CONCLUSION

Principles and Action Implications

Now that you have learned about forms of energy, the heliotropic effect, how positively energizing leadership affects the performance of organizations and their employees, and how to recognize and develop positive energizers, a final question remains: So what? What are the action implications associated with the discussions contained in the previous chapters?

In this concluding chapter, several principles are summarized along with suggestions for taking action. The question is, What are the behavioral implications of positively energizing leadership?

• PRINCIPLE: In trying times—including the recent spate of earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, cyberattacks, ethical lapses, wildfires, and the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic—most people tend to focus on the uncomfortable, the uncertainty, and the adversities. Racial injustice, economic devastation, and loss of life have elevated our consciousness toward what is wrong in our world. When people are struggling emotionally, stressed from the loss of loved ones, jobs, or relationships, or just gritting through difficult days, it is hard to be positive. Happiology is not the preferred prescription for coping with tragedy.

SUGGESTION: Focus less on mere cheerfulness, positive thinking, and unbridled optimism than on demonstrating virtuousness. Virtuous behaviors—including gratitude, humility, kindness, generosity, contribution, forgiveness, compassion, trust, and integrity—are heliotropic and lead to positive energy and thriving, especially in difficult times. Behaving virtuously provides a way to flourish in trying times by unlocking the positive energy inherent in all human beings.

• PRINCIPLE: A variety of forms of energy exist, including physical energy, emotional energy, mental energy, and relational energy. Each of the first three forms of energy diminishes with use. They require recuperation or recovery time when expended. Relational energy actually elevates with use. It is renewing.

SUGGESTION: Nurture relational energy with people close to you. Make certain that you invest sufficient time and resources in these relationships so that they remain elevating, replenishing, and life-giving. Inspire these people to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more by demonstrating positively energizing leadership.

• PRINCIPLE: Every living system—from single-cell organisms to complex human beings—is inclined toward positive energy and away from negative energy, or toward that which enhances life and away from that which detracts from life. This is called the heliotropic effect, and abundant scientific evidence confirms its presence in human beings.

SUGGESTION: Capitalize on the heliotropic effect in your leadership roles, in your relationships, in your marriage, in your work, and with your children. Enhance and engender life more than you detract from life. Be a source of thriving for other people by behaving in ways that are virtuous.

• PRINCIPLE: Positively energizing leadership is not the same as being extroverted, outgoing, or charismatic or possessing a senior position in the organization. Individuals lower in the hierarchy can be the most positively energizing people in the organization.

SUGGESTION: Regardless of your title or hierarchical position in your organization, give life to the system and to everyone with whom you interact. Seldom are the most positively energizing people in organizations the folks who occupy top positions. Behave virtuously toward others. Contribute to the well-being of those around you. Identify the meaningfulness of the contributions you are making.

• PRINCIPLE: In organizations, information and influence are frequently the primary means used by leaders to obtain results. Ensuring that employees are informed and influenced to achieve goals and targets is a central focus in most organizations. Yet, positive relational energy is significantly more important in predicting performance than are information and influence.

SUGGESTION: Contribute more positive energy to your organizations (work, family, community, faith groups) than you extract. Give significant time and attention to enhancing positive relational energy around those with whom you interact—more than the time you spend giving instructions or attempting to influence others. Consciously strive to be a positively energizing leader. Capitalize on the positively energizing people in your work and in your life.

• PRINCIPLE: Positive energizers are higher performers than other people, and other people perform at higher levels when they are around positive energizers. Positive energizers help other people flourish without expecting a reward or recognition.

SUGGESTION: Identify the positive energizers in your organization and in your relationships. Spend time with these people, reflect their energy back to them, and mobilize them to help foster organizational change. Put together a team of positive energizers to lead important change initiatives.

• PRINCIPLE: In chaotic, turbulent, uncertain conditions, a stable standard must be identified in order to effectively manage the environment. Without a constant, unwavering guidepost, it is impossible to make progress. Something universal must be identified to guide behavior.

SUGGESTION: A universally accepted standard is the value of virtuousness. All human beings value kindness over abuse, generosity over selfishness, trust over distrust, love over hate, and compassion over indifference. In addition, virtuousness is heliotropic, and from infancy all human beings are inclined toward and flourish in the presence of virtuousness. Prioritize the demonstration of virtuousness, especially when others are struggling with uncertainty, contention, or grief.

• PRINCIPLE: Because bad is stronger than good—that is, negative events create a larger and more immediate reaction than positive events—most of us pay a great deal of attention to problems, challenges, and obstacles. Most case studies in courses and most agenda items in meetings challenge us to solve problems and overcome obstacles. We mostly address deficit gaps, or the gap between poor performance and acceptable performance.

SUGGESTION: At some point, address abundance gaps, or the gap between acceptable performance and positively deviant, extraordinary performance. Spend some time on what is going right, what helps people flourish, and how you can achieve extraordinarily positive outcomes. Celebrate what is life-giving. As a leader, spend time pursuing spectacular performance and striving for your highest aspirations, not just solving problems. Aim for positive deviance.

