit knowledge, as we noted
mean free agency. Rather, each individual needs to
earlier, is personal and context-specific, and it is
become an ‘‘informed opportunist,’’ combining
difficult to formalize and communicate (Rynes,
accurate information with a flexible, opportunistic
Bartunek, & Daft, 2001).
approach to his or her career (Cascio, 2010).
McKinsey argues that over the past six years the This approach to career management can be
number of jobs that emphasize ‘‘tacit interactions’’ summed up as follows: assign employees the respon-
has grown 2.5 times as fast as the number of transac- sibility for managing their own careers, then provide
tional jobs, and 3 times as fast as employment in the support they need to do it. This support takes
general. These jobs now make up 40 percent of the different forms in different organizations, but
U.S. labor market and account for 70 percent of the usually includes components such as opportunities
jobs created since 1998. The same thing is bound to for self-assessment and personal career planning,
happen in developing countries as they get richer training for supervisors on how to provide relevant
(The Economist, 2006). information and to question the logic of employees’
More specifically, consider the ‘‘best’’ jobs in the career plans, and lots of opportunities for training
United States from 2005 through 2009, based on and leadership development. Steps like these will
projected job growth (through 2012), salary poten- enable employees to position themselves to assume
tial, education level, and room for innovation and jobs that are critical to the success of their organiza-
creativity (Quinn, 2005). Here are 10 of the top 25: tions. After all, the world of work is changing dra-
personal financial advisor; medical scientist; matically, and it is important to understand how it is
computer-software engineer; chiropractor; changing, so that whether young or old, you can take

CASCIO 21
maximum advantage of opportunities that present • Managing Change
themselves. In the chapters that follow, this volume How can we teach people to embrace change?
explores how lessons from the research and practice What is the role of change-management in the
of positive psychology can enable us to do so. innovation process? How can leaders accelerate the
change-management process?
Conclusion • Increasing Diversity
The overall objective of this chapter was to How can we link the broad concept of diversity
explore some key trends that will affect work, (e.g., of thought, of approaches to innovation and
workers, and management in the coming decades. change, of orientation toward teamwork) to
Before doing that, however, we examined how improved performance at the individual, team, and
change itself has changed, for it is no longer exclu- organizational levels?
sively additive or linear. We then examined the
impacts of technology and e-commerce on compa- Implications for Practice
nies in a variety of industries, demographic changes, • Twenty-first-century organizations must
and the impending issue of global demand exceeding manage in an environment characterized by change
the supply of people with needed skills. more than by stability; they are organized around
Demographic changes, in particular the aging of networks, not rigid hierarchies; they are built on
the workforce in North American and Western shifting partnerships and alliances, not self-
European nations, sharpens the need for effective sufficiency; and they are constructed on
knowledge management, and also the need to find technological advantages, not bricks and mortar.
and keep older workers. Another key trend is the • Managing an extended network of suppliers will
global distribution of generations in organizations, require more transparency, better communication,
and with that is the need to understand generational greater trust, and genuine reciprocity, as client-
similarities and differences. The chapter concluded service-provider relationships shift from adversarial to
by examining the types of new jobs being created, collaborative, from procurement to partnership.
together with career-management strategies that will • In most developed countries around the world,
allow members of all generations to capitalize on we can expect fewer younger workers, and more
these current and emerging changes. older workers. As labor markets for many types of
skill sets tighten, expect to see shorter employment
Directions for Research relationships, and more contingent work,
The kinds of issues described above suggest sev- independent contracting, and other free-market
eral important directions for research. Here is a small arrangements. Prepare now for these impending
sample of some of them (Cascio & Aguinis, 2008). human-capital changes.
• Develop multiple strategies to capture, catalog,
• Leadership Development and retain tacit knowledge (e.g., judgment, decision
How might an organization identify and making, and ‘‘how work really gets done’’) when
develop ‘‘ambidextrous’’ leaders who can inspire employees leave.
and motivate both older and younger generations • Whether workers are young or old, however, take
of workers? What approaches to training can help steps now to ensure that managers consistently provide
organizational members acquire these leadership their direct reports with the five management basics.
skills? These are: clear statements of what’s expected of each
• Retirements of Baby Boomers employee; explicit and measurable goals and deadlines;
What are the relative merits of alternative detailed evaluation of each person’s work; clear
strategies for preserving institutional memory? feedback; and rewards distributed fairly.
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 C H A P T E R
Generation Me and the Changing World
3 of Work

Jean M. Twenge and Stacy M. Campbell

Abstract
For many organizations, the upcoming retirement of the Baby Boomers and the influx of the younger
generations to the workplace will prove to be challenging. In this chapter, we review empirical data on
generational differences and provide descriptions of how the average member of the young generation
(labeled Generation Me) compares in personality traits and attitudes with the average member of earlier
generations. Most changes in generations have occurred gradually over time, in a linear fashion. With
increases in self-esteem, narcissism, and the importance of leisure time, expectations for work–life
balance, salary, and fulfillment have also increased among the younger generation. The result— a widening
gap between what Generation Me expects from the workplace and reality—may explain why there has
also been an increase in anxiety and depression over the generations. Implications of these generational
differences and suggestions to assist in the management of today’s multi-generational workforce are
discussed.

Keywords: generations, work–life balance, expectations

Today’s workplace is constantly changing. New generations working side by side at organizations
technologies, the globalization of markets, and the across the United States: (1) the Traditionalists
changing needs and values of today’s employees (aka the Veterans, the Silent Generation) born
require organizations to adapt to remain competi- before 1945, who grew up during World War II
tive. For many organizations, the changes associated and the 1950s; (2) the Baby Boomers, born 1946–
with the employee pool can be the most proble- 1964, who grew up during the Vietnam War and
matic. New technology comes with an owner’s Watergate; (3) Generation X, born 1965–1980,
manual, whereas the new generation of employees who grew up with televisions, microwaves, compu-
does not. ters, and MTV; and (4) Generation Me
Many of the changes in today’s workforce stem (aka Generation Y, Millennials, or iGen) born
from generational diversity. The 22-year-old born in 1980–2000, who grew up with the Internet, iPods,
the 1980s and the 70-year-old born in the 1930s will and the threat of global terrorism. While this mix of
have very different perspectives as a result of the time generations adds valuable diversity to the workforce,
period in which they grew up. Growing up in the it also adds complexity for organizations. The gen-
1990s, for example, was a fundamentally different erations view career development, benefits, and
experience than growing up in the 1940s or 1950s. work-life balance very differently. Obviously not
Each generation is influenced by broad forces (i.e., every Traditionalist, Baby Boomer, GenXer or
parents, peers, media, critical economic and social GenMe’er fits within their generational stereotype;
events, and popular culture) that create different however, acknowledging these generational differ-
value systems. In the 2000s, there are four different ences is critical for the recruitment, development,

25
retention, and overall satisfaction of employees and workforce; some also confirm the changes in more
is thus a vital link to understanding changing work- demographically representative samples of children
place practices. Even if the generations are more or high school students (Twenge et al., 2004;
similar than they are different, it is the differences Twenge & Campbell, 2008). The database includes
that cause problems within organizations. 2 million people who completed at least one person-
But what are these generational differences? How ality, attitude, or behavior scale between the 1940s
are Baby Boomers different from GenX? What is and the present. This method allows the analysis of
different about GenMe? Until recently, information generational effects because the samples are the same
on how the generations differ psychologically was age and filled out the same questionnaire but did so
difficult to come by. Some authors, like William at different points in historical time. In contrast, a
Strauss and Neil Howe, theorized that generations study that collects data at only one time (known as a
came in cycles. They supported this theory with data cross-sectional study) cannot determine if differ-
on larger trends in society, such as crime rates, birth ences are due to age or to generation. Most work-
rates, and divorce rates (e.g., Strauss & Howe, place interviews and surveys, for example, cannot
1991). For example, they noted that GenXers (in determine if young employees’ high expectations
their calculation, born 1961–1981) were more likely are due to a generational shift or the idealism of
to have experienced their parents’ divorce; thus, they youth that all generations have displayed to an
should be more cynical, alienated, and depressed. extent. Thus, the method used here separates the
However, no psychological data on cynicism, aliena- influences of age and generation. The analyses on
tion, or depression was presented. They also argued college students control for changes in these popula-
that the generation born 1982–1999, whom they tions (e.g., gender composition); changes in other
labeled Millennials, will cycle back to the ‘‘Greatest demographics (race, income) have been surprisingly
Generation’’ personality of the youth of World small.
War II and will be dutiful, group-oriented, and The studies reviewed in this article describe
anti-individualistic (Howe & Strauss, 2000). changes in averages across the generations, so there
Again, however, no psychological data was supplied. will always be exceptions. These are not stereotypes,
Other authors have specifically addressed the but descriptions of how the average member of the
problem of generations in the workplace. Books young generation compares in personality traits to
such as When Generations Collide (Lancaster & the average members of earlier generations. For the
Stillman, 2003), Generations at Work (Zemke, most part, these studies find steady, linear change
Raines, & Filipczak, 1999), and Managing Genera- rather than the cycles or sudden generational shifts
tion X (Tulgan, 2003) relied on case studies, inter- suggested by others (e.g., Howe & Strauss, 2000).
views, anecdotal stories, and qualitative surveys. The changes in generations, just like the changes in
Although these books provided an intriguing picture society’s culture, occur gradually and take time to
of how generational differences might impact the appear in individuals’ personality traits and atti-
workplace, they were hindered by the dearth of tudes. For example, many generational studies find
empirical, quantitative data on how the generations increases in individualism. Baby Boomers were cer-
differ—particularly whether they differ in their tainly an individualistic generation, but they did not
underlying psychology. become so until young adulthood, and did so in
In this chapter, we review the data from studies of moderation. Their upbringing in the 1950s and
generational differences in psychological traits and early 1960s grounded them in non-individualistic
attitudes, and discuss how these empirical results attitudes, which may explain why they took the
translate into understanding generations at work ironic step of exploring the self in groups and
and changing workplace practices. These studies teams (e.g., protest groups, est seminars). The gen-
employ a unique method that one of us labeled erations who followed, GenX and GenMe, con-
cross-temporal meta-analysis (e.g., Twenge, Zhang, tinued the emphasis on the individual that grew
& Im, 2004). This method gathers journal articles year after year as more young people took it for
and dissertations that administered a psychological granted that one should focus on the self (for a
scale (e.g., the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, the more extensive treatment of this issue, see Twenge,
Narcissistic Personality Inventory) and analyzes 2006). GenMe is more individualistic than GenX
how average scores change over decades. Most of because they have continued the trend. For most
these studies examine college students, the popula- traits, generational change is steadily moving in
tion most likely to enter the professional one direction and not reversing. This might occur

26 GENERATION ME AND THE CHANGING WORLD OF WORK

partially because parents pass on their values to their relationships, as they have a difficult time taking
children. The Baby Boomers may be individualistic, someone else’s perspective. In the long run, narcis-
but their GenMe children (those born in the 1970s, sists are less successful as they take more for them-
1980s, and 1990s) have taken it to the next level. On selves and deplete common resources (Campbell,
average, the generational changes are about .20 stan- Bush, Brunell, & Shelton, 2005).
dard deviations for each 10-year difference in birth Why are younger generations higher in self-
year. Thus, employees 25 years apart in age will, on esteem and narcissism? Looking at the environment
average, differ on many personality traits by .50 in which the younger generation was raised provides
standard deviations, a moderate effect size in psy- some insight. Many people born since 1970 and
chology. Employees 50 years apart will, on average, especially since 1980 have been raised to place them-
differ by a full standard deviation, considered a large selves first, often with the reasoning that ‘‘it’s an
effect size. In the rest of the chapter, we outline increasingly competitive world, and you have to
the key psychological differences among the genera- look out for yourself.’’ Television, schools, and the
tions and note how these differences affect the media promoted core cultural values expressed in
workplace. aphorisms like ‘‘Believe in yourself and anything is
possible’’ and ‘‘You can be anything you want to be’’
Change in Self-Focused Traits and High (Twenge, 2006). Preschoolers were taught to sing
Expectations ‘‘I am special’’ and kids on youth sports teams all got
Self-esteem, unrealistically positive self-views, trophies whether their team won or not.
assertiveness, individualistic traits, and narcissism The increase in self-esteem, individualism, and
are up in college student and high school samples narcissism may be part of the reason why the gap
(Twenge, 1997, 2001; Twenge & Campbell, 2001, between expectations and reality has widened over
2008; Twenge, Konrath, Foster, Campbell, & the generations. For example, 51 percent of high
Bushman, 2008). More recent generations are school students in 2000 expected to earn a graduate
more likely to agree with self-esteem items such as degree, even though only 9 percent are likely to
‘‘I take a positive attitude toward myself’’ and ‘‘On actually do so. In 1976, only half as many high
the whole, I am satisfied with myself.’’ Younger school students (27%) predicted this outcome
generations, particularly young women, score (Reynolds, Stewart, Sischo, & MacDonald, 2006).
higher on measures of assertiveness than previous In a USA Today poll a few years ago, teens predicted
generations did and describe themselves with more that they would be earning, on average, $75,000 a
individualistic adjectives such as ‘‘independent,’’ year by the time they were 30, even though the
‘‘forceful,’’ ‘‘competitive,’’ and ‘‘have leadership average income of a 30-year-old that year was
ability.’’ GenMe is also more confident of their $27,000, or about a third of the teens’ aspirations.
future performance. While two-thirds of Boomers Young workers expect a very different workplace
(high school students in the mid-1970s) agreed that than the one where their parents worked. As a
they would be ‘‘very good’’ workers on a job someday September 2007 Business Week article explained,
(the highest rating), three-fourths of 2006 high this generation has ‘‘high expectations and demand
school graduates expected this stellar outcome. meaningful work, constructive feedback, and posi-
Thus the sizable majority of young people tions of influence within their organizations’’
now expect to be in the top 20 percent for (Gerdes, 2007). Today’s employees expect to be
performance. excited by the vision of the company, its manage-
Younger generations are also more likely to agree ment, and the opportunities they will have to make
with narcissism items such as ‘‘If I ruled the world it contributions. They want to make suggestions right
would be a better place,’’ ‘‘I think I am a special away and expect to be promoted quickly. In their
person,’’ and ‘‘I can live my life any way I want to.’’ book The Xers and the Boomers (2000), Claire Raines
Narcissists are not just confident but over-confident, and Jim Hunt relate the story of a young man who
believing that they are special and that their skills are met with his manager and declared that he expected
above average even when they are not. Perhaps as a to be a vice president at the company within three
result, narcissism does not lead to better perfor- years. When the manager told him this was not
mance in the long run, and often leads to actions realistic, as most vice presidents were in their 60s,
that negatively impact others and the organization the young man got angry with him and said, ‘‘You
(Judge, LePine, & Rich, 2006; Penney & Spector, should encourage me and help me fulfill my
2002). Narcissists also have trouble in interpersonal expectations.’’

TWENGE, CAMPBELL 27
 Many managers have noticed that the younger As just one illustration of this viewpoint, Ryan
generation expects more praise for their work. This is Healy (born in the mid-1980s) wrote on the website
consistent with the rise in self-esteem and narcissism; Employee Evolution,
in fact, both trends may have a common base in the
Today, I regularly use technology such as Wikipedia
education philosophy of the 1980s and 1990s
and Facebook which gives me the freedom to create the
emphasizing self-esteem and good feelings. As docu-
content I want to see and erase the content I don’t. Is it
mented in a recent Wall Street Journal article
any wonder that the insane bureaucracy that the
(Zaslow, 2007), some companies have hired ‘‘cele-
corporate world thrives on is incredibly difficult for me
bration assistants’’ to administer reward programs.
to adapt to? As our generation enters the workforce,
Other managers have less formal programs, realizing
strict, top-down corporations will face a huge problem
that the young generation needs more, and more
trying to retain [young] talent. Companies will
frequent, feedback than previous generations
eventually have to adapt and change their fundamental
expected. The article interviewed David Foster, 60,
structure from one of command and control to one of
a partner at a Washington, D.C., law firm. Foster
communication, trust, and knowledge sharing.
and his partners realized a few years ago that their
young associates needed to hear more often that they How much corporations can afford to adapt to this
were valued and had done a good job. They have generation is an open question, but it is clear that
made a concerted effort to do so even though this many young people are entering organizations with
represents a radical shift from the atmosphere they the expectation of relative equality and the belief that
recall from their young adulthood. When he was a they are just as competent as someone who has years
young lawyer, Foster says, ‘‘If you weren’t getting of experience. Some of this is based on skill with
yelled at, you felt like that was praise.’’ technology such as web pages and texting. Although
While World War II taught people to make technological skill is a major advantage of this gen-
sacrifices and be patient, the Information Age has eration, some managers point out that other skills
taught a generation that you never have to wait for and knowledge are also necessary for success in
anything. GenMe is looking for opportunities to organizations.
gain twenty years of experience in two years. In addition to rapid growth, young employees
Furthermore, the young generation does not view also expect fulfillment and meaning in their work.
age, seniority, and rank as measures of accomplish- Financial Times writer Thomas Barlow (1999) noted
ment or expertise. Unlike an earlier time when that ‘‘The idea has grown up, in recent years, that
people admired their elders and followed them to work should not be just . . . a way to make money,
victory, this generation does not see age as a domi- support a family, or gain social prestige but should
nant characteristic for leadership. For GenX and provide a rich and fulfilling experience in and of
GenMe, the old command and control leadership itself. Jobs are no longer just jobs; they are lifestyle
is a thing of the past. The top-down leadership style options.’’ Many twentysomethings interviewed in
based on the military is not effective in today’s world Quarterlife Crisis (Robbins & Wilner, 2001)
of rapid change. Today’s young leaders act first and agreed, like one young woman, that if ‘‘she wasn’t
evaluate later, because a leader cannot afford to care- both proud of and fulfilled by her job, then it was
fully evaluate first in the high-speed environment of not a job worth having.’’ Several young interviewees
today. The Internet and instantaneous access to were looking to quit their jobs, including one young
news and information has made knowledge much man who wanted to quit his ‘‘dream’’ job working on
more available at an earlier age. In an era of com- Capitol Hill because, ‘‘it’s not fulfilling.’’ Some of
plexity and change, young people look for managers this fulfillment comes from having an impact and
who work with employees as competent allies rather understanding why work matters. Instead of empha-
than passive subordinates. They want managers who sizing duty like some previous generations, GenMe
will develop relationships that show trust and respect wants to know why they are doing what they’re
for them, their abilities, and their ideas. Research has doing. Many managers have found that they get
increasingly focused on this increasing need for com- better results from young employees if they explain
petence, as well as belongingness and autonomy. exactly why their task or assignment is important.
According to self-determination theory (Deci & Researchers have recently begun to focus on the
Ryan, 2000), satisfying these human needs is essen- idea of work engagement and how it relates to the
tial for the personal well-being and social develop- meaningful work expected by the younger genera-
ment among today’s employees. tion. Kahn (1990) introduced the concept of

