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‘Companies with the most employees with high levels of well-being report dramatically higher monetary return than companies in the lowest quartile of employee well-being.’ (Keyes, Hysom & Lupo, 2000)
With research increasingly finding that creating thriving cultures is becoming more of a ‘must have’ than a ‘nice to have’ for leaders and their organisations, it can be invaluable for leaders to understand the simple switch that they can make themselves to shift to a positive climate.
In their Evolving Skills Landscape paper, https://www.ahri.com.au/wp-content/uploads/22477-AHR-Skills-Report-DD5-digital.pdf, AHRI recognised that ‘Effective leadership is crucial for identifying and managing underperformance, managing change, supporting employee wellbeing and improving retention rates,’ and that it is ‘prioritising leadership and management training that will help the growth and success of organisations.’
With poor leadership and management capability identified as one of the eight most common causes of skill gaps by the AHRI research, the positive and practical framework of Positive Leadership can certainly benefit all leaders.
The premise of the framework based on the research of scholars like Kim Cameron is to deviate from the norm. What we mean by that is to encourage leaders to exercise positive deviance, defined as ‘intentional behaviours that depart from the norms of a referent group in honourable ways.’ (Spreitzer, Gretchen M, Sonenshein, Scott, 2004).
In practice this may look like a leader collaborating with their team to focus not on the inefficient processes that they are dealing with, rather what would make those processes extraordinary?
Or in a safety context, discussing processes with the angle of not what is error-prone rather what could be perfect?
Perhaps a leader may lead conversations about how to honour relationships with other teams, moving away from harmful assumptions or beliefs that create divisive silos.
And for those in ever changing environments, a focus on flourishing as opposed to threat-rigidity will help people with their attitude and skills in adaptation.
“People who work in unhealthy organisations eventually come to see work as a drudgery…
This is nothing short of a tragedy, and a completely avoidable one.” – Patrick Lencioni
When we deviate from the norm, we start to create positive work climates where we engage people by emphasising what elevates them, what they do well and how they can be inspired to deliver extraordinary results.
And when we do all of this, we inevitably improve people’s wellbeing by having them look forward to going to work as opposed to dreading it.
It can be a snowball effect that starts with a simple switch.