Positive Leadership

The beautiful thing about universal truths is that they are everywhere. I find positive psychology in my meditation practice, my health, in my work as an educator, as a leader, as a friend, partner and parent.

I first stumbled upon the concept of Ironic Process Theory when I was working in a separate school for children with behavioral disorders. I then began understanding how writing and creating strengths-based programs for children was meaningful to the children and the families and thus more powerful tools of change than listing problems and how we plan to “fix” students.

When I began working with classroom teachers, I saw a need to redirect focus onto what we want students to do rather than what we want them to stop. Most educators know that best practice when it comes to classroom expectations is to describe what we want students to do rather than not do (come to class on time, not don’t be late). This is all based on principles of Positive Psychology and Ironic Process Theory. “The phenomenon has been identified through thought suppression studies in experimental psychology. Social psychologist Daniel Wegner and his colleagues first studied thought suppression in a laboratory setting in 1987 by instructing participants to avoid all thoughts of a white bear. The typical finding in such experiments is that suppressing thoughts of a white bear causes the frequent return of such thoughts, sometimes even yielding a tendency to obsess about the very thought that is being suppressed. The implications for these findings have since been applied in clinical settings where thought suppression is quite common (e.g., trying not to think of one’s problems or other anxiety-producing or depressing thoughts).” (enjoy this easy to read article)

I often use the poorly cited parable of the two wolves to describe this when I speak to educators about it.

It is my understanding that energy & attention are creative forces. Words create, so let’s focus on what we want with most of our energy, most of our focus, most of our words, and manage issues as needed.

As a leader in international schools, I am focused on creating what we want to see. Let us focus on what we want to see in our student population and direct them toward their best selves rather than focusing on our problems. I think of the movement of heat- cold is not an entity unto itself, it is the lack of heat, just as negatively is not its own entity at war with positivity, it’s so much easier- it is simply the lack of positivity. Give your energy to what you want to see.

For more on positive psychology in Leadership have a look at this gorgeous, entertaining and valuable article, Positive Leadership: 30 Must-Have Traits and Skills (Ackerman, 2019)