28 GENERATION ME AND THE CHANGING WORLD OF WORK

personal engagement with work as ‘‘the harnessing of the commitment to having a balanced life in which
organizational members’ selves to their work roles; in work is only one segment of a full life.
engagement, people employ and express themselves The need for work-life balance is not a new issue
physically, cognitively, and emotionally during role (see Baltes, Clark, & Chakrabarti, Chapter 16, this
performances’’ (p. 694). Employee engagement cap- volume). Since the 1980s, researchers have been
tures the willingness and readiness of employees to calling for family-responsive workplaces. During
devote personal energy resources to the fulfillment of the 1990s, with more Baby Boomer women
their work roles (Maslach & Leiter, 1997). It has climbing the corporate ladder, work-life conflict
gained momentum as a research topic as more and increased (Duxbury & Higgins, 2001). With the
more of today’s workers express their need to be American population aging, a strong economy, and
fulfilled by their job, the desire to gain a sense of low unemployment, work-life balance continues to
significance from one’s work, and want to devote be an issue for organizations. But among GenMe,
energies to work-related endeavors. work-life balance is almost equally important to both
Work engagement goes beyond satisfaction or men and women. As a result, organizations are
commitment and has been linked to beneficial forced to rethink policies and practices aimed at
outcomes for both individuals and organizations securing this work-life balance. Today’s work/life
(Gubman, 2004; Harter, Schmidt, & Hayes, programs are less gender-specific. In addition to the
2002; Kahn, 1992; Stairs & Galpin, Chapter traditional practices of flextime and on-site daycare,
13, this volume). Recent academic research has many of today’s companies (e.g. SAS, Google,
linked engagement to various positive outcomes, Cisco) offer workers a slew of benefits (e.g., on-site
including aiding individuals in deriving benefits dental care and dry cleaning) billed as ‘‘balance
from stressful work, developing organizational enhancers’’ for their young employees. These com-
commitment and reducing turnover intentions, panies have realized that positive work-life outcomes
and fostering good health and positive affect for employees are key factors in retaining both male
among workers (Britt, Adler, & Bartone, 2001; and female employees and thus ingredients for suc-
Crabtree, 2005; Harter et al., 2002; Sonnentag, cessful business strategy.
2003). Additionally, engagement is expected to
influence employee performance (Crabtree, Change in the Need for Social Approval
2005). Thus, finding ways to engage all genera- and Formality of the Workplace
tions would be beneficial. Younger generations also score lower on a trait
In addition to the growth and meaningfulness of called need for social approval, or the concern with
work, the younger generation expects to achieve this others’ viewpoints and impressions (Crowne &
while maintaining a work-life balance. The idea of Marlowe, 1960; Twenge & Im, 2007). Thus younger
‘‘balance’’ is a fundamental value in the younger gen- employees will be more likely to question authority
erations [at least in qualitative data such as that pre- and challenge the status quo. Today’s younger gen-
sented in When Generations Collide (Lancaster & eration is also less likely to dress formally. The
Stillman, 2003)]. This value may also be explained informal attire they favored in college is making its
by the individualism, self-focus, and anti- way into the workplace as many organizations have
hierarchical bent of this generation shown in quanti- extended ‘‘business casual’’ to more than just Fridays.
tative data (Twenge, 2006). GenMe views time com- A creative, fun culture which includes casual day every
mitments and career advances very systematically and day and foosball (a game of table football) during
has different perceptions of what makes an employee lunch and breaks is an attraction for young
dedicated. Whereas older generations see long hours employees.
and punctuality as signs of dedication, the younger The younger generation is also informal in their
generation focuses on quality and quantity of work methods of communication. Whereas older genera-
completed (Burke, 2004). GenMe doesn’t under- tions see long hours, professionalism, and punctu-
stand why they have to stay at work if they’ve finished ality as signs of dedication, the younger generation
all that was expected of them. This generation is also questions the idea of ‘‘face time.’’ Different genera-
more open about their parenting obligations and tions also prefer different methods of communica-
commitments, and expects time off for family func- tion. Whereas the older generation prefers face to
tions. It is not an aversion to work that prompts their face, the younger generation uses text messaging,
actions, but a difference in the perception of what it IM, MySpace pages, and other electronic forms
means to be a ‘‘good’’ worker and the value placed on (though the youngest of them sometimes disdain

TWENGE, CAMPBELL 29
e-mail as too slow). The decrease in social approval satisfaction and organizational commitment when-
can also be seen in e-mail messages of the younger ever they do perceive support from the organization.
generation, which are often so informal that they use Thus, there is some opportunity here for organiza-
texting shorthand. One implication is that organiza- tions to use this increase in external locus of control
tions should communicate significant information to their benefit by increasing perceived organiza-
in more than one way, increasing the likelihood that tional support.
all employees get the message in a way that makes So what influences employees’ beliefs that the
them comfortable regardless of generation. organization cares about their well-being and sup-
ports them? How do employees, especially externals
Change in Locus of Control and Its Impact (individuals who believe that behavior is guided by
on Beliefs About Work fate, luck, or other external factors; Rotter, 1966),
Locus of control is an important personal trait for know that the organization values their individual
describing individual differences and predicting beha- contributions and that they make a difference?
vior in organizational settings (Rotter, 1966). People According to researchers, perceived organizational
with an internal locus of control (internals) have high support (POS; Eisenberger, Huntington,
expectancies of their ability to control events, whereas Hutchinson, & Sowa, 1986) is inferred from orga-
those with an external locus of control (externals) have nizational policies, practice, and treatment. Strong
a low expectancy of their ability to control events and POS is positively linked to organizational commit-
outcomes associated with their lives (Rotter, 1966). ment and in-role and extra-role performance and
Over the last few decades, college students have negatively related to withdrawal behaviors such as
become increasingly external in their control beliefs absenteeism and turnover (Rhodes & Eisenberger,
(Twenge et al., 2004). That is, GenMe employees are 2002). A recent study found that after managers
more likely than older generations to agree that ‘‘The listened to needs of externals and tried to offer sup-
world is run by the few people in power, and there is port, externals responded with significant increases
not much the little guy can do about it,’’ ‘‘Getting a in satisfaction and organizational commitment
good job depends mainly on being in the right place (Chiu, Chien, Lin, & Hsiao 2005). Thus, human
at the right time,’’ and ‘‘Who gets to be boss often resource practices such as personalized counseling
depends upon who was lucky enough to be in and development programs that focus on individual
the right place first.’’ Although it seems counterintui- perception of work and promote an employee-
tive that a highly individualistic generation would friendly environment and organizational support
have an external locus of control, it may be a may modify externals’ negative reactions.
mechanism for preserving treasured self-esteem Team projects may also benefit workers with an
when things go wrong. Individualism also promotes external locus of control, as externals believe that
the idea that collective action (e.g., in politics) is likely their performance is due in part to factors unrelated
to be fruitless. to ability or effort. Externals may prefer to work
The increase in external locus of control has collectively because the probability of success may
implications for attitudes, perceptions, and beha- be higher due to more individuals contributing (Eby
viors in work settings. First, externals are more & Dobbins, 1997). Organizations continue to use
likely to blame others and luck when things go work teams to streamline processes, enhance
wrong, and less likely to take responsibility for fail- employee participation, and improve quality. Orga-
ures. Blau (1987) showed that internals exert greater nizations’ use of teams helps shift the emphasis of
efforts to personally control their environment. individual orientation to team-based work. Working
Externals take a more passive role and are more in teams sets up this shared accountability so that
likely to want to be pushed by their organizations employees are held accountable but share in
before doing certain things (Blau, 1987). They view resulting rewards and losses. On the other hand,
themselves as powerless to control day-to-day life employees high in narcissism may not perform well
and attribute outcomes to external variables such as in groups, so the decision to emphasize individual
company policies, procedures, and relationships versus teamwork should reflect the traits of a parti-
among colleagues. However, research has also cular employee and the needs of the organization.
shown that externals are more strongly affected by
job satisfaction than internals (Griffeth & Hom, Changes in Anxiety and Depression
1988). Additionally, externals are more sensitive to The available evidence suggests that anxiety and
organizational support and report stronger job depression are now more common even apart from

30 GENERATION ME AND THE CHANGING WORLD OF WORK

more frequent diagnosis and treatment. Only 1% to 1997). When employees do become depressed,
2% of Americans born before 1915 experienced a active intervention seems to work the best. Wang
major depressive episode during their lifetimes, even et al. (2007) found that depressed employees whose
though they lived through the Great Depression and companies provided a case manager who helped
two world wars. Today, the lifetime rate of major them navigate treatment options worked two more
depression is ten times higher, between 15% and weeks per year than those who were simply told they
20% (for a review, see Klerman & Weissman, might want to see a clinician. The program, which
1989). College students’ and children’s anxiety was administered through telephone calls during
increased a full standard deviation between the non-work hours, cost $100 to $400 per worker,
1950s and the 1990s (Twenge, 2000), and college but saved about $1,800 in work hours. The workers
students showed increases in psychopathology on who received the intervention were also more likely
the scales of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality to be employed by the company a year later, thus
Inventory (Twenge, Gentile, DeWall, Ma, saving the companies the cost of recruiting and
Lacefield, & Schurtz, 2008). training a new worker.
Much of the data on anxiety is based on college In some cases, financial worries may be the cause
student and child samples, who are not yet in the of young employees’ anxiety. The financial realities
workforce. However, the studies documenting an of being young are much more difficult than they
increase in depression have been conducted with once were. College tuition has far outpaced inflation,
adult samples. In fact, depression affects about 6 and grants and scholarships have not kept pace.
percent of American workers each year, costing com- A few generations ago, the University of California
panies more than $30 billion in lost yearly produc- campuses were free to state residents. By the 1970s,
tivity. This suggests that the problem does not go tuition was charged but could be covered through
away after young adulthood, and that workplace grants and part-time jobs. Today, loans are often the
issues may play an important role in employee only solution, so the average college student gradu-
well-being [defined as ‘‘the overall quality of an ates with tens of thousands in debt, often hundreds
employee’s experience and functioning at work’’ of thousands if he or she also attended graduate or
(Grant, Christianson, & Price, 2007), including professional school. In addition, the cost of housing
psychological, physical, and social dimensions]. has increased at three times the pace of inflation.
Managerial practices often help employee well- Even with the recent downturn in the housing
being on one dimension but have potential ill effects market, rent and mortgage payments are a much
on another dimension. For example, the enriched larger proportion of young people’s income than
jobs that are providing growth opportunities for they were just ten years ago. (This varies from one
younger workers may also cause them more stress. region to the next, of course, but even after the
Complex and demanding jobs often lead to strain, recent downturn in prices, housing is still consider-
fatigue, and overload (Campion & McClelland, ably more expensive than it was a decade ago). Other
1993). Another example is the high incentive com- financial necessities are also more expensive,
pensation that has become commonplace in today’s including health care (more of which now comes
competitive workforce. Giving employees higher out of the employee’s pocket) and child care
pay and rewards for hard work increases job satisfac- expenses (which can easily top $1,000 a month for
tion. However, it can also harm interpersonal rela- each child).
tionships at work because such a competitive Thus, despite their narcissism and the over-indul-
environment undermines social well-being (Bloom, gences of their childhood, it is not accurate to say
1999). Overwork can also strain personal relation- that the young generation ‘‘has it easy’’ or is
ships and upset work-life balance. ‘‘spoiled.’’ The gap between expectations and reality
Organizations that foster employee well-being has never been larger. A boss who understands this
are recognized as desirable places to work. The will have a much easier time connecting with young
American Psychological Association now offers employees.
awards and rewards (Carlson, 2004) to organizations
that are ‘‘psychologically healthy.’’ Why care about Changes in Women’s Roles and
employee well-being? Making employees happier Personalities
and healthier increases their effort and productivity Finally, there has been a fundamental shift in
(Fisher, 2003). In addition, the costs associated with women’s roles. Not only are more women working,
illness, absenteeism, and turnover are large (Spector, but their personalities have shifted in a way that has

TWENGE, CAMPBELL 31
made them more successful in the workplace. When and women’s leadership styles. Strong female leaders
Sandra Bem wrote the Bem Sex-Role Inventory in were just as assertive and just as analytical (Eagly &
the early 1970s (Bem, 1974), stereotypically femi- Karau, 2002; Powell, 1990). Unfortunately, the
nine traits included nurturance, warmth, and com- stereotypes about masculine and feminine leadership
passion and stereotypically masculine traits included styles can hinder opportunities for the leadership
assertiveness, leadership, and self-reliance. By the development of women. Organizations will need to
1990s, there was no longer a sex difference among continue to increase people’s awareness and dispel
college students on the measure of stereotypically the perception that there are key differences between
masculine traits (Twenge, 1997; differences male and female leaders (Eagly & Carli, 2007).
persisted on feminine traits, perhaps because there As mentioned above, many young women are
has not been as much change in gender roles at searching for work-life balance. Although more
home). College women also increased in assertive- fathers are now taking on greater domestic respon-
ness on four different measures between the 1970s sibilities, the work-family conflict has not eased for
and the 1990s (Twenge, 2001); there is also no longer women (Eagly & Carli, 2007). There are increasing
a significant sex difference in assertiveness. Among pressures for intensive parenting (for a review, see
adult samples, the correlation between self-esteem Warner, 2005) as well as increasing time demands in
and socioeconomic status indicators like income, high-level careers. Many men and young employees
education, and occupation has decreased over the without children are also demanding flexible sche-
generations for men but increased for women dules and rebelling against long hours. This can put
(Twenge & Campbell, 2002). Thus, surprisingly, organizations in a difficult position as they must
jobs are now more central to women’s self-esteem balance business goals with the employee’s personal
than they are to men’s. goals. As more young women stay in the workforce
Today, women fill more than half of all U.S. jobs. after they have children—a likely outcome given
It is estimated that by 2010 women will represent 62 current economic realities and women’s greater col-
percent of the total U.S. workforce. Women live lege completion—better daycare solutions will need
longer than men and finish college at higher to be found. Organizations will need to retain
rates—57 percent of college degrees now go to talented employees by establishing family-friendly
women, and women are more goal-oriented than human resource practices such as flextime, job
men are in college (National Center for sharing, telecommuting, assistance in finding day-
Educational Statistics, 1996). As women continue care or providing onsite daycare (Eagly & Carli,
to enter the workforce, they are taking on leadership 2007).
roles in greater numbers than ever before. Women
now occupy more than 40 percent of all managerial Changes in Work Values
positions in the United States (Eagly & Carli, 2007). A new study examined generational differences in
Women’s perceptions of their own roles have also work values using a nationally representative sample
changed; as early as the 1980s, women saw as much of high school seniors (Twenge, Campbell, &
similarity between ‘‘female’’ and ‘‘manager’’ as they Hoffman, 2008). The largest change appeared in
did between ‘‘male’’ and ‘‘manager’’ (Brenner, valuing leisure. Almost twice as many young
Tomkiewicz, & Schein, 1989). people in 2006 rated having a job with more than
However, gender ideals, or beliefs about how two weeks vacation as ‘‘very important’’ than did in
men and women should think, feel, and behave, 1976, and almost twice as many wanted a job at
still exist (Eagly & Karau, 2002; Fiske & Stevens, which they could work slowly. Nearly half now want
1993; Rudman & Glick, 2001). This is especially a job ‘‘which leaves a lot of time for other things in
true at the executive level within organizations. In your life.’’ GenMe is less likely to want to work
particular, sex stereotypes have shaped workers’ overtime and is more likely to say they would stop
expectations for female versus male leaders. working if they had enough money. While only 23
Americans have been conditioned to expect that percent of Boomers agreed that ‘‘work is just making
there is a feminine versus a masculine style of leader- a living,’’ 34 percent of GenMe’ers agreed. Three-
ship. The feminine style is perceived as an outgrowth fourths of Boomers said they expected work to be a
of the team-oriented approach: better listeners, more central part of their lives, compared to 63 percent of
empathetic, more people oriented and less aggressive GenMe’ers. Smaller changes appeared in other
in pursuit of goals. However, researchers found no values, with younger generations placing less value
statistically significant differences between men’s on intrinsic, altruistic, and social rewards at work

32 GENERATION ME AND THE CHANGING WORLD OF WORK

than Boomers did at the same age. GenMe is less organizations have started to implement flex-time
likely to value work that is interesting, helps others, and job sharing policies, it is not clear whether
or allows them to make friends on the job. The value GenMe is using these options and/or is satisfied
placed on extrinsic rewards such as money and status with them. Research should investigate whether
peaked with GenX, but was still high for GenMe. existing policies are successful in meeting GenMe’s
Overall, these results are consistent with the person- desire for work-life balance.
ality changes, demonstrating that younger genera- • With younger generations higher in external
tions desire work-life balance and leisure while still locus of control, organizations will need to discover
expecting a good salary. ways to motivate these employees. Further research
should determine if this externality extends to work
Conclusion domains.
At base, all employees face the same challenges: • With the increase in anxiety and depression
Developing skills, enjoying one’s job, being suc- among the younger generation, organizations will
cessful, and balancing work with family and a per- need to have a better understanding of the factors
sonal life. Yet the way employees approach these driving this increase so as to introduce successful
challenges is likely to vary by generation as a result programs to help mitigate the associated risks.
of the gradual changes in personality traits and work
attitudes that have occurred from one generation to Implications for Practice
the next. Among the younger generation, whom we • As Baby Boomers retire and Generation Me
label GenMe, there has been an increase in self- begins to enter the workforce, generational
esteem and narcissism, an increase in external locus differences will be a important aspect of diversity in
of control, a decrease in the need for social approval, today’s workplace and this will have immediate
an increase in anxiety and depression, and an consequences for managers.
increase in the importance of time outside of work. • Leadership styles may need to become more
As a result, GenMe is likely to focus on developing democratic.
skills that can be transferred from job to job, expect • Younger generations expect flexibility.
work to be fulfilling and to be promoted quickly, Managers should find ways to focus on results
and favor flexibility and even more work-life balance rather than hours worked on a certain schedule.
than previous generations. • Generation Me may require more guidance
As older workers continue to leave the workplace, and mentoring to help them discover the best
today’s organizations will be confronted with the career path.
significant task of retaining young employees. Step • Work-life balance will become an increasingly
one will be to identify the gap between the high important issue, even for young employees without
expectations of GenMe and the realities of the work- families. To retain talent, businesses should
place and step two will be to identify ways it can be continue to implement policies that allow for
bridged through the implementation of new policies work-life balance but also consider the business
and practices and management style. Helping goals of the organization.
GenMe find work-life balance, as well as fostering
an environment that acknowledges and appreciates
the generational differences among employees, will References
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 PART
2
Positive Organizational
Leadership
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 C H A P T E R

4 What is Authentic Leadership Development?

Bruce J. Avolio, Jakari Griffith, Tara S. Wernsing, and Fred O. Walumbwa

Abstract
We provide a review of the authentic leadership development (ALD) literature and suggest a framework
that articulates how the strategies, contexts, and particular self-regulated behaviors increase individual
agentic capacities to move toward higher levels of development. Research on the heritability of leadership
and history of leadership interventions is offered to explore the factors involved in genuine leadership
development. We describe the science and practice of authentic leadership development to stimulate
further research and intervention design.

