: Ruth Seliger
: Positive Leadership The Management Revolution
: Schäffer-Poeschel Verlag
: 9783791038438
: 1
: CHF 34.60
:
: Management
: English
: 171
: Wasserzeichen
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB
The idea of management and organisation that has been developed in the days of industrialisation fails in the light of dynamic social and technological developments. Positive Psychology and Systemic Thinking induce new concepts: leadership based on power, leading and developing organisational energy, using self-organisation. In daily leadership practice these concepts stand for excellent performance, job satisfaction and meaningfulness. The first part of this book describes the principles of the 'revolution in leadership': The author presents management-related results, models and tools of Positive Psychology and explains the three principles of integrated work (meaning, power, impact). On this basis she creates a suitable image of leadership and develops the principles of Positive Leadership. The second part addresses the practical implementation of Positive Leadership in real-life leadership situations and refers in detail to the three central areas of Positive Leadership: self-management, employee management, management of organisations. For all three areas the reader is provided with theoretically substantiated and proven-in-practice management tools. Additionally, many case studies from the work of the author exemplify the amazing effect of Positive Leadership.

Dr. Ruth Seliger ist Gründerin und geschäftsführende Gesellschafterin der Unternehmensberatung 'trainconsulting' in Wien. Studium der Pädagogik, Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte, Ausbildung in systemischer Beratung, Appreciative Inquiry und Großgruppenmethoden. Ruth Seliger ist Autorin mehrerer Bücher wie 'Das Dschungelbuch der Führung'.

Part 2:
Positive Leadership in practice


5. The three dimensions of leadership


Part 1 has provided an overview of the concept we call “positive leadership”. It also discussed the principles of positive leadership in detail: meaning, confidence, and influence have been established as central guiding elements for new organisations and, as such, new approaches to leadership.

Part 2 will connect the two main topics – the tasks and principles of positive leadership – and illustrate how they shape and guide the practical application of the concept. Simultaneously, it will be necessary to evaluate and redefine these principles on the basis of practical experiences on a continuous basis.

Figure 17 shows the map of positive leadership, which will guide us through the following chapter and, hopefully, bring us a lot of joy at the same time.

Fig. 17: The map of positive leadership

Part 2 will grant you an insight into the personal experiences I have gained from applying the tools of positive leadership to my professional practice as a consultant. The following sections will focus on these three dimensions of leadership.

5.1 Leading oneself


The key task of leading oneself is continuous reflection on one’s own conduct as a leader. Reflection is a form of self-observation. It requires you to gain a critical, appreciative distance to yourself. It essentially assigns you the role of a spectator observing your own interaction with others. This allows you to gain new perspectives on yourself and your own behaviour. Reflection can be achieved by means of targeted and structured contemplation, external feedback, or questions.

This is a crucially important leadership task: one’s own behaviour is always underpinned by images and internal maps, which have a significant influence on one’s leadership role and, as such, its development and success. Self-reflection gives us access to these internal maps, i.e. to the engine that drives our actions. It further draws our attention to the angle from which we look at ourselves and the world.

Leaders who do not consider themselves to be central elements of leadership practice cannot relate to the impression they have on others. They do not know how their own behavioural patterns and subconscious, internalised movements influence their leadership and are trapped in these “blind spots”, which ultimately lead to a lack of understanding in many respects.

There are countless possible perspectives of self-reflection and self-observation. I would like to emphasise the threetopics of reflection that I consider significant for the quality of management and positive leadership (cf. Fig. 18):

Fig. 18: Leading oneself: reflect