Positive Leadership and Organizational Impacts: A Cross-Disciplinary Synthesis

• In Event: How School Leaders Impact Student Learning and Achievement: Leadership Principles, Models, and Effects Revisited

Abstract

Objectives
Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi (2000, p 5) argue that “[t]he exclusive focus on pathology that has dominated so much of our discipline results in a model of the human being lacking the positive features that make life worth living.“ (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). This paper introduces questions about how we incorporate this perspective into the research underlying school leadership.

Perspectives
Our work is grounded primarily in close attention to important lines of organizational and leadership research emerging from positive psychology (Fredrickson, 2003; Seligman, Ernst, Gillham, Reivich, & Linkins, 2009), which has begun to gain traction in educational research (Daly, Chrispeels, & Einstein, 2005; Hoy & Tarter, 2011). In particular, our focus is on incorporating an asset-focused approach to understanding leadership behaviors that grow out of positive values and orientations, and how they affect individuals, teams, and the school as a whole.

Methods
Based on an extensive review of over 1,000 empirical studies in the positive leadership literature, this presentation will set out a framework for thinking about positive school leadership.

Results
First, 9 principles of positive school leadership, synthesized from the evidentiary base (including transformational, servant, authentic, distributed, integrative, and other similar leadership models) will be presented, including (for example) a focus on assets, human values, positive modeling, developing positive relationships with all members and stewardship. The primary focus of the presentation will be on synthesizing what empirical research tells us about the impact of these positive leadership behaviors on relationships, individual members, teams, and organizational climate and culture. Among most significant outcomes of positive leadership behaviors are:

• For individuals: positive emotional and psychological states, including self-efficacy, psychological empowerment, trust, and positive orientations to work, including risk-taking and „job crafting“;
• For teams: collective positive affect, ownership of team processes and work, and a sense that the team’s work is socially meaningful;
• For intermediate organizational (school) outcomes: collective commitment and engagement, increased retention/reduced absenteeism, sense of an ethical climate, denser social networks;
• For longer-term organizational (school) outcomes: increased „organizational citizenship behavior“, adaptability/collective learning, higher stakeholder satisfaction and productivity.

Significance of the work
We will discuss implications of the research, much of which comes from outside of education and outside of North America. In particular, we point to the spillover effects of positive organizational leadership: Because schools are socializing and preparing the next generation of citizens, positive outcomes at all levels will deepen socio-emotional learning for students and model positive adult work settings. In addition, we point to the significance of positive scholarship for organizational theory and leadership preparation.

Authors

• Karen Seashore Louis, University of Minnesota

• Joseph F. Murphy, Vanderbilt University