Keywords: authentic leadership, leadership development, psychological capital, self-awareness

Approximately five years ago, we started a discussion The starting point described above led us to ask a
at the University of Nebraska on what constituted number of interesting questions. For example, to
‘‘the roots’’ of good, positive leadership as well as its what degree is authentic leadership born versus
development. We suggested that good, positive lea- made? How much of what is labeled leadership
dership could be in the form of transformational, development is really genuinely developing leader-
visionary, or charismatic, as well as simply in the ship, versus training skills that may or may not result
form of a good, positive, directive, or participative in improved leadership capacity or performance?
leader. By good, we meant ‘‘genuine’’ leadership, and If we can operationally define what constitutes
we have spent these past five years exploring what authentic leadership and its development, can each
constituted this root construct both conceptually then be validly measured? How would the addition
and empirically. of authentic leadership and its development differ
The question of what constituted good leadership from what we already know about other positive
eventually drove us to examine what has been dis- forms of leadership? And finally, how important is
cussed since the earliest period of human develop- the follower and context to the development of
ment and labeled ‘‘authenticity’’ (Harter, 2002), and authentic leadership?
now, with respect to leadership, as authentic leader- We set out to address the born versus made issue
ship. Furthermore, we added the idea that we were up front, because if all leadership were born, the
not only interested in what constituted being an mission of the Global Leadership Institute to focus
authentic leader, but more importantly, what actu- on what constituted authentic or genuine leadership
ally develops such leaders and leadership. So today, development would be moot. We examined this
we must ask those reading this chapter to ‘‘not drop question with two lines of research still emerging as
the development’’ from our discussion of authentic we write this chapter. The first line of research
leadership. Indeed, to understand what constitutes examined the heritability of leadership and its emer-
authentic leadership, we must understand what gence. The second was a comprehensive meta-
causes it to occur, and in so doing, we must explore analysis of all leadership research produced over the
how it develops. last 100 years that focused on intervening to change

39
leadership in some way. We summarize the findings were relatively short in duration, such as less than
of each investigation below. one day. By converting difference scores (e.g.,
between trained versus not trained participants)
Heritability and Leadership into probability values representing the success of
Working with colleagues at the University of the intervention, we estimated the average positive
Minnesota, we began to explore the most commonly impact for leadership interventions was about
asked question with regards to leadership: are leaders 65/35, where 50/50 would be considered a chance
born or made? We pursued a line of research exam- finding or effect. Ironically, the biggest difference we
ining identical versus fraternal twins for whom there found in terms of the positive impact of these inter-
was extensive longitudinal data on their lives, ventions (i.e., 78/22), was associated with a line of
careers, personality, experiences, and most impor- research on the Pygmalion effect or self-fulfilling
tantly emergence into leadership roles across a fifty- prophecy. For example, in this line of research, the
year time span. experimenters told the experimental intervention
What we discovered across several investigations group leader he/she had smarter and more able
is that the emergence of individuals into leadership employees versus another group whose leader was
roles is approximately two-thirds due to life experi- informed he/she had average employees.
ences/environmental factors and one-third due to Over a twenty-year time period, researchers of
heritability. This finding has now been replicated the Pygmalion effect consistently found that the
several times for both men and women by research group leaders who thought they had better
conducted in the institute and by other colleagues. employees also obtained better group performance,
Using leadership emergence as our criterion (i.e., even though each group was randomly assigned to
defined as leadership roles and formal positions the conditions (see Eden et al., 2000). Perhaps most
held), as opposed to ratings of leadership style, we ironic in this line of research is a set of investigations
repeatedly found that the context one grows up in where the researchers tried to train leaders on how to
and later works in, is more important than herit- use positive expectations of others (i.e., Pygmalion)
ability to leadership emergence. Readers are referred or of oneself (i.e., the Galatea effect) to improve
to several sources to get more details on how these performance, and these efforts repeatedly failed.
studies were conducted, how the data were analyzed, In other words, attempts by researchers to train
and how we came to the conclusions discussed here leaders to raise expectations regarding follower
(see for example, Arvey, Zhang, Avolio, & Kruger, performance in order to increase follower perfor-
2007; Avolio, Rotundo & Walumbwa, 2009). mance were unsuccessful (i.e., Pygmalion), as were
attempts to train them to raise self-expectations
Leadership Interventions regarding their own performance (i.e., Galatea).
To determine whether leadership interventions Consequently, when they told participants the
that included training or experimental studies to truth, it didn’t work! This led our research team to
manipulate leadership actually impacted leadership believe that perhaps figuring out what constitutes
and performance, the Institute undertook a qualita- ‘‘authentic’’ leadership development was a fruitful
tive and then meta-analytic 100-year review of the area to continue to invest our energies as an institute.
extant literature on leadership interventions. Over a We believed that by genuinely developing leader-
two-year period, research associates in the institute ship, we could have the highest positive impact on
reviewed all of the literature on leadership interven- leadership performance. We also ascertained from
tions, compiled a database to examine differences the Pygmalion research that getting people to
due to leadership training and experimental inter- believe, for example, that leadership is something
ventions, and then conducted a comprehensive one can develop is a very important mechanism for
meta-analysis to draw conclusions regarding whether developing leadership. As a result, we have begun to
leadership interventions made a significant positive study the impact of such expectations on leadership
difference (see Avolio & Luthans, 2006, for more development and performance. This work integrates
details on this study, as well as Reichard & Avolio, Dweck’s research on mindsets (Dweck, 2006),
2005). which shows that those who believe that people
The quantitative review of this literature pro- can change their basic beliefs and attributes (such
duced, regardless of the theory being investigated, as intelligence and morality) are more likely to per-
evidence that leadership interventions generally had severe through perceived challenges and failures
a positive impact, even when those interventions (Dweck, 1999; Dweck & Leggett, 1988). Thus, it

40 WHAT IS AUTHENTIC LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT?

is likely that one’s personal beliefs about leadership 1992; Brutus, Fleenor, & Tisak, 1999; Church,
developability will impact leadership style, pursuit of 1997; Fletcher, 1997; Tornow, 1993). From a lea-
developmental opportunities, and effectiveness. dership development perspective, leader self-
awareness involves a focus on learning about one’s
Authentic Leadership Development own leadership capabilities including strengths,
Authentic leadership has been defined as being limitations, and developmental goals (Avolio,
self-aware, genuine, optimistic, balanced in terms of Wernsing, Chan, & Griffith, 2007). In the earliest
decision-making, and transparent in enacting leader- writings on authentic leadership development (see
ship that energizes people, builds trust, and rein- Luthans & Avolio, 2003), this type of learning was
forces and develops the leaders’ and followers’ described as being initiated through external trigger
strengths and self-awareness (Avolio & Luthans, moments or events, which cause the leader to focus
2006). More specifically, Avolio and colleagues inward and evaluate core beliefs, assumptions, and
defined authentic leaders as those ‘‘who are deeply perceptions of the world around them, including
aware of how they think and behave and are per- what has been termed the leader’s working self-con-
ceived by others as being aware of their own and cept (Avolio & Hannah, 2008). Currently, we are
others’ values/moral perspective, knowledge, and exploring the nature of these trigger events (both
strengths’’ (Avolio, Luthans, & Walumbwa, 2004, positive and negative) that ‘‘initiate’’ such self-
p. 4 as cited by Avolio, Gardner, Walumbwa, awareness in leaders.
Luthans, & May, 2004).
Trigger Events
Self-Awareness Trigger events induce self-focused attention and
A core component of authentic leadership is self-assessment, and activate a leader’s working self-
leader self-awareness, which requires leaders to concept. Markus and Wurf (1987) use the term
understand themselves and how their perceptions ‘‘working self-concept’’ to emphasize the dynamic
drive their assessments of people and situations and active nature of one’s self-concept, thoughts
encountered. Leaders who invest time and energy and beliefs about the self, and further suggest
in learning their strengths and perceptual biases help working self-concepts are changeable. Whereas a
themselves see situations more clearly, and this capa- leader’s self-concept and identity generally refer to
city better equips them to adapt to new challenges the same construct, trigger events refer to a momen-
and opportunities quickly and effectively. Essentially tary shift in attention to a particular aspect of
a self-aware leader spends time in adaptive self- one’s self-concept made salient by current cues
reflection, which fuels further development and per- (Baumeister, 1998; Swann, Chang-Schneider, &
formance as a leader. Adaptive self-reflection is a McClarty, 2007; Wofford & Goodwin, 1994).
process of constructively and critically examining By definition, trigger events operate as a form of
one’s own beliefs and behaviors in order to learn surprising feedback from other people, major life
more about one’s leadership (Dewey, 1910; Schön, events, or a perceived success/failure (Avolio et al.,
1983), whereas maladaptive self-reflection involves 2007). These events trigger a ‘‘moment’’ or state of
repetitive self-judgment and rumination. Therefore, self-focused attention, which we believe sparks an
greater leader self-awareness offers opportunities for opportunity for longer term self-reflective activity
enhancing the leader’s self-knowledge and capacities conducive to what we refer to as authentic leadership
for self-regulation (Avolio, 2005; Van Velsor & development. Trigger moments may occur naturally
Drath, 2004). Without such awareness, the leader as the leader interacts with others during leadership
can become fixed on one script that prescribes how episodes, or they may be induced through self-
to handle certain events, lacking the capacity to reflection and formal training exercises (Roberts,
interrupt automatic patterns of behaviors and Dutton, Spreitzer, Heaphy, & Quinn, 2005).
responses. New circumstances and challenges may
require new responses that aren’t obvious at first, Self-Reflection
and a lack of self-awareness, self-reflection, and self- Self-reflection is a ‘‘conscious and deliberate pro-
regulation will likely degrade the leader’s perfor- cess of thinking about and interpreting experience in
mance over time. order to learn from it. The process is not automatic,
Prior research on self-awareness provides but takes place in response to experience and with a
evidence that it is important in determining leader definite purpose’’ (Getliffe, 1996, p. 362). When a
behaviors and performance (Atwater & Yammarino, leader reflects on his/her experiences, it can lead to

AVOLIO, GRIFFITH, WERNSING, WALUMBWA 41

new appreciations and understanding about the self span. Specifically, in life history interviews con-
(Boud, Keogh, & Walker, 1985). Self-reflection can ducted by our staff, leaders oftentimes recounted a
vary along a continuum ranging from adaptive to significant role model, mentor, or coach who facili-
maladaptive reflective processing. Adaptive self- tated their adaptive self-reflection as they worked
reflection refers to a constructive process involving through and learned from various life trigger
patterns of thinking and emotions associated with events. If one did not know about these early trig-
openness, positivity, and a learning perspective. gers, it would be easy to attribute the leader’s leader-
Adaptive self-reflection arises out of an intrinsic ship capabilities as something born and inherent.
curiosity and non-judgmental desire to learn about
oneself as a leader (Trapnell & Campbell, 1999). Developmental Readiness
On the other hand, maladaptive self-reflection Another component gaining additional attention
involves more destructive ways of thinking that in the leadership development process is a construct
depletes energy resources by generating negative emo- we have labeled developmental readiness (Hannah &
tions such as anxiety, self-doubt, and fear-based Lester, 2009; Avolio & Hannah, 2008).
actions (Mor & Winquist, 2002). Rumination is a Developmental readiness refers to a level of capacity,
particular form of maladaptive self-reflection sensitivity, and motivational orientation to develop-
described as an intrusion of undesired thoughts and mental aspects of one’s environment (Avolio et al.,
emotions that interferes with healthy psychological 2007). Specifically, it is made up of components such
functioning (Nolen-Hoeksema, 1991). Rumination as goal orientation (Dweck, 1986) and motivation to
involves a repetitive re-examining of an issue coupled develop leadership (Maurer & Lippstreau, 2005).
with higher levels of resistance and negative judgment Those leaders higher in developmental readiness will
(i.e., wishing it were different than it is with no focus embrace trigger events as learning opportunities.
on resolving by changing oneself). Psychologists are Conversely, those individuals low in developmental
routinely able to elicit rumination through instruc- readiness will engage in greater discounting and
tions to get subjects to focus on the ‘‘things that went defensiveness when faced with challenging trigger
wrong’’ with a situation (e.g., Watkins & Teasdale, events. Events that are perceived to threaten one’s
2004). Alternatively, we expect that we can elicit current beliefs and ego/esteem needs may result in
adaptive self-reflection through positive develop- actions directed toward protecting the self and how it
mental interventions that focus on what is ‘‘right’’ appears to others, which reduces the chance a person
with situations and people. For instance, we know will learn from the trigger event by investing energy in
that adaptive processing occurs when a leader engages considering the broader implications it has for one’s
in non-judgmental observations of their own own leadership capacities. More learning can occur
thoughts, attitudes, perceptions, behaviors, and the when energy is invested in expanding one’s mindset
outcomes of those behaviors (Avolio, 2005). By facil- through ‘‘trying on’’ new beliefs about ways of
itating adaptive self-reflection, we expect individual thinking about the self as a leader, and even challen-
leaders to gain better insight into the way he/she ging one’s own core values habitual behaviors, rather
thinks about his/her leadership and the positive than defending current perceptions and actions.
impact it can have on others. Leaders who are high in developmental readiness
Adaptive self-reflection especially occurs under embrace trigger events and even experience more
conditions where the leader is either promoting his trigger events since they seek out positive learning
or her self-development or has the support of others opportunities for leadership development. They are
to do so. In situations where support and/or internal instigators of such triggers and recipients of their
motivation are not evident, maladaptive rumination effects.
may arise and result in a downward spiral of negative
emotions, thus lessening or retarding leadership
development progress. In this definition and the Core Positive Psychological Resources
process described above, we clearly take the position Perhaps the most well researched component of
that authentic leadership is ‘‘made’’ to a large extent the authentic leadership construct is the positivity
by the conditions set in the context in which indivi- dimension that stresses authentic leaders are gener-
duals develop. Indeed, we suggest that many of the ally positive about who they are and what they can
attributions made about certain leaders being ‘‘born’’ accomplish through others (Avolio & Gardner,
to lead, can be traced back to the learning they 2005). Not surprisingly, this has become part of a
extracted from trigger events earlier in their life separate line of research into what constitutes a

42 WHAT IS AUTHENTIC LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT?

leader’s positive resources or psychological capital defined optimists as those who make internal,
described in more detail below. stable, and global attributions regarding positive
The initial model that was proposed by Luthans events (e.g., task accomplishment) and those who
and Avolio (2003) suggests that a leader’s positive attribute external, unstable, and specific reasons for
resources contribute to authentic leadership devel- negative events (e.g., a missed deadline). Thus, opti-
opment. Specifically, higher levels of positivity have mism is associated with a positive outcome, outlook
been tied to leaders’ engaging in adaptive self- or attribution of events, which includes positive
reflection. The process of developing these positive emotions and motivation, and has the caveat of
resources can occur through becoming more self- also being realistic about the outcome (Luthans,
aware of one’s current levels of confidence, opti- 2002a).
mism, hope, and resilience. Resilience describes how individuals sustain and
Luthans and Avolio (2003) suggest that by bounce back from problems and adversity to attain
focusing attention on how one exhibits positive success (see Luthans, 2002a, 2002b; Luthans et al.,
leadership behaviors day in and day out, leaders 2007). Resilience is defined as the positive psycho-
can spark self-reflection and subsequent changes in logical ‘‘capacity to rebound or bounce back from
behaviors. For example, if a leader is unable or adversity, conflict, failure, or even positive events,
unwilling to recognize how low levels of confidence progress, and increased responsibility’’ (Luthans,
or optimism might affect their behavior, they are 2002, p. 702).’’ Empirical studies have shown that
more likely to continue to act in ways that discou- positive emotions may enhance resilience in the face
rage their followers’ confidence, engagement, and of negative events, thus reflecting its state-like
performance, thus diminishing not only the leader’s quality (Tugade, Fredrickson, & Barrett, 2004).
development, but the followers as well. Thus, we Hope is defined as a positive motivational state
view promotion of adaptive self-reflection, self- based on a sense of agency and pathways (Snyder,
awareness, and subsequent development of core Sympson, Ybasco, Borders, Babyak, & Higgins,
positive psychological resources as being an integral 1996). The agency component of hope can be
part of what we refer to as authentic leadership thought of as the will to accomplish the intended
development, and describe specific components of or desired effect (Snyder, 2000; Snyder et al., 1996).
these core resources next. The pathways of hope include not only identifying
Psychological resource theory suggests that con- goals and sub-goals, but also alternative ways to
structs such as confidence, optimism, hope and resi- reach those goals. In other words, hope constitutes
lience can be best described as personal ‘‘resources’’ the will to succeed, and the ability to identify, clarify
or ‘‘energies’’ that can affect the actions and behavior and pursue the way to success (Snyder, 2000).
of individuals (Hobfoll, 2002). Building on this Researchers have conceptualized these positive
definition, researchers have suggested that one’s psychological resources as existing on a continuum
core psychological resources, or capital, coalesce as that ranges from ‘‘state-like’’ to ‘‘trait-like’’ (Avolio &
a set of positive psychological resources, which can Luthans, 2006; Luthans & Avolio, 2003; Luthans
result in an ‘‘upward spiral effect’’ and human ‘‘flour- et al., 2007). Whereas constructs that are trait-based,
ishing’’ (Fredrickson & Joiner, 2002). For example, such as intelligence, are considered stable and very
individuals who are high in core positive psycholo- difficult to change, state-based constructs, such as
gical resources show greater ability to be successful at trust, are more malleable and can be developed
difficult tasks, have a more positive perspective on (Judge & Bono, 2001; Judge, Van Vianen, & De
their work, and will be able to recover more rapidly Pater, 2004; Seligman, Steen, Park, & Peterson,
from debilitating events or challenging circum- 2005), which coincides with our emphasis on
stances (Luthans, Avolio, Avey, & Norman, 2007). authentic leadership development itself being a
We suggest that these sorts of resources are exactly ‘‘state-like’’ higher-order construct. Given recent
what are needed when a leader confronts a signifi- empirical work that has shown that these positive
cant developmental challenge that can advance their psychological resources can be authentically devel-
effectiveness. oped with focused training interventions (Carver &
Confidence is defined as having the self-efficacy Scheier, 2003; Luthans, Avey, Avolio, Norman, &
required to take on challenges and put in the neces- Combs, 2006; Masten & Reed, 2002), researchers
sary effort to succeed at various tasks. Optimism have concluded that the overall core positive psycho-
involves making a positive reference about suc- logical construct is ‘‘state-like’’ (i.e., capable of
ceeding now and in the future. Seligman (1998) change and open to development).

AVOLIO, GRIFFITH, WERNSING, WALUMBWA 43

 With the categorization of these positive development of authentic leadership at individual,
resources as being ‘‘state-like,’’ researchers have group and ultimately organizational levels.
begun to investigate the effects of developing them
among leaders, and nearly all of these studies provide Reciprocal and Reinforcing Effects of
evidence for successful results. For example, recent Authentic Leadership Development
studies have shown that leaders who are high in these As indicated above, most authentic leadership
core positive psychological resources promote higher research has focused on how the leader impacts
follower satisfaction and commitment (Luthans followers’ development and positive work climates.
et al., 2006; Luthans, Avolio, Walumbwa, & Li, From this perspective, research has generally con-
2005). In addition, development of these positive cluded authentic leaders communicate shared values
resource capacities has been shown to increase per- through open and transparent communications,
formance outcomes (e.g., see Luthans et al., 2005; balanced processing and a developed sense of aware-
Peterson & Luthans, 2003), decrease absenteeism ness of leadership identity and strengths. However,
(Avey, Patera, & West, 2006), and produce a posi- the link between leaders and followers that makes
tive return on development, i.e., more resources authentic leadership developmental is found in the
gained than lost in training (Luthans et al., 2006). practices they use to prompt followers to engage in
What future research needs to focus on next is not their own development, which consequently should
only how these resources, once developed, can also reinforce the development of the leader.
impact leadership development, but also how they In practical terms, to the extent followers are devel-
can enhance the development of followers. oped to be more authentic, we would expect it
would be far easier to develop authentic leaders and
ultimately authentic leadership. How? We would
Authentic Followership expect an authentic follower to engage with his or
Authentic leaders develop what Gardner, Avolio, her leader in a transparent way, offering feedback
Luthans, May, and Walumbwa (2005) have and advice that could be instructive to the leader’s
described as authentic followers, who display the development, as the reverse would be true for the
parallel qualities of their leaders and who together leader working with his or her follower.
develop an engaged, highly positive, ethical organi- Going further into explaining how authentic lea-
zational climate. Thus any leadership intervention ders develop authentic followers, and vise versa,
that sets out to develop authentic leadership will prior cognitive psychology research indicates the
inadvertently develop positive leadership in fol- (leader or follower’s) self-concept contains knowl-
lowers, and more generally a positive ethical climate edge structures sensitive to situational constraints
in which leaders and followers can engage one (Markus & Wurf, 1987). Lord and Brown (2004)
another. Through increased self-awareness, self- contend the self-concept cues appropriate
regulation, and positive modeling, authentic leaders self-relevant knowledge and behavioral options
foster the development of authenticity in followers by narrowing the number of cognitive and
(Avolio & Luthans, 2006; Luthans & Avolio, 2003). affective reactions available in a given situation.
Indeed, the Gardner et al. (2005) model depicts the Additionally, researchers have proposed that the
positive leadership development of leaders and fol- self-concept exists as a confederation of views of
lowers as being reciprocal and forming the basis for one’s self, including a feared, actual, and possible
creating a positive and engaged leadership climate. self. These different self concepts contribute to how
We adopt this view in terms of tying together a person adapts to changing environmental circum-
what constitutes the process of authentic leadership stances and conditions (Markus & Wurf, 1987),
development. Specifically, we believe that the devel- which is in part the basis for explaining how one’s
opment of authentic leadership entails a reciprocal development occurs.
and iterative process, where leaders and followers We expect these different views of the self play a
develop each other in terms of self-awareness, ethical mediating role through which a leader’s influence
reasoning, balanced processing, transparency and with followers is expressed. Indeed, as leaders
positivity. The basic premise we have now adopted attempt to influence followers, certain aspects of
is that authentic leadership development never their followers’ self-concept will become more
occurs in isolation and that through trigger events salient depending on the demands in the current
and working with more authentic followers, we situation. For example, a leader may promote a
believe it is possible to accelerate the positive strengths-based strategy for development,

