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

Gordon lays out the first principle in his framework for enhancing leadership capacities in Chapter 3, “Positive Leaders Drive Positive Cultures.” By placing the creation of a positive culture first in his framework, he emphasizes its significance: Creating a positive culture is a leader’s most important job. In addition to fostering motivation and cooperation, it helps communicate the organization’s values. In a metaphor to which Gordon returns often, culture is like the root of a fruit-bearing tree: Leaders should not focus solely on outcomes (the “fruit”) but must also nourish culture (the “root”).

To a large extent, the rest of the book elaborates on this basic idea, identifying various components of organizational culture and providing strategies for cultivating them. For instance, a positive organizational culture starts with a leader’s vision, which in turn requires knowing what the group stands for and what it wants to be known for. Once a vision is established, the leader must communicate it clearly to their team. For instance, Alan Mulally printed his vision of “One Ford,” a commitment to company teamwork across many regional entities, on T-shirts. The vision must be articulated clearly and often since it is the foundation for the plan that moves the vision forward.