Positive leadership

Positive leadership is a model of employee leadership and motivation, which was derived in particular by Kim Cameron and, in German-speaking countries, from Utho Creusen and Ruth Seliger from the approach of positive psychology . This was founded in 1998 by Martin Seligman and focuses on the "successful life". Daniel Kahneman , one of the main proponents of this science, received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002 for his groundbreaking work.

Methods and tools

The positive leadership approach has adopted numerous methods and instruments of positive psychology , implemented them in corporate practice and scientifically examined them. It consists of the main areas:

• Flow - This approach developed by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi from research on happiness is about the combination of high performance and job satisfaction .
• Engagement - This is about measuring employee engagement based on those factors that show a high correlation with employee performance.
• Strengths orientation - This is about strengthening personal strengths on the basis of scientific measuring instruments (especially the Clifton StrengthsFinder) for analyzing personal strengths and team strengths.
• Grid - This approach developed by Robert Blake and Jane Mouton is about the involvement of affected employees in order to achieve the greatest possible identification with the company.
• Six Hats of Thought - Developed by Edward de Bono , this approach is about increasing the efficiency of teams by building parallel thinking.
• Vision - This is about the definition of the company's core values, the company's purpose, the challenging company goals and the long-term company vision .

Application and research

Numerous companies such as Ikea , Douglas , Thalia , Globus , Heinz , Unilever , The Wrigley Company , Media-Markt , Saturn and Metro use the approaches and instruments successfully to build a positive corporate culture . The scientific evaluation is carried out at the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt , among others , which publishes the results in the annual summer school.

See also

• Effective communication

• Organizational development

• Positive psychology

literature

• 2009: Creusen / Müller-Seitz: Das Positive-Leadership-GRID, An Analysis from the Perspective of Positive Management Frankfurt: Gabler ISBN 978-3-8349-1948-9
• 2008: Cameron: Positive Leadership - Strategies for extraordinary performance San Francisco: Berret-Koehler Publishers ISBN 978-1-57675-602-7
• 2014: Seliger: Positive Leadership - The Leadership Revolution Stuttgart: Schäffer-Poeschel ISBN 978-3-7910-3267-2