44 WHAT IS AUTHENTIC LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT?

recommending that followers consider working on proximal motivational mechanisms that trigger self-
what they are good at, and engaging each other’s esteem protecting motives. This type of contrast may
strengths. Using this strategy, the leader may be able also support further exploration, growth and devel-
to shift the followers from fearing what they are not opment, particularly when it strengthens connec-
capable of doing, to focusing more explicitly on what tions from individual strengths to circumstances
they already have strengths to accomplish. This sort that are of specific value in the moment. By exten-
of developmental process may be extended to the sion, we argue that authentic leaders and followers
degree the follower applies this sort of developmental are careful to provide feedback that references
lens to furthering their development, as well as the strengths with respect to achievement of a possible
development of others over time. In this example, self. This supports an accelerated developmental
we see each person working to create a more positive process because it lays down the guidelines for
possible self for themselves and for those around what Oyserman and colleagues (2004) have termed
them based on a strengths focus. behavioral plans or what Schank and Abelson (1977)
Authentic leadership development concerns a have called scripts with respect to development.
particular regulatory focus on behaviors and strate- With these guidelines or scripts in place, we suggest
gies that have relevance for developing a better pos- that authentic leadership can be accelerated as the
sible self. Specifically, it can be used to facilitate pathways are more clearly defined and the support to
interactions that produce a reinforcing cycle of pursue the pathways is present.
development in terms of reaching one’s next possible In turn, gains in positive self-knowledge result in
self. Markus and Wurf (1987) explain that social optimistic perceptions that people can more easily
interactions such as those associated with leadership redefine their capabilities, and that in turn generates
influence processes are governed by cybernetic pro- positive emotions. Fredrickson’s (2001) broaden
cesses, which refer to automatic feedback loops in and build theory of positive emotions suggests that
which one’s current self is compared to more prox- positive emotions create upward spirals that can
imal or distal views of the self, and through this impact organizational learning, as well as leader
comparison process individuals are motivated to and follower development. According to the
change (Carver & Scheier, 1998). We also know theory, positive emotions broaden people’s momen-
that one’s possible selves are sensitive to the sur- tary thought-action repertoires and build their
rounding contextual cues, which once activated can enduring personal resources. Personal resources
have a potent influence on leadership development. refer to the outcomes of enhanced physical, intellec-
Specifically, if leaders and followers help to direct tual, and social pursuits. These broadened momen-
one another’s focus to aspects corresponding to their tary thought-action repertoires relate strongly with
best possible selves, then there is a strong likelihood enhanced cognitive and attention capacities that
that each will incorporate those aspects into their produce more creative actions and intellectual pur-
development and pursue a path toward more gen- suits (Fredrickson & Losada, 2005).
uine or authentic leadership development. Again, Building on Fredrickson’s conceptual work, we
this process emphasizes how positivity can impact argue that strengths-based feedback combined with
the shift from the leader or follower’s actual to positive resources can build pathways for how one
possible self, leading to what Lord, Brown, and can develop leaders and followers faster to their full
Freiberg (1999) have referred to as a self-develop- potential. The underlying assumption supporting
ment focus. this perspective is the idea that the ability to arouse
Extending this line of reasoning, we know that possible self-concepts in such a way as to elicit posi-
the effects of feedback can enhance the probability of tive emotions is an important way to reinforce and
one’s being attracted to or repelled from their pos- create opportunities for further development. For
sible selves. Lord and Brown (2004) offered a frame- example, Dasborough and Ashkanasy (2002)
work that suggested leaders affect motivational argued that leaders serve as a primary source of feed-
processes of followers through feedback. When feed- back and rewards, while contributing significantly to
back is linked to possible selves it subsequently the quality and content of their follower emotional
affects the distal motivational states by linking cur- states. With this base, we need to consider now
rent behaviors and strategies to the corresponding (1) how to elicit positive emotions, (2) how such
desired possible self. Given that authentic leaders are emotions reinforce the identification of strengths,
sensitive to the selves of others, they see contrasts and (3) how those strengths, once identified, provide
against self and salient standards as activating meaning in terms of what one could become as a

AVOLIO, GRIFFITH, WERNSING, WALUMBWA 45

leader and a follower. This could lead to future leadership factor (Walumbwa, Avolio, Gardner,
research that focuses on using a positive and Wernsing, & Peterson, 2008), which we describe
strengths-based approach as a faster and more effec- in more detail below.
tive starting point for authentic leadership develop-
ment, as opposed to the more common ‘‘deficit’’ Authentic Leadership Questionnaire (ALQ)
leadership developmental models that start with While organizational constituents have certain
what’s missing in the leader and then attempt expectations about the attributes they require of
to fix it. great leaders, there is a strong focus on integrity
and ethical behaviors as core leadership qualities
Foundational Measure of Authentic (Burns, 1978; Ciulla, 2004). Unfortunately, rarely
Leadership do they have valid psychometric tools for measuring
As already noted, the concept of authentic lea- these behaviors. Simply expecting leaders to be more
dership has evolved over the past five years. authentic and to demonstrate integrity or moral
Luthans and Avolio (2003, p. 243) initially behavior will be ineffective if tools for measuring
defined authentic leadership ‘‘as a process that these qualities are lacking. Walumbwa et al. (2008)
draws from both positive psychological capacities undertook an extensive literature review on
and a highly developed organizational context, authentic leadership theory and development to pro-
which results in both greater self-awareness and duce a measure of authentic leadership. The authors
self-regulated positive behaviors on the part of also held discussions with leadership scholars around
leaders and associates, fostering positive self- the world through two global summits to come up
development.’’ However, some scholars (e.g., with the components that constitute authentic lea-
Cooper, Scandura, & Schriesheim, 2005; dership. Based on their extensive literature review
Sparrowe, 2005) expressed concerns with this and group discussions, Walumbwa et al. initially
initial definition. This led to the offering of alter- identified five domains they considered appropriate
native definitions, revisions, and modifications to as constituting the authentic leadership construct.
what constitutes authentic leadership versus These domains included self-awareness, relational
authentic leadership development. For example, transparency, balanced information processing,
Ilies, Morgeson, and Nahrgang (2005), drawing internalized regulatory processing, and moral
on Kernis’s (Kernis, 2003a, 2003b; Kernis & perspective.
Goldman, 2005) conception of authenticity, pro- To assess the adequacy of these domain cate-
posed a four-component model of authentic lea- gories, they asked a group of doctoral students,
dership that included self-awareness, unbiased who had several years of work experience and exten-
processing, authentic behavior/acting, and sive experience conducting research on leadership, to
authentic relational orientation. Gardner, Avolio, describe a person they regarded as an authentic
Luthans, May, and Walumbwa (2005) proposed a leader. Based on feedback from doctoral students
self-based model of authentic leader and follower and discussion among research team members, the
development, focusing on the core self-awareness final domains were reduced to four, with the last two
and self-regulation components of authentic lea- combined into one—internalized moral perspective.
dership. In their conceptualization, Gardner et al. This reduction was done because the descriptions
(2005) suggested several distinguishing features failed to differentiate between these two categories.
associated with authentic self-regulation processes,
including internalized regulation, balanced proces- Authentic Leadership Components
sing of information, authentic behavior, and rela- Definitions for the four components of authentic
tional transparency. Although there have been leadership development follow. First, the term
some differences in what prior authors have sug- balanced processing was used by Gardner et al.
gested as being the components of authentic lea- (2005) to describe a relatively unbiased form of
dership, there are currently four components that information processing that is less susceptible to
best capture what is described in the various con- denials, distortions, and exaggerations. In other
ceptual models referred to above. The most recent words, balanced processing represents leaders who
version of the survey instrument that has been objectively analyze all relevant information before
designed and validated with respect to measuring coming to a decision. Internalized moral perspective
authentic leadership now includes four refers to leader behaviors that are guided by internal
dimensions, representing a higher-order authentic moral standards and values as opposed to those

46 WHAT IS AUTHENTIC LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT?

behaviors based on external pressure such as peers positive predictor of self-reported organizational citi-
and organizational and societal pressures. Relational zenship behavior, organizational commitment, and
transparency involves leader behaviors that are aimed satisfaction with supervisor beyond other positive
at promoting trust through disclosures that include forms of leadership such as ethical and transforma-
openly sharing information and expressions of the tional leadership. This core factor of authentic lea-
leader’s true thoughts and feelings, while simulta- dership significantly related to self-reported job
neously trying to minimize displays of inappropriate satisfaction and supervisor-rated job performance,
emotions, and presenting one’s genuine as opposed controlling for organizational climate. Finally,
to ‘‘fake’’ self through selective disclosures (Gardner Walumbwa et al. showed that authentic leadership
et al., 2005). Finally, self-awareness refers to a leader’s was positively correlated with evaluations of both
ability to understand his or her strengths and weak- transformational and ethical leadership. However,
nesses, and cognizant of the impact they have on these authors were also able to confirm that
others. authentic leadership had discriminant validity with
respect to these more established leadership
Empirical Evidence for the Construct constructs.
Validity of the ALQ
Walumbwa et al. (2008) empirically demon- Next Steps in Authentic Leadership
strated that the dimensions of balanced processing, Development Research
internalized moral perspective, relational transpar- Campbell, Trapnell, Heine, Katz, Lavellee, and
ency, and self-awareness come together to constitute Lehmann (1996) argued that exploring the validity
the domain of a higher-order construct of authentic of a construct involves demonstrating that the pat-
leadership, similar to the higher order construct tern of correlations with other construct measures
representing transformational leadership (Avolio, adheres to theoretical explanations. Although
2005). Having identified the factors comprising Walumbwa et al. (2008) took the initial step of
the authentic leadership construct, Walumbwa differentiating the authentic leadership construct
et al. (2008) theoretically derived 35 items, which from ethical and transformational leadership, addi-
were later refined to 22 items that best captured the tional research is needed that investigates the rela-
proposed content areas. These 22 items were then tionship between authentic leadership with other
subjected to a content validity assessment by doc- related leadership variables such as empowering lea-
toral students, faculty, and research team members. dership behavior, servant leadership, and spiritual
Six items were not properly classified under any of leadership to determine whether each of these con-
the four a priori categories and were dropped, structs makes a unique contribution to the literature.
resulting in a final pool of 16 items: balanced proces- Research also is needed that extends the nomological
sing (3 items), internalized moral perspective network of authentic leadership construct with addi-
(4 items), relational transparency (5 items), and tional outcome variables, such as workplace safety,
self-awareness (4 items). employee engagement, well-being, and productive
Next, using five separate samples obtained from and counterproductive behaviors.
China, Kenya, and the United States (U.S.), Similarly, given the potential implications of
Walumbwa et al. (2008) empirically validated the authentic leadership in terms of fostering positive
above four dimensions as constituting authentic lea- work outcomes (Avolio & Luthans, 2006), research
dership. Specifically, the authors found that a core is needed that not only examines the antecedents
authentic leadership factor could be extracted from and consequences of authentic leadership, but also
the relationships among the four dimensions of examines the core mechanisms that have been pro-
balanced processing, internalized moral perspective, posed in prior theoretical discussions about
relational transparency, and self-awareness. The authentic leadership. For example, why do some
internal reliability (Cronbach’s alpha) for each of leaders choose to engage in authentic leadership
the sub-dimensions was as follows: self-awareness: behaviors and others do not? What are the causal
.92; relational transparency .87; internalized moral mechanisms by which authentic leadership exerts its
perspective .76; and balanced processing .81 for the influence on important individual and organiza-
U.S. respondents. Similar reliabilities were found for tional outcomes such as organizational citizenship
the remaining samples. behaviors, task engagement, performance, and
Walumbwa et al. (2008) reported that this core employee well-being? Without a deeper under-
factor of authentic leadership was a significant standing of the antecedents and the causal

AVOLIO, GRIFFITH, WERNSING, WALUMBWA 47

mechanisms underlying the relationship between constructs were related to leadership potential across
authentic leadership behaviors and outcomes, it samples taken from different cultural environments.
may be difficult to translate leader behavior into Focusing on individual differences, Ilies, Gerhardt,
follower action, as well as to promote its and Lee (2004) showed that only 20% of leadership
development. emergence was explained by genetic influences,
mediated by the Big Five personality traits, with
Generalizing Across Cultures the rest potentially being associated with the context
Researchers have also proposed that leadership is in which leadership takes place.
both a universal and a culture specific phenomenon We suggest that to fully understand how
(Walumbwa, Lawler, & Avolio, 2007). Javidan, authentic leadership is perceived and how it affects
House, Dorfman, Gupta, and Hanges (2004, followers, researchers will need to incorporate indi-
p. 728) argued, ‘‘to the extent that cultures are vidual differences and contextual factors into their
different, the culturally implicit theory will be dif- line of research on authentic leadership and its devel-
ferent.’’ Therefore, it is possible that the overall opment. Such studies could be done within the same
effects of authentic leadership might be stronger in firm or across different industries and cultures
cultures where people follow more equity or egali- whereby data is collected from multiple samples
tarian norms, such as the United States. and sources or include experimental and quasi-
On the other hand, individuals coming from experimental designs in which key variables are
high power distance cultures may also establish lim- manipulated and causality assessed under more
ited and remote personal connections with their tightly controlled circumstances.
leaders, and feel that ‘‘those at the top of the social In addition, alternative methods to assessing
structure (e.g., their supervisors) are very different authentic leadership, including observational
from those at the bottom’’ (Triandis, 1995, p. 30). methods and content coding of speeches, e-mail,
This suggests that authentic leaders may have to and other correspondence, which would build on
form different personal relationships with followers and extend the results produced by Walumbwa et al.
who maintain high power distance beliefs to assure (2008) are certainly worth future research attention.
that they will be willing—if necessary—to step up Of course, the effects of other contextual factors,
and challenge what they believe to be the right or such as how information technology mediates lea-
ethical way to operate in their organizations. dership in virtual teams, may also deserve empirical
Moreover, we would suspect establishing higher attention. The impact of working virtually will
levels of transparency in leader and follower relation- become more relevant to investigations of authentic
ships, a core component of authentic leadership, leadership and its development, as managers are
may be more or less difficult depending on the increasingly asked to work across cultural borders
cultural values in which that leadership is embedded. and within culturally diverse communities around
For example, in cultures emphasizing a strong sense the globe.
of independence where individual thoughts and
emotions are of value, we might find that followers Directions for Research
easily embrace a leader being transparent because of The research on organizational and cultural
what it communicates about the leader’s personal effects on authentic leadership perceptions is an
attributes. However, in collectivistic societies where important area for future research. Not only does it
the desire to maintain group harmony is of primary provide a potential multi-level approach to investi-
concern, we might find that transparency is less gating the effects of authentic leadership, it also has
important because the desires and goals of the the potential to enhance our understanding of the
group predominate. The idea is that although spe- environmental influences in both the formation of
cific dimensions of authentic leadership may be authentic and ethical judgments as well as in mod-
culturally and contextually relative in terms of their erating reactions to authentic leadership behaviors.
importance and value, the overall construct reflects a This multi-level approach will require researchers to
developmental process by which leaders develop collect data from employees who could be clustered
themselves and consider the development of the in meaningful groups (e.g., teams, departments,
constituents they lead. organizations). Yammarino, Dionne, Chun, and
Related to our above discussion on cultural con- Dansereau (2005, p. 10) also noted that ‘‘relatively
text, Chan and Drasgow (2001) demonstrated that a few studies in any of the areas of leadership research
number of cognitive, personality, and motivational have addressed levels-of-analysis issues appropriately

48 WHAT IS AUTHENTIC LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT?

in theory, measurement, data analysis, and inference sense of genuineness to the study and practice of
drawing.’’ These assertions lead to the following leadership development.
potential research questions:
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 C H A P T E R
Enablers of a Positive Strategy: Positively
5 Deviant Leadership

Lynn Perry Wooten and Kim S. Cameron

Abstract
Positive organizational scholarship (POS) provides a new lens for analyzing how organizations conceive,
implement, and sustain a strategy. The chapter examines how positively deviant leadership influences
strategy through interpersonal relationships, energizing the organization, virtuous behavior, positive
emotions, and the creation of meaningful work environments. Positively deviant leadership is grounded in
specific processes, techniques, and practices that leaders use to produce extraordinary results. Using the
Competing Values Framework as a guide, some of the enablers of a positive strategy are identified. These
enablers are represented by contradictory orientations of flexibility and stability and of internal maintenance
and external positioning. These orientations form four quadrants representing the organizational capabilities
of collaborate, create, compete, and control. Positively deviant leadership competencies that lead to positive
strategy are highlighted in each quadrant. The chapter concludes with future research directions and
implications for the practice of enabling a positive strategy.

