Positive Organizational Behavior
Fred Luthans’ article on positive organizational behavior is very timely. It is so encouraging to see that someone else has realized that those people with confidence, hope, optimism, subjective well-being, and emotional intelligence (CHOSE) actually make better employees as well as better leaders. In the past, organizational behavior has had a concentration on fixing what is wrong; in essence, working from the negative side. POM has a concentration on accentuating what is positive, thereby alleviating much of the wrong before it even happens. In my opinion, this certainly satisfies the old saying, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” It is certainly true that in the field of psychology, far more emphasis has been placed on fixing what is wrong rather than giving attention to the client’s strengths. All five of Luthans’ attributes are important, but he has more to say about confidence, or self-efficacy. I feel that this is certainly the most powerful of the five in the work force for if a person has confidence that he/she can do whatever is assigned, success is far more likely to come. Self-efficacy can be a state or trait, but it also can be developed and managed. Being a state, it can be enhanced for leaders. Guided mastery, cognitive mastery modeling, and self-regulatory competencies can be learned skills used quite effectively. Hope allows an individual to see goals through to the end whereas those without hope might easily give up before accomplishing. Hope can also be developed and managed. Optimism is a powerful POB attribute because it promotes high morale, high levels of aspiration, motivation to work harder, perseverance under setbacks, and more. Those with optimism view failures and setbacks as temporary which is powerful in the workplace. They pick up and keep going, looking for the solutions that they know are there; they just have to find them. Optimism training could help individuals identify self-defeating beliefs and replace them with more accurate beliefs. On the attribute of subjective well being (happiness), I was surprised to find that more people rate happiness more important than money. If we will listen, this says volumes. With the state of our world today, people are wanting someone to show them how to be happy. There are troubles all around and it is a proven fact that more money will only make you more of what you already are. People want to be happy, regardless of what they have. A key factor in this is not necessarily what someone’s reality is; it’s what they perceive their reality to be. This process is most definitely trainable and very advantageous to every aspect of life. People who are satisfied with their life are more satisfied with their work. It’s those who have troubles on every hand in life and can’t seem to find relief, that are more anxious and troubled at work. Finally, emotional intelligence, in my opinion, will be the most difficult to teach and/or learn. The other four attributes rely primarily on changing the individual. EI includes the component of relationship changing as well: poor working relations, too authoritarian, conflict with management, etc.