• PRINCIPLE: Contribution goals affect performance much more powerfully than achievement goals. An inherent tendency exists in all human beings toward generosity, contribution, and kindness, and all people respond, eventually, to these conditions. Generosity is a better predictor of our own well-being and performance than what we receive from others.

SUGGESTION: Spend some time engaged in activities that produce a benefit that outlasts your lifetime, that produce a benefit to others without expectation that you will receive a return, and that reinforce the inherent virtuousness of those around you. The contributions you make will far outlast your personal achievements.

• PRINCIPLE: Expressing gratitude is associated with better personal health, performance, and well-being as well as affecting the recipient’s well-being, physical health, and performance. Similarly, demonstrating humility—accurately viewing oneself, appreciating others, and being willing to learn from others—is closely related to gratitude and is associated with similar outcomes. Leadership humility and expressions of gratitude go hand in hand.

SUGGESTION: Don’t go a day without expressing gratitude to someone else. Keep a gratitude journal. Write down three things each day for which you are grateful. Regularly write gratitude notes or letters to others. Willingly seek feedback and use it to improve your own leadership behavior; thank those who provide the feedback.

• PRINCIPLE: Trust lies at the core of human biological development from the day an infant is born. As individuals mature, trust becomes a critical feature in the development of positively energizing relationships. All successful relationships and all organizational performance are based on the presence of trust.

SUGGESTION: Ensure that your word is your bond. Tell the truth. Maintain your standards even when no one is looking. Ensure that you are consistent, dependable, and authentic in your relationships with others, especially in your leadership roles. Make more deposits than withdrawals in the emotional bank account associated with your relationships.

• PRINCIPLE: A majority of books on leadership rely on storytelling, inspirational events, top-10 lists, or personal experience to convey leadership advice. Although these are often uplifting, insightful, and inspirational, empirical evidence is usually absent. The validity and credibility of leadership prescriptions are rarely reported.

SUGGESTION: Seek evidence of credibility, validity, and legitimacy associated with leadership advice. As with the development of a coronavirus vaccine, there should be scientific evidence that what is being prescribed actually produces the desired outcomes. Ensure that your leadership practice is consistent with the scientific evidence.

• PRINCIPLE: If an airplane takes off from Washington’s Reagan International Airport and travels around the world intending to return to Washington, DC, but it is consistently off course by one degree, the plane will land south of Atlanta or north of Bangor, Maine. A small change puts you in a very different place over time.

SUGGESTION: Continue to identify 1 percent improvements that you will implement and stick with. You will end up with substantially enhanced performance over time. Opt for a small, consistent change rather than pursuing a revolution or complete transformation.

• PRINCIPLE: According to the NTL Institute, you will remember approximately 5 percent of what you hear in classes, lectures, or podcasts, approximately 10 percent of what you read, and approximately 20 percent of what you see and experience. However, you will remember approximately 90 percent of what you teach.

SUGGESTION: Share your learning and insights from this book with other people. Be a lifelong teacher. Contribute to others’ learning, because you were privileged to gain insights or ideas that can lead to improvement. Help other people flourish. Remember, if your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a positively energizing leader.

By way of wrap-up, here are a few anecdotal testimonials from leaders who have put the suggestions in this chapter into practice. The quotations illustrate the application of these positive practices in a variety of situations and circumstances.

From a senior executive in a large, multinational financial services organization:

[Our CEO] wanted to implement something that would make the people feel inspired to do their best work and to feel valued.… We believed that by demonstrating positively energizing leadership and positive practices we could do all of these things simultaneously: create value for our people, create value for our customers, and create value for our shareholders.

From a senior executive in a health-care organization that was facing a fiscal crisis:

We are in a very competitive health care market, so we have had to differentiate ourselves through our compassionate and caring culture.… I know it sounds trite, but we really do love our patients.… People love working here, and our employees’ family members love us too.… Even when we downsized, our CEO maintained the highest levels of integrity. He told the truth, and he shared everything. He got the support of everyone by his genuineness, personal concern, and positive leadership.… It wasn’t hard to feel energized.

From a graduate of a prestigious MBA program:

This summer after graduation, I chose to undergo a preventive double mastectomy and breast reconstruction—not your typical post-MBA plans. A few years ago, I found out that I had the BRCA1 gene mutation and an 88 percent chance of having breast cancer in my lifetime. My mother and grandmother, who also have the BRCA1 mutation, were diagnosed with breast cancer when they were in their early 30s. As a woman in my late 20s, I felt the timing was right to take a pre-emptive strike against breast cancer with this procedure. Little did I know that my time in my MBA program would impact this experience.… In my MBA program I learned about positive practices and positive energy. I started to think: How could I approach this experience, something that could be seen as terrible and traumatizing, with a positive approach? How could I maintain a positive perspective during the three-month reconstruction and recovery process, and how could I leverage this experience to have a positive impact on others? … Six weeks after my surgery and 10 blog posts later, I can tell you that the positive approach I learned in my graduate program dramatically affected my recovery. While it was not the best summer of my life and there were a couple of not-so-great weeks, my overall recovery has been better than expected and I’m very happy with my decision. Most importantly, other young women with the BRCA1 gene have already reached out to me after seeing my blog. Knowing that I am helping others has been incredibly fulfilling.