Keywords: strategy, positive organizational scholarship, positively deviant leadership

Positive Organizational Scholarship (POS) is an Sonenshein, 2003). Researchers studying POS ask
umbrella term that provides an organizing frame questions such as, ‘‘What works in organizations that
for current and future research on positive states, are ‘positively deviant,’ What can we learn from
outcomes, and generative mechanisms in indivi- these organizations, and What are the enablers of
duals, dyads, groups, organizations, and societies positively deviant performance?’’
(Cameron, Dutton, & Quinn, 2003; Roberts, In this chapter, we extend the POS paradigm to
2006). POS is an alternative to the problem-solving the field of strategy. We propose that POS provides
approach for understanding the behavior of organi- organizational scholars and practitioners with a new
zations and its members (Cameron & Lavine, 2006). lens for exploring how organizations conceive,
Whereas a problem-solving approach focuses on the implement, and sustain a strategy. This strategy
identification of problems that prevent organizations focuses on positive processes which deviate from
from reaching optimal functioning, and then gener- industry norms and result in positive outcomes.
ates solutions to address these deficits, POS empha- The traditional view of strategy describes it as a
sizes understanding the positive enablers of central, integrated plan for achieving objectives that
extraordinary successes in organizations and how define approaches for managing resources, custo-
these dynamics can be sustained. Furthermore, mers, competition, and growth (Thompson,
POS examines positively deviant behavior of orga- Strickland, & Gamble, 2007; Hambrick &
nizations that intentionally depart from the norms of Fredrickson, 2005). An ideal strategy is internally
a referent group in an honorable way (Spreitzer & focused, but also must take into account external

53
opportunities and threats as it defines criteria of positively deviant behavior. Positively deviant lea-
effectiveness. dership places an emphasis on what elevates indivi-
From a POS perspective, the core of a strategy is a duals and systems (in addition to what diminishes
set of processes that enables collective resourceful- them), what goes right in organizations (in addition
ness and generative dynamics that lead to positive to what goes wrong), what is life-giving (in addition
states or outcomes (Barney, 1986; Glynn & Dutton, to what is problematic or life-depleting), what is
2007). Collective resourcefulness refers to the experienced as good (in addition to what is bad or
manner in which organizational members work arduous), and what is inspiring (in addition to what
together to develop and implement strategy is depressing). Positively deviant leadership is asso-
(Barney & Hansen, 1994; Grant, 2002). Through ciated with the promotion of outcomes such as
collective resourcefulness, organizational members interpersonal flourishing, meaningful work, virtuous
invest time and energy in practices and policies behaviors, positive emotions, and energizing net-
which enhance the organization’s likelihood of posi- works (Cameron, Dutton, & Quinn, 2003).
tive outcomes. Generative dynamics refer to an orga- The role of positively deviant leadership as an
nization’s activities that create, develop, transform, enabler of strategy has been discussed in several
multiply, and leverage its resources and capabilities different literatures. For example, the literature on
(Collis & Montgomery, 1997; Glynn & Dutton, appreciative inquiry highlights the role of leaders in
2007). The creation and development of new cap- working with organizational members to co-create a
abilities makes it possible for organizations to vision-based strategy. It advocates an open dialogue
respond to changing environments with value- that clarifies the organization’s purpose, identifies
enhancing strategies (Eisenhardt & Martin, 2000; current progress and future potential of the organi-
Zollo & Winters, 2002). zation, and employs partnering as a strategy to miti-
In the following sections of this chapter, we inte- gate threats and weaknesses (Cooperrider &
grate the POS perspective into a strategic manage- Whiteny, 2005; Sutherland & Stavros, 2003; Saint
ment frame by providing theoretical support and & Stavros, 2007).
case studies. We begin by advocating that although The corporate social responsibility literature pro-
strategic management is a collective process usually poses that leaders with a skill set include thinking
involving all organizational members, it is the strategically about complex problems and to challenge
responsibility of leadership to facilitate the imple- old assumptions are the most likely to promote social
mentation of an organization’s strategy and use it as a good beyond legal requirements and shareholders’
generative mechanism for developing new capabil- demands (Waldman, Siegel, & Javidan, 2006).
ities (Selznick, 1984; Boal & Hooijberg, 2000). The Research on ethics and virtues designates leaders as
chapter then explores the enablers that leaders can the moral compass for directing strategic actions that
use to produce a positive strategy. not only adhere to ethical rules, but also foster ethos,
values, and a meaningful purpose (Caza, Barker, &
Positively Deviant Leaders as Strategic Cameron, 2004; Grojean, Resick, Dickson, & Smith,
Guides 2004). Meyerson & Scully’s (1995) research on ‘‘tem-
Magazine covers trumpet both the remarkable pered radicals’’ in organizations highlights the signifi-
achievements of leaders and their failures. This is cance of leaders who are strongly committed to a
because ‘‘leadership’’ is frequently the explanation cause, community, or ideology and who create
given when an organization’s strategy produces suc- change through incremental, semi-strategic reforms
cessful results or fails. If a strategy succeeds, leaders and spontaneous expressions of authenticity.
are given hero status, but leaders become the scape- However, for the most part, these streams of
goat when the strategy fails. Rationally speaking, literature neglect positively deviant leadership as a
most people recognize that there is more to organi- distinct strategic competency. Figure 5.1 illustrates
zational success than the leader’s behavior (Polodny, the distinctiveness of positively deviant leadership.
Khurana, & Hill-Popper, 2005). Nevertheless, lea- The continuum depicts a state of normal or expected
dership is one of the most important influences in performance in the middle, with a condition of
helping organizations perform well (Whetten & negatively deviant performance on the left and a
Cameron, 2007; Cameron & Lavine, 2006). Few state of positively deviant performance on the
organizations succeed without capable leadership. right. Negative and positive deviance refers to aber-
Stated differently, leaders can play an important rations from normal functioning, problematic on
role in enabling extraordinary performance through one end and virtuous on the other end.

54 ENABLERS OF A POSITIVE STRATEGY

 Negative Deviance Normal Positive Deviance

Individual:
Physiological Illness Health Vitality
Psychological Illness Health Flow

Organizational:
Economics Unprofitable Profitable Generous
Effectiveness Ineffective Effective Excellent
Efficiency Inefficient Efficient Extraordinary
Quality Error-prone Reliable Perfect
Ethics Unethical Ethical Benevolent
Relationships Harmful Helpful Honoring
Adaptation Threat-rigidity Coping Flourishing

Figure 5.1 A deviance continuum. Source: Cameron, K. S., Dutton, J. E., and Quinn, R. E. (Eds.) (2003). Positive organizational
scholarship. San Francisco: Barrett-Koehler.

At the individual level, the figure shows a condition Systematic studies of positively deviant leadership
of physiological and psychological illness on the left enabling affirmative, uplifting, and elevating pro-
and healthy functioning in the middle (i.e., the cesses and outcomes have not been the norm. These
absence of illness). On the right side is positive topics have been overwhelmed by investigations of
deviance, which may be illustrated by olympic competitive dynamics, winning in the marketplace,
levels of physical fitness or psychological flow achieving profitability, increasing shareholder value,
(Csikszentmihalyi, 1990; Fredrickson, 1998). At and satisfying stockholders’ demands (Cameron,
the organizational level, the figure portrays condi- Dutton, & Quinn, 2003).
tions ranging from ineffective, inefficient, and error- Positively deviant leadership does not ignore
prone performance on the left side, to effective, non-positive conditions or situations when mistakes,
efficient, and reliable performance in the middle. crises, difficulties, or problems are present. Most of
On the right side is extraordinarily positive, virtuous, the time organizations fall short of achieving the best
or exceptional organizational performance. The they can be or fail to fulfill their optimal potential.
extreme right and left points on the continuum are Many positive outcomes are stimulated by trials and
qualitatively distinct from the center point. They do difficulties. For example, innovation, resilience,
not merely represent a greater or lesser quantity of breakthrough thinking, and adaptation are fre-
the middle attributes. quently motivated primarily by negative occur-
For the most part, organizational strategy is rences. Moreover, when organizations should fail
designed to foster predictable and non-deviant per- but survive, when they bounce back but should
formance (Parsons, 1951; March & Simon, 1958; not, when they remain flexible and agile but ought
Porter, 1980). Wall Street is quick to punish com- to become rigid, they demonstrate positive deviance
panies that are unpredictable in their performance. (Weick, 2003). Positively deviant leadership focuses
Consequently, leaders create specific strategies to on enabling such positive dynamics and fostering
define what is expected of employees, clarify what extraordinary performance in either conducive or
the goals are, and specify the procedures to be challenging circumstances.
employed to achieve these goals. A strategy of this The way positively deviant strategic leadership
type is intended to reduce variation and deviance. differs from more traditional strategic leadership
Most organizations and most leaders focus on main- can be highlighted by three examples. One is the
taining performance in the middle of the continuum CEO of Timberland—a manufacturer of shoes,
(Prahalad & Hamel, 1994). boots, and apparel—who decided to increase sub-
Positively deviant leadership, on the other hand, is stantially the percentage of organically grown cotton
distinct by focusing on enabling performance on the in its clothes in order to reduce exposure to carcino-
positive end of the continuum. It is oriented toward gens by migrant workers who pick corporately
affirmative, extraordinary, virtuous performance grown cotton. In the absence of any customer
which, by definition, is positively deviant. demand or regulatory encouragement, and at a

WOOTEN, CAMERON 55
substantial expense to the company’s bottom line, discussions of strategic leadership which appear in
CEO Mark Schwartz made this decision as a matter the academic literature—(good reviews have been
of conscience. The intent of Timberland was to try produced by Boal & Hooijberg, 2001;Yukl,
to benefit a disadvantaged group of individuals who Gordon, & Taber, 2003)—and which focus on
would likely never be customers but whose lives task behavior (e.g., planning, clarifying objectives,
could be made better by Timberland’s change in monitoring operations), relational behavior (pro-
policy (Schwartz, 2002). Schwartz’s strategy was viding support, recognition, development, consulta-
based on achieving a virtuous outcome rather than tion, and empowerment), and change behavior
merely obtaining an elevated financial performance. (monitoring the environment, proposing innova-
Second, when Roy Vagelos was vice president of tions, taking risks).
research at Merck Corporation, his unit created a
compound originally intended as an animal anti- Enablers of Positive Strategies
biotic. Scientists accidentally discovered that it was Understanding what positively deviant strategic
an effective cure for river blindness, a disease leadership is, of course, is not enough to achieve
affecting millions of people in the developing world positive outcomes. Successful positively deviant stra-
(Labarre, 1998). Vagelos knew there was no hope of tegic leadership is always grounded in specific
recovering the invested capital needed to create a ‘‘enablers.’’ Enablers are the processes, techniques,
human application, and Merck would increase or practices that leaders use to produce extraordinary
costs associated with any unanticipated side effects. results, and a large number of possibilities exist
Despite the protests of his advisers, when Vagelos (Cameron & Lavine, 2006). To identify which
became CEO, Merck developed the drug and then enablers are appropriate in which circumstances, a
spent hundreds of millions of dollars to distribute it framework or lens is often helpful. One well-
to people who were at risk of contracting the disease researched framework that helps identify appropriate
(Bollier, 1996). Vagelos’ positively deviant strategic enablers of a positive strategy is the Competing
leadership extended beyond the usual competitive Values Framework (Rohrbaugh & Quinn, 1983;
strategy to achieve virtuous outcomes, and it resulted Cameron & Quinn, 2006; Cameron, Quinn,
in Merck’s drug for river blindness helping 19 mil- DeGraff, & Thakor, 2006).
lion people. The company was widely praised for its Originally, the Competing Values Framework
distribution of the drug, and unexpectedly Merck’s was developed as an attempt to explain effective
unique strategy for its use of science became an asset organizational performance (Cameron, 1986). It
for attracting star researchers for employees. was a product of empirical research on the major
A third example is CEO Fred Keller, who indicators of effective organizations. It has since been
founded Cascade, a plastic manufacturing company. expanded to include research on a whole host of
Keller lists the following in order of importance in topics including shareholder value, mergers and
his organization: #1 people, #2 planet, and #3 acquisitions, approaches to learning, organizational
profits. At Cascade, the management of human culture, leadership competencies, organizational
capital is its number-one priority, and because of designs, communication styles, organizational vir-
this Keller advocates employee education and invol- tues, creativity, financial investments, and informa-
vement. Cascade’s signature program, Welfare-to- tion processing (Cameron, Quinn, DeGraff, &
Career (W2C) was inspired by Keller’s desire to Thakor, 2006). In each case, empirical research has
hire homeless people and provide a work environ- confirmed the robustness and applicability of the
ment that helps them achieve economic-sufficiency framework to a broad array of human and organiza-
through social support and education. As is the case tional phenomena.
at Timberland and Merck, strategic leadership at The Competing Values Framework maps orga-
Cascade focuses on virtuous outcomes which take nizing mechanisms and sense-making devices for
priority over the more traditional economic out- complicated situations by highlighting the com-
comes. Positively deviant strategic leadership, in peting and seemingly paradoxical requirements
other words, enables affirmative, uplifting, and ele- necessary for achieving high levels of excellence.
vating processes and outcomes in addition to, and in Thus, the Competing Values Framework serves as
priority over, pursuing economic advantages for the a guide for exploring the development and imple-
organization. mentation of enablers of positive strategies.
These brief examples help differentiate positively As illustrated in Figure 5.2, the Competing
deviant strategic leadership from the more common Values Framework organizes elements into four

56 ENABLERS OF A POSITIVE STRATEGY

 Long-term Individuality New
change flexibility change

Culture Type: CLAN Culture Type: ADHOCRACY

Orientation: COLLABORATE Orientation: CREATE
Leader Type: Facilitator Leader Type: Innovator
Mentor Entrepreneur
Teambuilder Visionary
Value Drivers: Commitment Value Drivers: Innovative outputs
Communication Transformation
Development Agility
Theory of Human development Theory of Innovativeness, vision,
Effectiveness: and high commitment Effectiveness: and constant change
produce effectiveness produce effectiveness
Internal External
Maintenance Positioning
Culture Type: HIERARCHY Culture Type: MARKET
Orientation: CONTROL Orientation: COMPETE
Leader Type: Coordinator Leader Type: Hard-driver
Monitor Competitor
Organizer Producer
Value Drivers: Efficiency Value Drivers: Market share
Timeliness Goal achievement
Consistency & Uniformity Profitability
Theory of Control and efficiency Theory of Aggressively competing
Effectiveness: with capable processes Effectiveness: and customer focus
produce effectiveness produce effectiveness

Incremental Stability Fast

change control Change

Figure 5.2 Comparing quadrants in the Competing Values Framework.

categories represented in a two-by-two matrix. It When the framework was first developed, labels
consists of two dimensions—one drawn vertically were borrowed from the organizational studies lit-
and the other drawn horizontally—resulting in erature to define each quadrant—Clan (upper left),
four quadrants. The vertical dimension represents Adhocracy (upper right), Market (lower right), and
the contradictory or competing orientations of flex- Hierarchy (lower left). These terms referred to the
ibility and stability. That is, some organizations can organizational forms that were described in the scho-
succeed at implementing a positive strategy through larly literature and formed the basis for many the-
change and adaptability; whereas other organizations ories about organizational effectiveness (Quinn &
achieve extraordinary results from a strategy that Cameron, 1983). However, the use of descriptive
emphasizes order and stability. The horizontal verbs often helps clarify the primary emphasis of
dimensions of the Competing Values Framework each quadrant—Collaborate (upper left Clan quad-
differentiate internal maintenance and the external rant), Create (upper right Adhocracy quadrant),
positioning of an organization. This dimension sug- Compete (lower right Market quadrant), and
gests that some organizations can flourish by Control (lower left Hierarchy quadrant), so they are
focusing on efficient internal processes—the ability also commonly used as quadrant labels.
to organize, reduce variations and errors, and mea- Past research has discovered that most organiza-
sure activities; whereas other organizations succeed tions adopt one or more of these quadrants as their
by maintaining a competitive external positioning rela- dominant pattern of organizational strategy
tive to customers and clients—the ability to compete (Cameron & Quinn, 2006). That is, their values,
successfully in the marketplace, create niches, and processes, decisions, and management practices are
satisfy external constituencies (Rohrbaugh & consistent with one or more of these quadrants. Each
Quinn, 1983; Quinn & Cameron, 1983; quadrant clarifies enablers that create positive strate-
Cameron, 1986). The key enablers explaining posi- gies, and in the next section, we apply the framework
tive strategies can be organized on the basis of four to elaborate the enablers of a positive strategy. We
quadrants of the Competing Values Framework use the Competing Values Model, in other words, as
(refer to Figure 5.2). a typology to group enablers of positive strategies.

WOOTEN, CAMERON 57
Grouping enablers helps identify the collective the right people on the bus. Employee turnover is
resourcefulness and generative dynamics that lead less than five percent, resulting in a cost savings for
to positive states or outcomes. Google and the retention of knowledge-based assets.
Wegman’s, the grocery story, is another company
The Clan or Collaborate Quadrant that uses its human resource management practices
Strategic behavior in the clan or collaborate quad- as a strategic enabler of positively deviant customer
rant centers on enablers focused on the management service excellence and corporate social responsibility.
of human capital and organizational culture (Ouchi, Wegman’s strategy is guided by the principle
1981). In this quadrant, leadership views human ‘‘Employees first, customers second,’’ with the pro-
development, empowerment, and the commitment mise that every day both employees and customers
of employees as a key resource and focuses on will receive the best management has to offer (Edler,
building an organizational strategy that capitalizes 2005). This philosophy demonstrates Wegman’s
on cohesion, consensus, and the satisfaction of group understanding of the correlation between com-
members through involvement (Jackson & Schuler, mitted employees and customer service. It began
2003; Bamberger & Meshoulam, 2000). The orga- with founder Robert Wegman’s practice of pro-
nization’s strategy succeeds because investments in viding high-end market salaries, healthcare benefits,
human and social capital take priority over financial a retirement plan, college scholarships, and extensive
capital, and these investments have been found to training for Wegman’s employees. In contrast to the
enhance financial and performance goals (Pfeffer, low-wage practice of the supermarket industry, and
1998). base-line union recommendations, Wegman’s
Enablers in this quadrant relate to how the orga- believes it is the ‘‘right thing to do’’ to provide its
nization recruits, motivates, develops, rewards, and employees with generous wages. Even the lowest
retains its human resource base. This is illustrated by level hourly employees can earn up to $23,576
Collin’s (2001) notion of ‘‘getting the right people (Ezzedeen, Hyde, & Laurin, 2006). Healthcare ben-
on the bus.’’ Recruiting the right people is important efits require the minimal employee contribution,
to positively deviant outcomes because if there is a fit and all employees are offered a 401(k) retirement
between employees’ goals and the organization’s plan (Demby, 2004). The college scholarships pro-
strategy, it engenders extra mile efforts, support for vided by Wegman’s to its employees also are evi-
the vision, and adaptability to change (O’Reilly, dence of this approach. For instance, in the
Chatman, & Caldwell, 1991; Chatman, 1991). Rochester, New York community, the goal of this
Moreover, employees are more collaborative with program is to reduce the high school dropout rate by
other organizational members when they are providing high-risk students with employment,
engaged in creating something great (Becker & mentors, and financial incentives. Notably, this pro-
Huselid, 1997; Pfeffer, 1998). gram reduced Wegman’s employee turnover in the
Take the case of Google’s unconventional Rochester area by 16%, and 80% of program parti-
recruitment culture that permeates the organization cipants graduate from high school and attend
and involves employees at all levels (Human college.
Resources Magazine, 2006). Its recruitment practices For organizations adopting clan-like strategies,
include numerous interviews and pre-employment training is an essential enabler because it builds
tests—such as the Google Lab Aptitude Test value-creating human capabilities (Cameron,
(GLAT), which tests a job candidate’s likelihood of Quinn, Degraff, & Thakor, 2006). Often this is
compatibility with the Google work environment accomplished through training programs that
(Shipman, 2006). Despite the rigor of the recruit- directly link educational goals with strategic out-
ment process, Google receives one million applicants comes. The appropriate training programs
a year and has built an incredible employee brand empower employees with the knowledge to make
(Sullivan, 2007). Google’s pre-employment testing effective decisions that are aligned with the organi-
enhances its attractiveness in the recruitment pool zation’s mission (Becker & Huselid, 1997).
since it suggests the specialness of working at Wegman’s extensive training programs also include
Google. Recruitment practices allow Google to knowledge-gathering trips to European cheese
increase the probability of getting the right people makers, French patisseries, and Napa Valley wine-
on the bus by pre-screening candidates for both skills ries with the purpose of cultivating employees’
and cultural fit. At Google, cultural fit is just as interest and knowledge of food and fine cuisine
important as talent. Thus, Google excels at keeping (Edler, 2005).

