Page 45 - Appreciative Leadership

18 Appreciative Leadership

can be highly productive taking the lead from others. And some people
are clearly at their best when they are in support of others who do the
leading. It is from this vantage point that we conducted our research.
We sought to understand what people want from leadership: what they
consider exemplary leadership, and how it transforms potential to gen-
erate elevated performance, personally and collectively.
In the focus groups we conducted, people got excited about the

idea of positive power. They liked hearing the words positive and power
put together. They readily recalled experiences of positive power and

talked freely about what it meant to them. As you can see from the
following comments, their ideas about positive power included both
how things are done and the nature of results achieved. Th ey described
positive power in these ways:

• Drawing on what is positive about the situation. Making the best
of the situation you are in.
• Having a good upbeat attitude to get the job done.
• Using positive reinforcement and positive words, as well as vocal-
izing ideas that have shown positive results in the past.
• Being a force for the greater good; using authority for good and
not evil.
• Being able to create positive change.
• Finding the positive in others—taking time to understand them
and find out what they need to be part of a functioning team.

• A magnetic pull that draws you to be part of it.

• The ability to achieve positive end results.
• Letting people make decisions about their own lives.

• I like to follow them because I like them and they have gained my
respect, not because they are the boss.

People wanted positive power in all aspects of their work life: they
wanted to feel it; they wanted to participate in it; and they wanted
the results it can create. Taken together, the people interviewed por-
trayed positive power on four levels: personal, one-to-one, team, and