The Power Of Positive Leadership: How and Why Positive Leaders Transform Teams and Organizations and Change the World

Gordon acknowledges that there are times when leaders struggle with positivity. Having a greater purpose is the answer. He compares this to having a series of gas stations from which the leader can refuel and keep moving forward.

Gordon argues that hard work itself doesn’t make a person tired. Rather, a lack of purpose does: “We get burned out because we forget why we do it” (152). Happiness doesn’t come from work itself but from the meaning and purpose that a leader brings to work. Alan Mulally transformed Ford because he gave his employees a greater purpose, drawing on Henry Ford’s vision to “open the highways to all mankind” (152). Mulally was also aware that by saving Ford, he would be saving thousands of jobs and contributing to both the US and global economies.

Leaders must think about why they do what they do, and they don’t have to look further than where they already are to live with purpose. Gordon gives the example of a mortgage broker who believes that her job is to save marriages, recognizing that when people lose their homes, their marriages often fall apart.

Gordon discusses the need for leaders to have and share both a vision (where they are going) and a purpose (why they are going there).