58 ENABLERS OF A POSITIVE STRATEGY

 Other Wegman training programs emphasize the founding stories and myths emphasize core values.
importance of making the customer happy. An inci- Linked together, City Year’s symbols, artifacts, and
dent that illustrates the level of customer service is an values create a culture for community impact, where
employee cooking a customer’s Thanksgiving turkey over the last two decades 10,400 Corps members
because her oven was too small. This training invest- have completed 16 million hours of service.
ment in ‘‘telepathic levels of customer service’’ has As these examples suggest, the strategies gener-
resulted in the Business Week Customer Service ated from clan enablers are intended to produce
Champs awards and exceptional revenue growth positively deviant outcomes by tapping into the
(McGregor, Jespersen, Tucker, & Foust, 2007; human potential of the workforce. Investing in
Prospero, 2004). human resource management, nurturing organiza-
Enablers in the clan quadrant not only include tional culture, and building effective long-term rela-
formal human resource management processes— tionships across organizational boundaries are often
such as recruitment, employee benefits, training, requirements for long-term success, and the compe-
and development—but also encompass building a tencies in the Clan or Collaborate quadrant are one
high-performing culture. Organizational culture pathway to achieve those ends.
refers to the shared values, artifacts, and assumptions
that define an organization’s ideology for solving The Adhocracy or Create Quadrant
problems, adapting to change, interacting with the The enablers in the adhocracy or create quadrant
external environment, and integrating internal focus on strategies that enable breakthrough change,
resources (Schein, 1985). Organizational culture innovative adaptation, and futuristic positioning by
develops over time and is passed through generations framing opportunities and challenges in relationship
of group members. It helps the organization visualize to the external environment (Cameron & Quinn,
its purpose and strategic rationale by affirming iden- 2006). Leadership emphasizes creativity, agility, and
tity and operating norms (Trice & Beyer, 1993). constant change. Employees are encouraged to inno-
Thus, organizational culture is another example of vate, take risks, and envision the future.
a clan enabler that facilitates the group process for Organizations that excel in this quadrant effectively
developing and implementing a positive strategy. handle discontinuity, change, and risk. Their orga-
This unfolds as the shared assumptions underpin- nizational culture values freedom of thought and
ning the culture help members decide where to action among employees so that rule breaking and
channel their energies and consistently repeat suc- stretching beyond barriers are common characteris-
cessful patterns of behavior. tics (DeGraff & Quinn, 2006). Organizational
The organizational culture of the nonprofit orga- effectiveness is associated with entrepreneurship,
nization City Year is an illustration of an organiza- vision, and flexibility. Hence, organizational mem-
tion culture used as a generative mechanism for its bers configure value chain activities with the goals of
positive strategy. City Year’s vision is that citizens of introducing new products or services, altering dis-
all ages and backgrounds will unite to serve their tribution or logistic systems to redefine industries,
community, nation, and world, and that one day the and developing new technologies (Porter, 1991;
most commonly asked question of an eighteen-year- O’Reilly & Tushman, 2007).
old will be, ‘‘Where are you going to do your service A key enabler of positive strategy in this quadrant
year’’ (City Year, 2006). To achieve this vision, the is an adhocracy structure. This structure can be
core of its strategy is the City Year Youth Service characterized as ‘‘tents rather than palaces’’ which
Corps, which is a one-year full-time community can be reconfigured when new circumstances arise
service program for youth between the ages of 17 (Cameron & Quinn, 2006). It is a complex and
and 24. City Year is strategic and deliberate about dynamic form of organizing that is often centered
creating a culture of common values (Crutchfield & on temporary teams (Mintzberg & McHugh, 1985).
Grant, 2008). City Year communicates its values This organizational form cuts across normal bureau-
through stories, rituals, and symbols that inspire at cratic lines to capture opportunities, solve problems,
a conscious and unconscious level. An example is the and get results (Waterman, 1992). Instead of
symbolism of the uniform that volunteers wear. It is bureaucracy, its constellation of work groups based
colored with red for idealism and multi-colored for on expertise, experience, and execution capabilities
diversity, and the starburst in the logo represents join forces to innovate (Mintzberg, 1979). Often
human energy, idealism, and potential with young these work groups are multi-disciplinary and group
people as a catalyst. In addition to the uniform, experts by both functional and market bases.

WOOTEN, CAMERON 59
 For instance, at Google the 20% work rule system for rewarding innovation. Thus, trusting
encourages employees to spend 20% of their time employees to continually innovate and make the
pursuing projects they dream up that will help the right decisions is a cornerstone of Quicken Loan’s
company (Lashinsky, 2007). The 20% rule is based organizational culture, and this ethos buffered the
on three tenets (Vise & Malseed, 2005). First, company from the sub-prime mortgage crisis while
Google’s leadership believes that for employees to they continued to innovate in the online segment of
be innovative, they need free time to explore. the industry (Levering & Moskowitz, 2008).
Second, employees are productive when they are The collective resourcefulness of the adhocracy/
working on things they see as important, feel passio- create quadrant produces positively deviant out-
nate about, or have invented. Third, the rule creates comes through innovative practices and mindset.
an opportunity for the sprouting of bottom-up inno- The enablers in this quadrant extend, transform,
vation. When applying the 20% rule, employees can multiply, and repurpose organizational capabilities
work on projects across organizational boundaries. into new assets so that organizations excel at being
Thus, for purposes of innovating, the rule brings pioneers or defenders (Glynn & Dutton, 2007).
together organizational members from different Companies leapfrog their competitors because the
functional areas and hierarchical levels. The 20% payoff of innovation is high when creating new
rule sparks the creativity of Google’s employees value, and they are willing to bear the risk of failure
and motivates them to come up with new products if the new idea or venture does not work (Cameron,
and ideas. Since Google takes these projects ser- Quinn, DeGraff, & Thakor, 2006). This is a bypro-
iously, employees believe their proposed projects duct of strategic experimentation and the ability to
have a realistic chance of being adopted. Google quickly learn from mistakes resulting in pioneers and
News, Gmail, and the Google Finance site all definers of industry sectors.
sprouted from the 20% time employees spent
working in adhocracies. The Market or Compete Quadrant
In addition to an adhocracy organizational struc- The market/compete quadrant represents the
ture, organizations that rely on this quadrant to classic conceptualization of competitive strategy
produce positive deviance value an entrepreneurial with a focus on external stakeholders (Porter,
work spirit. These organizations acknowledge the 1980). Strategic actions in this quadrant attempt to
benefits of extending beyond the entrepreneur as a produce positively deviant outcomes by being
sole proprietor. Instead, entrepreneurial behavior is aggressive and forceful in the pursuit of competitive-
encouraged in all different types of businesses and is ness (Cameron & Quinn, 2006). Organizations that
used to achieve strategic goals by putting organiza- excel in this quadrant emphasize and engender
tional members in a position to detect opportunities, achieving results as the primary objective. Speed is
training them to be able to do so, and rewarding an essential element in accomplishing goals and
them for doing so (Howard & Jarillo, 1990). The maintaining a competitive edge, so results-right-
positive energy generated from the entrepreneurial now is a typical expectation. Organizational mem-
spirit cascades into innovation that spreads bers are encouraged to ‘‘compete hard, move fast,
throughout the organization. and play to win,’’ and the culture rewards aggressive
Quicken Loans provides another example of an action, fast responses to competition, and customer
adhocracy. In recent years, Quicken Loans has orientation. Visible progress and the pressure to per-
experienced record-breaking performance in the form energize the culture of organizations that suc-
home mortgage industry, where most competitors ceed in this quadrant. Thus, positively deviant
are fighting for survival. Dan Gilbert, the company’s organizational behavior is motivated by performance
founder and chairman, attributes this success to ‘‘the metrics, such as market share, sales growth, and
removal of the red tape and bureaucracy that stifle profitability. The thrill of victory and the agony of
creativity and innovation and have instead built a defeat help motivate and focus on producing posi-
strong, entrepreneurial culture that encourages tively deviant outcomes.
people to think big and then rewards them for put- Implementing an abundance-based strategy in
ting their great ideas, large or small, into action’’ the market/compete quadrant focuses on value
(Quicken Loans, 2008). built around customer relationships and timely
The entrepreneurial spirit is reinforced by actions (Prahalad & Hamel, 1994). The company
empowering organizational members to take action 1-800-Got-Junk epitomizes an organization’s
when something should be fixed and a unique strategy that excels in this quadrant. This junk

60 ENABLERS OF A POSITIVE STRATEGY

hauling company was founded in 1989 by Brian The Hierarchy or Control Quadrant
Scudamore (Martin, 2003). He started with one In comparison to the clan/collaborate quadrant
truck, and by 2006 there were over 284 franchisees which focuses on human capital and internal
across Canada, the United States, and Australia and dynamics, the competencies for building positive
sales of $66.2 million (Industry Canada, 2009). strategies in the hierarchy/control quadrant also
Each aspect of the 1-800-Got-Junk’s strategy targets center on internal maintenance, but they emphasize
how the company can win against the typical local stability, predictability, and incremental change
hauler. (Cameron & Quinn, 2006). Strategic actions in
From the beginning, Scudamore realized the pro- this quadrant emphasize efficiency and carefully
blem with small business fragmentation in the junk controlled processes. Whereas a philosophy for
hauling industry and formulated an aggressive achieving positive deviance may employ the motto
strategy that blends old and new economy (Martin, ‘‘refine, reduce, and perfect,’’ the strategic goals in
2003). 1-800-Got-Junk transformed the traditional this quadrant are associated with capable processes,
junk hauling into a business of clean shiny trucks elimination of waste and redundancies, and perfect
that act as mobile billboards marketing the com- (defect free) performance. Examples of activities
pany’s services. Also, its competitive strategy has a relating to positive deviance in this quadrant include
strong focus on customer service with symbolic ges- quality enhancements such as statistical process con-
tures, such as uniformed drivers, on-time services, trol, cost and productivity improvements, reduction
and up-front rates. This is supported with a centra- in manufacturing cycle time, and efficiency
lized technological infrastructure for booking and enhancement measures. These activities help make
dispatching franchised trucks and benchmarking organizations function more smoothly and effi-
performance metrics. When franchisees log into ciently. A positive strategy emerges in the hierarchy
the system, they can calculate revenues per month, or control quadrant when failure is not an option—
the size of the average haul, or which neighborhoods as in industries such as medicine, nuclear power,
are producing the most jobs. In addition, franchisees military services, and air transportation—or in
are expected to develop targeted strategies for com- highly regulated or stable environments. Positive
peting in their local markets. Previous marketing deviance results primarily from increasing certainty,
strategies included ‘‘waves’’ in which they stand on predictability, and regularity, and by eliminating
busy traffic islands, donning blue clown wigs, anything that inhibits a perfect or error-free
waving to passing motorists, passing out ‘‘junk outcome.
food,’’ and junk motorcades. The clean-up of the Rocky Flats Nuclear Arsenal
Excelling in the market/compete quadrant is not is an example of positive deviance in this quadrant.
only limited to for-profit organizations. Recently An environmental engineering firm, CH2M Hill,
nonprofit organizations also have succeeded in was charged with the first-ever clean-up and closure
implementing the enablers of this quadrant. The of a nuclear weapons production facility in the
nonprofit organization Kaboom is an example of world, the Rocky Flats Nuclear Arsenal (Cameron
this. Kaboom’s mission is to create safe and healthy & Lavine, 2006). Leadership confronted a myriad of
playgrounds that will encourage development and seemingly unsolvable issues including unions,
improve the physical and social well-being of chil- ensuing grievances, resistance to change, environ-
dren. However, leadership at Kaboom realized the mental concerns, and public attack. An optimistic
difficulties of competing for grants and donors in the analysis estimated that the project would take 70
nonprofit sector. Instead, 90% of Kaboom’s busi- years and cost $36 billion to complete. Hence,
ness model is income driven. It generates revenues CH2M Hill’s mission seemed an impossible one to
by charging project management, supply, and licen- solve. Yet, amazingly, the project was completed in
sing for its playground systems. In addition, 10 years at $30 billion under budget. At the closure
Kaboom takes advantage of cause marketing pro- of Rocky Flats, the site was turned into a wildlife
grams by partnering with companies. It co-created refuge, and because of the project’s success, relation-
a children’s shoe collection that is sold by Stride Rite ships were enhanced with public and governmental
and the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream flavor, KaBerry stakeholders.
KaBOOM!. KaBerry KaBOOM! was the first This extraordinary positive outcome can at least
flavor named after a nonprofit, and the proceeds partly be explained by strategies implemented in the
from sale of this product raised enough funds to hierarchy or control quadrant. From the onset of the
build four playgrounds. project, there was specificity and clarity of the goals.

WOOTEN, CAMERON 61
Clear targets were communicated, including incre- community projects, such as free dental clinics and
mental timelines for every single task associated with campaigns to reduce teen drinking and smoking
the clean-up. This gave the workforce identifiable (Baldrige, 2002). Since 1999, SSMHC has exceeded
targets for closure and a system for establishing its charity care goal of contributing a minimum of 25
priorities. Complementary to goal setting, detailed percent of its operating margin.
planning was an essential enabler of Rocky Flat’s Both Rocky Flats and Baldrige National Quality
success. The planning involved simplification and Award healthcare systems demonstrate the enablers
activity-based cost accounting. For example, the list of the hierarchy/control quadrant. In this quadrant,
of more than 500 tasks needed to close Rocky Flats the catalyst for a positive strategy is structured,
were grouped into a smaller number of key activities planned processes that are constantly monitored
with detailed project management descriptions of and measured for organizational learning.
work scope, cost estimates, and time lines. This Moreover, the success of these organizations under-
project not only defined the task, but also empha- scores the significance of multiple stakeholders
sized objective performance measurements with sharing responsibility and accountability for extra-
milestones and systems for accountability. ordinary performance.
The pursuit of high standards of quality in the
healthcare industry is another illustration of using Conclusion
enablers in the hierarchy or control quadrant to In this chapter we present a lens for integrating
achieve positive deviance. The few healthcare sys- positive organizational scholarship (POS) with stra-
tems that have won the Malcolm Baldrige National tegic management. We began with the premise that
Quality Award in Health Care seek positive deviance strategic actions are rooted in a work culture that
through the quality of services they provide to enables collective resourcefulness and generative
patients and their community (Griffith & White, dynamics which result in positive outcomes. We
2005). Leaders take a disciplined and process-man- argued that leadership is essential in facilitating pro-
agement approach to ensuring that quality initiatives cesses where an organization’s strategy evolves into
are encompassed in every aspect of the organization’s positive outcomes. Positively deviant leaders enable
strategy and its systems (Ryan, 2006). Strategy extraordinary performance through their strategies
evolves from a continuous cyclical process of and behaviors. Complementary to leadership, we
defining, measuring, monitoring, and improving propose that certain types of enablers—processes,
quality initiatives (Ryan, 2004). This begins with techniques, and practices—produce a positive
very specific definitions of quality goals for work strategy. The Competing Values Framework helps
processes. Employees are educated on these goals organize those enablers, highlighting the tensions
through training sessions and continuous reminders. and trade-offs embedded within them.
At SSM Health Care for example, employees are This chapter presents several future directions for
provided with a ‘‘Passport’’ document that reinforces research and implications for practice. There is a
quality goals, and St Luke’s Hospital gives need to continue the dialogue between strategy and
employees a card listing ‘‘Very Important positive organizational scholarship. This will help
Principles’’ of quality (Griffith & White, 2005). To further integrate both streams of literature and
monitor progress, benchmarked scores are main- develop a theoretically grounded conceptualization
tained on multiple dimensions of performance with of positive strategy. In addition, future research
frequent reporting of the results so that employees should develop empirical constructs that can be
and managers know where they stand (Griffith & causally modeled to explain the antecedents and
White, 2002). Also, the measurement systems outcomes of a positive strategy, which will validate
enable members to identify areas for improvement the ideas we present in this chapter.
and to perfect clinical practices, human resource In the context of practice, there is a need to
management systems, and patient services. expose business students and leadership to the posi-
Furthermore, the learning from control mechanisms tive aspect of strategy by requiring them to explore
empowers these healthcare systems to contribute to strategy through a POS framing. This can be accom-
the health of the communities they serve and create plished through case studies, exercises, and tools.
impact-oriented partnership. Moreover, we encourage leadership to take respon-
For example, SSM Healthcare System uses the sibility for reflecting upon how they enable and
data it collects to address the health needs of the empower positive deviance in their organizations
communities its hospital serves. It sponsors multiple by evaluating their dominant work culture and

62 ENABLERS OF A POSITIVE STRATEGY

how it creates strategic value. Every organization has Cameron, K. S., Dutton, J. E., and Quinn, R. E. (Eds.). (2003).
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 C H A P T E R
Change and Its Leadership: The Role
6 of Positive Emotions

Malcolm Higgs

Abstract
The areas of change and leadership have received an enormous level of both academic and practitioner
attention during the last decade. This may be a consequence of the incessant pressures on organizations to
change in order to succeed in an increasingly complex and volatile environment. Against this background,
this chapter explores the challenges of change and recent research which illustrates how leaders can
impact on change in a way that increases the likelihood of successful implementation. The findings from this
research challenge much of the prevailing thinking. However, the chapter proposes that these findings
illustrate linkages with concepts drawn from the field of positive psychology. The discussion provides clear
evidence that supports the value of applying the concepts of positive psychology within the workplace.

Keywords: change, leadership, positive psychology, change success

The subjects of change and leadership have been the emotions) contribute to an understanding of
focus of an ever increasing level of both academic and approaches and practices which lead to successful
practitioner attention over the last twenty years. change;
Underpinning this has been the context in which 3. How the insights gained from the research
organizations have faced a relentless increase in pres- into successful change might be applied in practice.
sures leading to a need for significant changes not only In doing this examples from organizations already
to the way in which they operate but also to their core working with these insights will be explored;
business models. At the same time it has been widely 4. The process of inquiry into the factors
recognized that a large proportion of change initiatives underpinning change success is an ongoing
are unsuccessful; some researchers have suggested that journey. Building from the research insights in the
as many as seventy percent of change initiatives fail to chapter potentially fruitful areas for future research
achieve their intended goals (e.g., Beer & Nohria, will be identified; and
2000; Kotter, 1995). 5. The potential contribution of the research to
Against this background this chapter will explore: the development of more positive organizations and
more positive ways of working.
1. What we know about the causes of change
failures, the challenges faced, and, importantly, the
factors which lead to change success. In doing this What Do We Know About Change and Its
the significant importance of leadership practices Leadership?
and behaviors will be highlighted, together with As mentioned above according to many authors,
insights from recent research; up to seventy percent of change initiatives fail (e.g.,
2. The extent to which aspects of positive Kotter, 1995; Beer & Nohria, 2000). However
psychology (and in particular the role of positive there is a growing need for organizations to

67
implement major change to respond to a business Complexity and Change
environment which is becoming increasingly vola- It is evident that there is a growing realization
tile and complex (Carnall, 1999). So what are the that change is a complex process (e.g., Senge,
reasons for consistent failure and what leads to 1997; Pascale, 1999). More recent research and
success? writing have looked to the emerging field of com-
The problem of failure to manage change effec- plexity theory (e.g., Reynolds, 1987) and the asso-
tively is illustrated by Buchanan, Claydon and Doyle ciated development of the ‘‘new sciences’’ (e.g.,
(1999). They report the results of a survey, which Wheatley, 1994) as a source of understanding
showed that managers have neither the expertise nor change. Sammut-Bonnici and Wensley (2002)
capacity to implement change successfully and that recognize the difficulties of structured approaches
managing change according to textbook theory is to change and argue that research using evolu-
difficult. Stacey (1996) argues that the prevailing tionary theory (including complexity theory) may
theoretical paradigms are based on assumptions lead to greater insights. In addition, in applying
that: (1) managers can choose successful mutations evolutionary theory to organizational transforma-
in advance of environmental changes; (2) change is a tion, they draw an important distinction between
linear process; and (3) organizations are systems complicated systems and complex systems. They
tending to states of stable equilibrium. This para- point out that complicated systems are rich in
digm has a long history, perhaps beginning with detail whereas complex systems are rich in struc-
Lewin (1941), who proposed the classic three-stage ture. Building on this distinction, Lichtenstein
linear model of the change process. The centrality of (1996) proposes that the root of much of the
this ‘‘mental model’’ is illustrated by Kotter’s (1995) failure in change is that managers are trained to
study of the reasons for failure of major transforma- solve complicated problems rather than complex
tional initiatives. The causes of failure identified by ones. Thus managers view change as a problem
Kotter can readily be mapped onto Lewin’s three- which can be analyzed and then solved in a linear
stage model. or sequential manner. However, complex pro-
This view of change encompasses assumptions blems require managers to cope with dilemmas in
that change, because of its linearity, is a relatively the system rather than to arrive at definitive
straightforward process and that it can (and should) solutions.
be driven from the top of the organization and be From the above it is evident that the assumptions
implemented uniformly according to a detailed underlying change may be characterized as lying on
change plan (e.g., Duck, 2000; Kotter, 1995). two axes. One is concerned with the perception of
Stacey (1996) challenges the assumption of line- the complexity of change and the other with the
arity and suggests that change may in reality be a extent to which it is believed that change can be
more complex process. This view is shared by effected on a uniform basis or is seen as a more
others, whose approaches entail educating man- widely distributed as an activity. However, this
agers in a range of change theories, and involving view does tend to ignore the role of leadership
them more actively in the change process by equip- within change implementation.
ping them with practical tools (e.g., Conner, 1996;
Beer and Nohria, 2000). Although seeing change as
a more complex process this ‘‘school’’ retains the Leadership and Change
assumption that change can be implanted uni- It is beyond the scope of this chapter to attempt
formly throughout the organization. However, to summarize or explore the vast literature on leader-
this assumption of such a ‘‘one look’’ approach is ship. However, there is clear and growing evidence
widely challenged. Ramsett (1999) points out that that the role of leaders in the change process does
empirical research has demonstrated that strategic impact significantly on the success of change (e.g.,
intent–led change programs often have unpredict- Kotter, 1990, 1995; Conner, 1996; Higgs, 2003).
able outcomes generated by interactions within the The beliefs and mind-sets of leaders have been
network. Similarly, in the context of organizational shown to influence their orientation toward choices
culture change, Harris and Ogbonna (2002) pre- and approaches to problem solving. Thus it may be
sent empirical evidence demonstrating the failure implied that leader behaviors will influence their
of top-down change and the impact of unexpected approach to change and its implementation. It has
or unintended outcomes, resulting from interac- been asserted that the role and behaviors of leaders in
tions throughout the system. a change context per se has been an area which is

68 THE ROLE OF POSITIVE EMOTIONS

lacking in empirical research (Higgs & Rowland, change effectiveness. Taking these two points
2000). However, the transformational leadership together gives rise to the following research
model developed by Bass (1985) has been one questions:
which has been the subject of much empirical inves-
tigation. This stream of research does demonstrate 1. What approach to change management is
clear linkages between leader behaviors and a variety likely to be the most effective in today’s business
of ‘‘follower’’ behaviors and performance measures environment?
(Alimo-Metcalfe, 1995; Higgs, 2003). This 2. What leadership behaviors tend to be
research, which is primarily quantitative, does, how- associated with effective change management?
ever, fail to link directly with the change literature. 3. Are leadership behaviors related to the
Furthermore, there have been criticisms that this underlying assumptions within different approaches
highly quantitative approach fails to provide insights to change?
into the actual behaviors of leaders (e.g., Kouzes and
Posner, 1998; Kets de Vries, 1995). Those studies
Recent Research Studies
which have responded to this challenge have tended
In exploring these questions Higgs and Rowland
to conclude that for effective leadership there are a
(2005) have conducted a number of studies
relatively small number of broad areas of behavior
working with organizations on a collaborative
(e.g., challenging the status quo, enabling others to
basis. The studies entailed interviewing leaders
succeed, investing time in developing team mem-
within organizations and asking them to provide
bers) which are executed in somewhat differentiated
stories relating to changes with which they had
ways depending on the personality of the leader (e.g.,
been working. In the course of part of the research,
Goffee and Jones, 2000).
data was obtained from more than 50 leaders drawn
from some 19 organizations. In all, some 110
Summary change stories were gathered. The transcripts of
While, from the above, it is clear that successful these stories were analyzed in detail in order to
implementation of change is a difficult goal, there is identify the overall approach to change which had
relatively little research into what does lead to suc- been adopted and the leadership behaviors which
cessful change. Kotter’s seminal study in 1995 was were exhibited. In addition, information was col-
rooted in assumptions that change is linear and lected in relation to the success of the change and a
driven from the top. However, much of the research range of contextual factors (e.g., scope of the
challenges this assumption and proposes a more change, magnitude of the change, timescale
comprehensive way of categorizing and examining within which the change needed to be imple-
change. mented, etc.).
At the same time it is evident that the vast leader- In analyzing the approaches to change Higgs and
ship literature has not really explored the linkages Rowland (2005) identified four distinct approaches
between leadership behaviors, change models and which are shown in Figure 6.1.

Uniform
approach

Directive Change Master Change

“I can manage change” “I trust my people to solve things

Change as a with us” Change as a
predictable complex
phenomenon Self-Assembly Change Emergent Change phenomenon

“Launch enough initiatives “I can only create the

and something will stick” conditions for change to
happen”
Disseminated and
differentiated
approach

Figure 6.1 Change approaches.

HIGGS 69
 The characteristics of each approach are summar- • Informal networks are used to build
ized below: understanding and energy
• Work proceeds step by step—the whole
Directive Change
plan is not defined in advance
• ‘‘What’s to be done’’ is set top down and • The ‘‘hot spots’’ are identified where things
tightly controlled are ‘‘bubbling up’’ and made bigger.
• How to do it? People follow prescribed steps In order to explore the relationships between
and recipes approaches to change and its success in differing
• People are given the same messages from the contexts Higgs and Rowland (2005) analyzed the
center data both qualitatively and, by quantifying the coded
• Change is driven through separate projects data, statistically. The dominant findings were that:
• Little investment in building change skills
• 100% alignment—‘‘you’re in or you’re out’’ 1. change approaches, which tended to be
• Leader says—‘‘keep it simple—just do it’’ programmatic and were rooted in a viewpoint
• Engagement of people is to inform and get which saw change initiatives as linear, sequential
‘‘buy in.’’ and consequently predictable (i.e. Directive and
Self-Assembly), tended to fail in most contexts; and
Self-Assembly Change 2. approaches that recognized change as a
complex responsive process, and embedded this
• Centralized direction with detail and
recognition within the change process (i.e. Master
accountability left to local management
and Emergent), tended to be successful across most
• Standard tools and templates are handed out
contexts.
to the field for local implementation
• ‘‘Pick ’n mix’’—people can select what they In exploring these findings it is evident that a
need to do at local level significant shift, which occurs when moving from
• Content is defined, the process is up to the the more linear approach to change to the
individual employee approaches which work with complexity, is that
• Support teams and ‘‘help desks’’ are provided the dominant mind-set moves from ‘‘doing change
on how to implement. to’’ people to ‘‘doing change with’’ people. In this
respect it was notable from an analysis of the tran-
Master Change
scripts that change stories in which either the Master
• ‘‘What’s to be done’’ is set top down, tested or Emergent approach was dominant contained far
with others, and open to change fewer references to resistance to the change as an
• Change is guided by a common plan, agreed issue or barrier than in the Directive and Self-
projects, and consistent language Assembly stories. Resistance is a significant issue in
• People are involved to sense what’s going on change research and often seen as a major change
and build their responsibility for figuring things out barrier (Buchanan & Boddy, 1992; Carnall, 1999).
• Skills are built in leading change, including However, the findings from the above study indicate
how to help people through it that this is not universally the case. These points will
• Networks are established to build connections be discussed further later in this chapter.
across the organization Having explored change approaches, Higgs and
• Identify who’s important for the change—get Rowland (2005) examined the behaviors of the
and keep them on board. change leaders. In the course of this examination
they identified three core sets of behaviors, which
Emergent Change they described as:
• Within an overall purpose, the direction is 1. Shaping Behavior: the communication and
adjusted as people make sense of what’s needed actions of leaders related directly to the change;
• Leaders establish a few ‘‘big rules’’ that guide ‘‘making others accountable’’; ‘‘thinking about
what individuals do change’’; and ‘‘using an individual focus’’;
• People are then able to get on with things as 2. Framing Change: establishing starting points
they see fit for change; ‘‘designing and managing the journey’’;
• Change starts in a small way and builds from and ‘‘communicating guiding principles in the
there organization’’; and

70 THE ROLE OF POSITIVE EMOTIONS

 3. Creating Capacity: creating individual and behaviors (i.e., Framing and Creating) were posi-
organizational capabilities; and communication and tively related to success in most contexts.
making connections. Furthermore, when they examined the relationship
between leadership behaviors and change
More detailed illustrations of the behaviors asso- approaches they found that ‘‘Shaping’’ behaviors
ciated with each of these core groups are: tended to be more widely encountered within the
Shaping more programmatic approaches, whereas ‘‘Framing’’
and ‘‘Creating’’ were predominant behavior sets in
• Likes to be the ‘‘mover and shaker’’ approaches which were based on a recognition of
• Sets the pace for others to follow change as a complex phenomenon. To an extent,
• Expects others to do what they do these findings resonate with the studies of Stacey,
• Is personally expressive and persuasive who saw leadership as a complex responsive process
• Holds others accountable for delivering tasks and asserted that it is through a myriad of interper-
• Personally controls what gets done. sonal interactions that individuals within an organi-
zation cope with the complexity and uncertainty of
Framing
organizational life. In the same vein, he posits a view
• Works with others to create a vision and of leadership and a range of associated behaviors,
direction which resonates with the ‘‘Framing’’ and ‘‘Creating’’
• Helps others see why things need changing behavioral sets identified by Higgs and Rowland
and why there’s no going back (2005).
• Shares overall plan of what has to be done A final analysis of these studies identified that
• Gives people space to do what needs to those leaders who demonstrated a strong combi-
happen, within the business goals nation of Framing and Creating behaviors
• Seeks to change how things get done, not appeared to be particularly successful in most of
just what gets done. the change contexts examined. This finding led to
a further study involving nearly 60 leaders drawn
Creating from 30 organizations and over 100 change
• Develops people’s skills in implementing stories (Rowland & Higgs, 2008). While this
change study was designed in the same way as their
• Lets people know how they are doing and previous study their aim was to explore the leader-
coaches them to improve ship behaviors associated with change success in
• Gets people to work across organizational greater depth.
boundaries and along key processes Analyzing the data revealed four distinct sets of
• Makes sure the organization’s processes and ‘‘changing leadership’’ practice and behaviors. These
systems support the change. were:

In exploring the relationships between change 1. Attractor

approaches and behaviors, they found that • Connects with others at an emotional
level, embodies the future intent of the
1. Shaping behaviors were strongly related to a
organization.
Directive approach to change;
• Tunes in to day-to-day reality, sees themes
2. Framing behaviors were strongly related to a
and patterns that connect to a wider movement
Master approach to change; and
and from this creates a compelling story for the
3. Creating behaviors were strongly related to
organization.
Emergent change approaches.
• Uses this to set the context of how things fit
In looking at Self-Assembly change approaches, together, working the story into the life of the
they found that there was no clear dominance of any organization so that every conversation and
of the behavior sets. In exploring the links between decision ‘‘makes sense.’’
leadership behaviors and change success their ana- • Visibly works beyond personal ambition to
lyses demonstrated that leader-centric behaviors serve higher purpose, the organization, and its
(i.e., Shaping) had a negative impact on change wider community.
success in all of the contexts examined. On the • Is consciously aware of one’s own leadership
other hand, the more group- and systemic-focused and adapts this for a specific purpose.

HIGGS 71
 2. Edge and Tension groupings. Once again they found that Shaping
behaviors were negatively related to change success
• Tells it as it is—describes reality with respect in all contexts. While most of the four ‘‘changing
yet without compromise. leadership’’ practices showed some relationship to
• In times of turbulence, has constancy; does change success it was very notable that in the most
not withdraw from tough stuff; keeps people’s successful changes the leaders exhibited strong evi-
hands in the fire. dence of deploying all four of the practices and
• Can spot and challenge assumptions— behaviors. This led to a more detailed analysis of
creates discomfort by challenging existing the transcripts of these successful leaders. In doing
paradigms and disrupting habitual ways of doing this, Higgs and Rowland (2007) found a number of
things. notable behaviors which differentiated those leaders
• Sets the bar high and keeps it there— who deployed all four practices from others in the
stretches the goals and limits of what is possible. sample. These were:
• Does not compromise on talent—pays
attention to getting and keeping ‘‘A’’ players. 1. They understand and incorporate the wider
context: they lead upward and outward to create
3. Container space for the organization and catalyze energy for
• Sets and contracts boundaries, clear change
expectations, and hard rules so that people know 2. They build their leadership teams to think
what to operate on (performance expectations) and act for the whole: requiring them to step up and
and how they need to operate (values and back to hold a bigger space and be strategic,
behaviors). interdependent, and systemic—thereby creating an
• Is self-assured, confident, and takes a stand aligned, transforming energy at the top.
for one’s beliefs—is non-anxious in challenging 3. They work on the underlying system that
conditions. produces the performance outcomes: they show an
• Provides affirming and encouraging signals; intense ability to ‘‘tune in’’ to their organization, see
creates ownership, trust, and confidence. patterns, notice how things are said, not just what’s
• Makes it ‘‘safe’’ to say risky things and have being said, identify the few key assumptions and
the ‘‘hard to have conversations’’ via empathy and patterns that, if shifted, would transform
high quality dialogue skills. everything, and then take creative moves to make
• Creates alignment at the top to ensure those shifts.
consistency and constancy of approach. 4. They are then patient with people to make
the transition: while still keeping the change on
4. Creates movement course (others by contrast were passive, and just
stood back and waited)
• Demonstrates a commitment that 5. They display extremely high levels of self-
engenders trust, enabling the system to go to awareness: are able to sense the impact they have
new places, learn about itself, and act differently. on others, seek feedback and exchange on this, and
• Frees people to new possibilities through consciously use their presence in the organization to
making oneself vulnerable and open. create shifts (‘‘evidencing leadership’’).
• Understands what is happening in the 6. They set tangible measures for the change:
moment and breaks established patterns and they open up the system to share information and
structures in ways that create movement in the performance data to both ‘‘hold up the mirror’’ and
‘‘here and now.’’ catalyze people to take personal ownership for
• Powerfully inquires into ripe systemic issues improving things.
to enable deep change to happen.
• Creates time and space (including attending The overall picture, which emerges from the find-
to its physical quality) for transforming encounters. ings in these studies, appears to be one in which:
Overall they found that a combination of these 1. approaches to change which operate within
four factors accounted for around a half of the var- a framework which posits change as a complex
iance in success of changes in all of the contexts phenomenon (i.e., Master and Emergent) are
examined. In addition they also found further evi- more successful than approaches which adopt a
dence of Shaping behaviors in addition to these four more linear and sequential viewpoint (i.e.,

72 THE ROLE OF POSITIVE EMOTIONS

 Directive and Self-assembly). This finding is lar- 1. When the reason for the change is unclear.
gely supportive of the assertions of other Ambiguity (whether it is about costs, equipment, or
researchers who have critiqued the ‘‘program- jobs) can trigger negative reactions among employees.
matic’’ view of change (e.g., Stacey, 1996; 2. When those impacted by the change have not
Pettigrew, 2000) been consulted about the change and it is offered to
2. It has been argued that in a more complex them as a fait accompli.
change paradigm the role of leaders becomes sig- 3. When change threatens to modify established
nificant, particularly in terms of making judgments patterns of working relationships between people.
in relation to change approaches to be adopted 4. When communication about the change
(e.g., Stacey, 1996; Whittington et al, 1999). (purpose, scope, timetables, personnel, etc.) has
These findings do provide some evidence of a been inadequate. Employees need to know what is
relationship between change leadership and the going on especially if their jobs may be affected.
approach being adopted. This provides a degree of Informed employees tend to have higher levels of
support for these views. job satisfaction than uninformed ones.
3. The more effective leader behaviors identi- 5. When the benefits and rewards for making the
fied in this study tend to be more ‘‘enabling’’ change are not seen as adequate for the trouble
rather than shaping the behavior of the followers. involved.
Others have commented that in the more com- 6. When the change threatens jobs, power, and
plex context within which organizations are now status in an organization.
operating effective leadership is that which
enables others to implement strategic and related All too often the change imperative and related
changes (e.g., Colville and Murphy, 2006). The plans fail to allow for the personal transition of people.
need to move away from a leader-centric Resisters tend to be labeled as ‘‘bad people’’ and are
approach to change as contextual complexity frequently coerced into accepting the change. As a
increases is also argued by many researchers in result, required performance and contribution are
the field (e.g., Senge, 1997; Wheatley, 1994). rarely achieved and the levels of personal commitment
The findings from these studies provide further of the ‘‘resisters’’ decline. Many have suggested that
support for these views. working with resistance, rather than trying to over-
come it, is a more effective strategy (e.g., Higgs and
In broader writing on leadership this move to a Rowland, 2005; Carnall, 1999). This way of viewing
more enabling approach is seen to be related to the resistance places greater emphasis on understanding
emotional content of leader-follower exchange (e.g., the impact of how we approach change on the ulti-
Goleman, 1996; Higgs, 2003). Indeed, Goleman et mate effectiveness of its implementation.
al. (2002) highlight the significant role of ‘‘mood Furthermore it emphasizes the need to do change
contagion’’ in increasingly complex and volatile lea- with others rather than doing change to them.
dership contexts. This particular assertion provides a In reviewing writing on resistance to change, and
clear linkage to the next section of this chapter. experiences of practice, it is evident that change all too
often arouses negative reactions and emotions, fre-
How Does Positive Psychology Relate to quently underpinned by fear of loss—at the extreme,
Understanding Change Success? loss of job, but also loss of status, power, and pro-
The major challenge of resistance to change was spects are all manifestations of this. In addition,
highlighted above. This arises not only in the litera- adverse management reactions to ‘‘resisters’’ tends to
ture on change, but also in working with practicing arouse further negative emotions. When negative
managers and leaders (perhaps even more notably!). emotions are aroused in individuals they can readily
As Michael Hammer (Hammer & Champy, 1993) spread throughout groups, or even the organization as
commented in discussing the problems of success- a whole, through a process of mood contagion
fully implementing the changes associated with (Goleman, 1996).
Business Process Re-engineering, ‘‘People are the All too often the very way in which change is
problem!’’ He points out that in many change initia- positioned arouses negative emotions. For example,
tives we tend to forget the people. Kotter (1995) talks about our need to ‘‘create a
In exploring the nature and causes of resistance to burning platform’’ in order to catalyze change. This
change, the following have been identified as signif- does not exactly create a positive context within
icant factors (e.g., Buchanan & Boddy, 1992): which to approach change within an organization!

HIGGS 73
Furthermore, the conversations around the change as weaknesses and to promote well-being as well as
all too frequently focus on the limitations of the exploring the absence of ‘‘ill-being.’’ Thus, in the
organization, its people and the things they have context of change, this would suggest two core
been doing which are wrong (Higgs and Rowland, themes to focus on, these being:
2005).
1. an increased focus on strengths and positive
It is against this background that insights from
individual and organizational characteristics; and
the field of positive psychology may be valuable in
2. an increased understanding of the role of
developing an understanding of how we can imple-
positive emotions.
ment change more effectively. Much of our thinking
and practice has been significantly influenced by Within this frame it may be feasible to shift the
‘‘traditional’’ psychology, which is a ‘‘deficit’’ model paradigm within which we manage and lead
(Linley et al., 2006). The essence of the ‘‘traditional’’ change from that outlined above to:
frame is elegantly captured by Maslow (1970), who
1. Change is an integral aspect of the continuing
stated:
growth and development of an organization;
The science of psychology has been far more successful 2. Change is natural and offers new potential. A
on the negative than on the positive side. It has revealed ‘‘glass is half-full’’ mindset;
to us much about man’s shortcomings, his illness, his 3. We need to learn from what is working well;
sins, but little about his potentialities, his virtues, his 4. People can be energized to contribute to the
achievable aspirations, or his full psychological height. change;
It is as if psychology has voluntarily restricted itself to 5. People have a diverse range of strengths which
only half its rightful jurisdiction, and that, the darker, can be utilized; change involves facilitating others to
meaner half. (p. 42) deploy their strengths and contribute appropriately;
6. The behaviors required in the post-change
Resulting from this, the way in which we manage
context will emerge and be learned during peoples’
and lead change may be characterized by the
involvement in the process of change.
following:
In considering this change paradigm there are two
1. Change is viewed from a problem-focus. We
areas related to positive psychology which are useful
are not achieving what we need—what do we have to
to reflect on. These are (1) the use of Appreciative
change? Change represents an unwelcome
Inquiry; and (2) the role of positive emotions (the
interruption to business as usual;
former preceded the formulation of the positive
2. Change is bad news. A ‘‘glass is half-empty’’
psychology paradigm). Although examined sepa-
mindset;
rately below, they are clearly strongly interrelated
3. We need to critically evaluate what we have
and also link to the strengths-based view at both
been doing wrong;
individual and organizational level.
4. If we change things we will get resistance, we
have to manage this and change resistant behaviors;
Appreciative Inquiry
5. We have recruited and developed people to
The essence of Appreciative Inquiry is captured
behave in a certain way; change requires that as an
by a definition provided by Cooperrider & Whitney
organization we need to direct people to behave in a
(2000):
different way to achieve our business goals; and
6. Fundamentally we know what new behaviors The art and practice of asking questions that
are required and we can therefore develop people to strengthens a system’s capacity to apprehend,
acquire and use these new behaviors. anticipate and heighten positive potential. It centrally
involves the mobilisation of inquiry through the
The alternative to the traditional ‘‘deficit’’ model of
crafting of hundreds of unconditionally positive
psychology is encompassed within the positive psy-
questions.
chology paradigm, initially conceptualized by
Martin Seligman (1999). In his view there was a Appreciative Inquiry is a process for identifying,
need to redress this and to balance the ‘‘traditional’’ focusing, and releasing potential within the organi-
focus with exploration of, and building on, positive zation. At its core it seeks to make positive use of the
qualities. In essence, he maintained that this is not a complex networks within the organization and sees
new area of psychology but rather a change in per- the people as having potentially valuable views,
spective which includes the study of strengths as well being trustworthy, and having a need to be

74 THE ROLE OF POSITIVE EMOTIONS

empowered. Appreciative Inquiry seeks to find the positive emotions can result in greater appreciation
elements in the organizational system which are well of the ‘‘big picture’’; willingness to experiment with
and finding ways to deploy these strengths in a way new behaviors; increased flexibility and innovation;
which supports the goals of the change. At its sim- enhanced understanding of, and ability to cope with,
plest level it involves changing the nature of the complexity. Within change the leader’s challenge is
conversations around an organizational change. In to facilitate the creation of a climate which releases
practice this entails engaging with groups and indi- such positive emotions. However, balance is impor-
viduals in identifying and examining the intended tant. A group which only experiences positive emo-
change: tions will find the conditions that create a level of
comfort, which can lead to complacency and
1. What is it that we are really good at that we
dampen growth, change, and development.
need to take forward and that will enable us to
Fredrickson (2003) has provided indications that a
achieve the goals of the change?
minimum balance to achieve movement in an indi-
2. What capabilities and practices do we need to
vidual or group is one of three positive emotions for
build in order to achieve our change goals?
each negative. While she does not provide a precise
3. In achieving the change goals what do we need
optimum, she points out that once the ratio reaches
to leave behind or stop doing?
around ten to one then growth and movement tend
It is not only the nature of these questions, but the to cease.
sequence in which we ask them that changes the Although the research findings of Higgs and
nature of the conversations and therefore the Rowland (2005, 2007) and Rowland and Higgs
course of the change. Patricia Shaw (1997) has (2008) described above were not originally informed
emphasized the power of changing conversations in by positive psychology explicitly, it is interesting to
a change context. Indeed she asserts that organiza- note how the strands of this thinking explain the
tions only achieve change when the nature of the nature of the results which were found. Below, these
conversations within the organization is changed. findings are reviewed in the light of the positive
psychology perspective.
The Role of Positive Emotions
In developing an understanding of the impact of Approaches to Change
Appreciative Inquiry it is important to reflect on the Both the Directive and the Self-Assembly
role of positive emotions. Indeed, it is evident that approaches to change appear to be rooted in the
Appreciative Inquiry frames conversations in a way traditional ‘‘deficit’’ model and are focused on com-
that is likely to arouse positive emotions. municating what is wrong and identifying the things
Our understanding of the role of positive emo- which need to be fixed. There is little scope for
tions is strongly informed by the work of Barbara inquiry and very little attention to either organiza-
Fredrickson (2001). From her work associated with tional or individual strengths. As a consequence both
the impact of trauma on individuals she found clear approaches encounter significant levels of resistance;
evidence that the balance between positive and nega- often based on predominantly negative emotions.
tive emotions had a significant impact on individual The move from ‘‘doing change to’’ to ‘‘doing
well-being and behavior. In particular, she points change with’’ people, encountered in both Master
out that situations that promote positive emotions and Emergent change, sees increasing use of
broaden an individual’s attention scope, allowing Appreciative Inquiry and the identification and
them to see both the forest and the trees. On the valuing of individual strengths and contributions.
other hand, a predominance of negative emotions Overall the approaches arouse more positive emo-
tends to lead to a narrowing of scope in thinking and tions. However, these are balanced with a use of
negative responses to new stimuli. However, she direct feedback, hard rules, and challenging goals,
pointed out that balance is important and that totally which may well arouse balancing negative emotions.
positive emotional experiences constrain individual These approaches were more successful and notably
growth in thinking and acting. In a change context aroused lower levels of resistance and increased levels
all too often negative emotions lead to fear, resis- of commitment to the change.
tance, adherence to established behaviors and ways
of working, and lack of openness and flexibility. Leadership Behaviors and Practices
These responses play a significant role in impairing Overall Higgs and Rowland (2005) found that
the achievement of change goals. On the other hand, Shaping leadership behaviors were a significant

HIGGS 75
factor in exploring failure of change initiatives. In Case 1
reviewing this set of behaviors through a positive The first case illustrates the application of
psychology lens it is notable that they do not tend Appreciative Inquiry as an intervention in a change
to make use of inquiry, but rather focus on the process. This involves a long-established international
leaders’ perceptions of the nature of change and Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) company.
approaches to its implementation. There is little The case relates to the European division of this
scope for identifying and utilizing individual company. The organization was a strong market
strengths and the leader-centric, driven approach leader (having a market share in Europe of more
carries with it the potential to develop a higher than sixty percent). While operating from a position
level of negative emotion. of strength, the CEO had noticed that one of their
In examining the later research (Higgs and strong competitors had increased their market share
Rowland, 2007), it is interesting to note that three notably in each of the two preceding years.
of the ‘‘changing leadership’’ behaviors (i.e., The CEO was relatively new to the organization
Attractor, Container, and Transforming Space) and was concerned that the organization’s dominant
each contain practices which employ elements of and long-established market position was leading to
Appreciative Inquiry, explore both individual and a sense of complacency within the company. In his
organizational strengths, and are likely to create a exploration of what was leading to the success of the
climate in which positive emotions are aroused. The competitors he identified that a number of the major
fourth group of behaviors (Edge and Tension) on customers had been complaining about the com-
the other hand are more focused on creation of pany’s lack of flexibility and very slow decision-
challenge and ‘‘hard’’ conversations. Thus, they are making processes. Reflecting on this feedback, the
more likely to arouse negative emotions. However, CEO decided that it would be necessary to change
this provides the necessary counterbalance to main- the way in which the organization operated. The
tain movement. In taking a very simple view, it is company was currently organized on a highly cen-
interesting to note that, in using all four areas (which tralized basis with a large number of decisions being
the most successful leaders did), the three to one made by either individual members of the executive
ratio mentioned by Barbara Frederickson is team or the team as a whole. What was required to
achieved! become more responsive to customers, in his view,
What is noticeable, from an examination of the was to devolve as much decision-making as possible
research transcripts, was that both the approaches to as low a level as possible in the organization.
and leadership behaviors that released the positive He held a meeting with his executive team and
emotions were associated with observations about discussed his views with them. He also proposed that
the speed with which engagement with the change they should develop a plan to implement this along
was widely achieved. This could be a result of the with a strategy to build market share to sixty-five
‘‘mood contagion’’ referred to above. percent within two years. In order to ‘‘role model’’
The above description of the role of positive his drive for empowerment he asked the team to do
psychology in change is based on what is, in essence, this work and present their proposals to him.
‘‘post hoc’’ rationalization. However, the conjecture When the team presented their plans he noticed
is certainly rooted enough to warrant further that their proposals for implementing the change
research in the future. were very top down and incorporated only super-
ficial changes in decision-making processes and
Applying Research Insights in Practice authority. In fact, their proposals mirrored the orga-
In order to bring the above research insights into nization’s current ways of working. When he chal-
life it is worth presenting how organizations have lenged this, the team members became fairly
used them in practice. This will be done by consid- defensive. They pointed out to him that the man-
ering two case examples. In the first the significant agers in the organization (who all tended to be long-
impact in an organization of both a shift in the serving) would resist a change in their power base
approach to change and the use of Appreciative and decision authority so strongly that any more
Inquiry led to the success of a change intervention. radical plans would be unworkable.
The second explores the way in which a leader At this point he realized that a significantly dif-
deployed the four ‘‘changing leadership’’ practices ferent approach to the problem would be necessary.
in a way which led to a significant shift in the way He engaged a consultant to work with and facilitate
in which change was perceived by the organization. the team in developing a more radical solution to the

76 THE ROLE OF POSITIVE EMOTIONS

problem. The consultant worked with the team over a decision authority. This took place in all parts of
two-day period and took them through a process of the organization, not just in the customer-facing
Appreciative Inquiry. While team members were at areas. The originally anticipated resistance from
first hesitant in engaging with the process, the realiza- managers did not arise on the scale envisaged.
tion that the current strengths of both individual team While there were initially some pockets of resistance,
members and the organization were being recognized it emerged that this was more to do with individual
and valued changed the nature of the meeting. The concern over personal leadership capability. Much of
climate turned from one of reluctant compliance to this disappeared when it was proposed that all man-
one of fairly enthusiastic engagement. At the end of agers would have access to leadership development
the second day the facilitator asked team members to programs.
talk about how their thinking had shifted in the At the end of the two-year period the company’s
course of the two days. One member began to market share had increased to sixty-three percent.
openly discuss the fact that he had felt that the While this fell short of the original goal, the CEO
CEO’s proposals were originally criticizing his leader- felt the change had been a success. The complacency
ship skills. He then went on to say that the had been stemmed, and growth of market share of
Appreciative Inquiry process had dramatically shifted the leading competitors had been halted.
this perception and this shift had opened him up to Furthermore, customer feedback had become
new ways of thinking. Pretty soon after the first team notably more positive.
member had said this the rest of the team joined in This short case illustrates the power of
and expressed similar views and observations. Appreciative Inquiry and, in particular, the impact
The conversation then turned to ways of taking of the associated valuing of strengths and positive
the change forward. The team suggested that the emotions in enabling a successful change process.
process they had been through should be cascaded Furthermore it illustrates the significantly positive
throughout the organization. The CEO suggested impact of ‘‘doing change with’’ people in the
that, rather than use external facilitators for this, the organization.
team should lead the process. Some members were
reluctant to take this on; however, further inquiry Case 2
established that their concern was one of capability. The second case example focuses more closely on
It was then agreed that the whole team would go the impact of leader behaviors in creating a positive
through a process of developing their capability to emotional climate when implementing a major orga-
use Appreciative Inquiry. nizational change.
Finally the team discussed the broad frame for the This case relates to an international professional
change process. It was agreed that the cascading services firm. The organization provided a wide range
inquiry would be set to address the following set of of HR services to its clients. It was structured along
parameters: strongly functional lines, with separate lines of busi-
ness covering reward and compensation; recruitment
1. The company has a goal of increasing market
and selection; leadership development; HR outsour-
share in Europe to sixty-five percent over the next
cing services; and performance management. Each
two years;
function operated relatively independently, enjoying
2. In order to do this the whole organization
a very high level of autonomy. The overall distinct
needs to be more customer-focused; and
functional structure was mirrored in each of the orga-
3. To respond to customer needs it is essential
nization’s twenty-five geographic locations. The indi-
that the organization establish easy ways of achieving
vidual countries were led by a country vice president.
much more rapid decision-making, which takes
The firm’s president and overall executive team
place as close to the customer as possible.
had become increasingly aware that clients were
Thus, the intent and direction of the change was seeking a more strategic and integrated service
very clear. All members of the organization were to offering. The team decided that it was important to
be involved in generating ideas and suggestions for address the shift in the market requirements. This
changes and actions that could achieve the change would entail a significant change to the way in which
goals. the firm was organized and the way in which services
The executive team members then rolled the would be delivered. The overall change entailed
process out. Within six months a significant creating functional centers of excellence in each
change had occurred in terms of delegation of region. The interface with clients would be through

HIGGS 77
generalist HR consultants who would focus on proposed change began to emerge. Then one man-
understanding client needs and drawing on the ager walked to the chart and, next to the drawing of
resources from the centers of excellence to deal the bridge across a river, drew a bridge across a sea.
with specialist requirements within the integrated From this start the conversation moved to a
service offering. The change plans were then com- deeper inquiry into what clients had been saying
municated to the country managers and functional and how these needs might effectively be met. The
heads. strong negative emotions in the room had been
To progress the plans, the president organized a replaced by a more positive climate. The president
meeting of all of the country heads. She knew this then asked the managers to break into a number of
would be a difficult meeting and that there would be small groups to discuss how they might approach
both anger and resistance in the room. She then implementing the changes in their individual coun-
reflected on how she might design and lead this tries. During the feedback session, in which the
meeting. Within the firm there was a dominant groups summarized their ideas, the president lis-
practice that such meetings would entail a detailed tened attentively. Much of the group feedback was
and very fact-based PowerPoint presentation. positive, with many good suggestions being made.
However, she felt that this would do little to shift She then moved two flipcharts side by side. On one
the mood that she anticipated being present in the she summarized what she had heard. On the other
meeting. Therefore, she decided to do something she wrote the heading ‘‘What I have not heard.’’ The
very different. group looked puzzled. She asked them to suggest the
The country managers were somewhat surprised issues which had not been raised. The managers
when they arrived for the meeting. The room was gradually began to raise issues and concerns. One
not laid out in the expected theater style with a manager in particular repeatedly raised concerns
screen at the front. Instead there were a number of over the capability of his people to work in the new
circular tables with chairs around them and a large way. This was endorsed by many of the other man-
number of flipcharts around the room. agers in the room. When the second chart was full
When the president walked into the room she she went to a third chart and wrote the title ‘‘What I
went to the center of the room. She then asked the have still not heard.’’
country managers to each draw a picture showing Once again the group looked puzzled. She sug-
how they saw the proposed change. The managers gested that this chart was about them. She had not
were surprised and initially hesitant. However, they heard anything about their personal concerns.
soon began to draw, some extremely energetically. Eventually the group began to discuss concerns
While they were working on this the president about their ability to ‘‘sell’’ the changes to their
walked around the room observing the emerging own teams and the conversation turned to exploring
pictures. They were dark indeed—drawings indi- how they might develop their own capability to lead
cating high levels of negative emotion. Rather than this change. Once again the managers engaged in the
interrupt the process, she walked to an unoccupied conversation.
flipchart and began to draw. Her picture had a sun at The last part of the meeting moved onto re-
its center; around this were symbols such as prize visiting conversations around implementation and
cups, smiling faces, and bridges across rivers. As next steps. The group were enthusiastic about taking
others had finished their drawings they began to their teams through the process they had experi-
congregate around her chart. enced as the immediate next step. The president’s
At this point, rather than respond defensively to picture with the managers’ additions became widely
what she had seen on the managers’ flipcharts, she used by the country managers in taking their teams
turned to the group and asked them what they saw in through the process.
her picture. There was a period of silence then one This case illustrates the way in which introducing
manager asked, ‘‘Who are the smiling faces?’’ Rather positive emotions can impact on the conversations
than respond herself she asked the group who they around a change. The limiting impact of negative
thought the faces were. A range of answers came emotions was avoided by the leader not reacting
forward, some cynical (they suggested the faces defensively. Rather she changed the frame to one
represented the executive team). However, a of the possibilities, this in turn created a positive
number suggested that they were indeed the faces environment in which the managers’ thinking broa-
of clients. This led to further questions around the dened and they saw the bigger picture. This is an
other symbols on the chart. The story behind the illustration of ‘‘Attractor’’ practice described above.

78 THE ROLE OF POSITIVE EMOTIONS

 However, the president added a degree of chal- balance between individual emotional experiences
lenge and created tension through the probing into (both positive and negative)
‘‘What she had not heard.’’ To an extent the positive • Exploring the extent to which leaders who
emotions were balanced with a degree of negative deploy all four of the ‘‘changing leadership’’
emotion. The challenge to the group was a good practices impact on the balance of emotional
example of the ‘‘Edge and Tension’’ practice. Having experience of both individuals and teams in a
raised the challenge the president enabled the man- change process
agers to have difficult conversations in a safe way again • Replicating the Higgs and Rowland studies in
increasing the positive climate and illustrating the more ‘‘traumatic’’ change contexts (e.g., significant
‘‘Container’’ practice. downsizing situations)
The overall format of the day had been one that • Exploring the impact of organizational culture
enabled managers to think differently and, impor- on change approaches and leadership and their
tantly, to move forward. This is an illustration of the relative success
‘‘Transforming Space’’ practice. • The ability to incorporate strategies based on
the principles of positive psychology across
Conclusion significantly different organizational cultural
This chapter has considered the challenges of contexts.
change and how by shifting approaches to imple-
menting change from the more ‘‘traditional’’ ones of
Implications for Practice
‘‘doing change to’’ people (e.g., Directive and Self-
As mentioned earlier in the chapter, organiza-
Assembly) to ‘‘doing change with’’ people (e.g.,
tional change tends to be perceived negatively and
Master and Emergent) can result in an increased
arouses negative emotions within an organization
likelihood of change succeeding. Furthermore, lea-
(e.g., Carnall, 1999; Buchanan & Boddy, 1992).
dership behaviors play a very significant role in
However, both the research and cases outlined in
achieving successful change implementation. Those
this chapter illustrate that this does not have to be
behaviors which are very leader-centric (i.e., Shaping
the case. In particular, it appears that effective
behavior) tend to be associated with unsuccessful
change leadership can have a significant impact on
change initiatives. On the other hand, leadership
transforming the emotional climate within which
practices and behaviors that focus on the group
change occurs and can lead to greater levels of suc-
and are more ‘‘engaging’’ (i.e., Attractor, Edge and
cess. The cases, in particular, illustrate how this
Tension, Container, and Transforming Space) have
positive climate can create energy and release poten-
a strongly positive impact on change success.
tial within the organization. If these findings are
However, the most successful change leaders (as
generalizable then they have a range of implications
identified in the research of Rowland and Higgs,
for practice within organizations. These include:
2008) effectively deploy all four of the practices.
The research findings (Rowland & Higgs, 2005, • The selection of individuals to lead change
2008) were explored in the context of positive psy- initiatives
chology. From this exploration it is proposed that • The development of change leaders
strategies that build on individual and organizational • An increase in the conscious choice of
strengths (e.g., Appreciative Inquiry) and that gen- approaches to implementation of change
erate a positive emotional climate play a significant • Reframing the nature of communication and
role in enhancing the success of change initiatives. conversations relating to change
• Increasing leadership awareness of the
Directions for Research emotional content of change and the need to
In building from reflections on the research find- manage this in a way which balances positive and
ings of Rowland and Higgs (2005, 2008) and the negative emotional experiences.
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80 THE ROLE OF POSITIVE EMOTIONS

 C H A P T E R
Working Positively Toward Transformative
7 Cooperation

Leslie E. Sekerka and Barbara L. Fredrickson

Abstract
Emotions are an integral part of human experience, inextricably linked to social interaction. In this chapter
Sekerka and Fredrickson describe how positive emotional climates help create and support transformative
cooperation. Serving as the fuel for new and useful relationships in organizational environments, they
examine the broadening and building capacities of positive emotions and how they contribute to purposive
evolution. Strength-based organizational development and change processes are described as the means
to evoke positive emotions in support of transformative cooperation, which emerges through collectively
beneficial processes. The authors set forth a description and definition of this phenomenon and explain
how their work advances positive psychology and associated fields such as positive organizational
scholarship and positive organizational behavior.

Keywords: positive emotions, transformative cooperation, organizational development and change,

positive organizational scholarship

Dehler and Welsch (1994) describe work as an This chapter describes how positive emotional
emotional experience. Yet management theorists climates help create and support transformative
have tended to neglect the impact of emotions, cooperation in organizations. With prominent con-
moods, and feelings in their analyses, with cognitive tributions from positive psychology (Seligman &
perspectives dominating much of the field (Tichy & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000), academics and practi-
Sherman, 1993). That is, until recently. In the past tioners across schol