This blog entry is intended to be a quick and basic introduction to the theory and practice of Appreciative Leadership, as espoused in a recent book by Diana Whitney, Amanda Trosten-Bloom, and Kae Rader. The name of the book is Appreciative Leadership: Focus on What Works to Drive Winning Performance and Build a Thriving Organization. In the next couple of weeks one of the authors, Amanda Trosten-Bloom, will be sharing some of her thoughts about appreciative leadership in this blog. Amanda will undoubtedly provide a more nuanced and intelligible overview of Appreciative Leadership in her entries. And she may be inclined to respond to the overly simply comparison of Appreciative and Transformational Leadership contained in this blog entry.
Appreciative Inquiry
The foundation of Appreciative Leadership is in a theory and approach to organizing known as Appreciative Inquiry (AI). The fundamental difference between AI and other approaches to working with organizations is that instead of focusing on what is wrong or broken — and trying to fix it — AI seeks to discover the uniquely positive qualities and capabilities of an organization and uses these as the foundation for future development or change. It is a highly participatory approach that involves asking strategically crafted questions about an organization’s collective strengths, achievements, success stories, positive traditions, and visions for the future. AI is based on the assumption that organizations will change in the direction of the questions asked. If inquires are into problems or difficult situations, that is what you will keep finding. And if the focus is on what the organization is at its best, that you will move the organization in that direction, and be able to build sustainable changes that are grounded in these emerging narratives. AI is firmly grounded in social constructionist theory, ideas around the power of generative conversations, and the centrality of relationships and language in the functioning of organizations.
Definition and Five Core Strategies
The model of leadership put forth by Whitney, Trosten-Bloom, and Rader is extremely well aligned and consistent in theory and practice with AI. The authors define Appreciative Leadership as the relational capacity to mobilize creative potential and turn it into positive power – to set in motion positive ripples of confidence, energy, enthusiasm, and performance – to make a positive difference in the world. With very little effort, this could be made into a definition of AI itself. The authors introduce the Five Core Strategies of Appreciative Leadership: Inquiry, Illumination, Inclusion, Inspiration, and Integrity. Again, nicely consisitent with the basics of the AI approach to organizational change. I will leave the more detailed description of these strategies for upcoming entries – whether by Amanda or this writer.
Comparison with Transformational Leadership
The similarity between the Five Core Strategies and the familiar 4-I model of Transformational Leadership are interesting. It isn’t just that Idealized Influence, Inspirational Motivation, Intellectual Stimulation, and Individualized Consideration begin with the same letter as the 5-I model in Appreciative Leadership. There is some definite overlap between the two models in terms of how leadership is conceptualized. In my opinion a significant difference is that Appreciative Leadership is firmly grounded in one of the most widely used and innovative approaches to organizing to emerge in the postmodern times. The authors have effectively taken the theories and practices of Appreciative Inquiry and translated these into an attitude and approach to leadership that can be embraced and put into practice in a fairly step-by-step manner. It seems to me that these are not claims that can be made by proponents of Transformational Leadership. Appreciative Leadership is obviously in its infancy compared to Transformational Leadership when it comes to the amount of research and analysis that has been conducted in an attempt to determine correlations with organizational effectiveness and other success metrics. But having AI as its foundation, in my mind, immediately establishes Appreciative Leadership as a legitimate and worthy peer with Transformational Leadership. It will be fun to see whether this opinion holds up.
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Steve Wolinski provides leadership development, organizational change and talent management services to numerous public, private and non-profit organizations.
Carol Mase, President of Cairn Consultants, is an educator and coach-consultant who has worked in global marketing, strategic planning, and large scale organizational change.
Kristin Keffeler, MSM, of Kinetic Enterprise, is a business development and leadership coach who specializes in supporting entrepreneurs and business leaders to bring their Big Ideas to life.
Dr. Steven Ober is a senior executive coach and consultant. He has worked successfully with executives and managers in high tech, business and industry, health care, government, and education. 
An interesting article, and I’m all for simplicity! I do look forward to reading some of Amanda’s comments though.
I work with managers from hundreds of small businesses, all of whom are really busy, time strapped, and often lacking in confidence or practical “know-how” to deal with the very real people issues and challenges which come up every day. Sometimes I think we, as trainers, coaches and academics, can make theories and models too complex for the average manager – who is often looking less for theory, and more for practical tips and techniques they can use to deal with the underperformer, or lack of morale, or conflict or whatever other “people challenge” they face.
I worked as a teacher for 17 years, before going into industry and becoming a manager myself. In those years I learned to look for, or create practical ways to apply the theory, so I could see if it worked or not! I’m also mindful of a lesson I learned from one of my own coaches: “A fourth grader is “God” to a third grader.” Sometimes I suspect theories such as AI or Emotional Intelligence or the dozens of other models/theories just seem to make management and leadership more complicated if we’re not careful! As trainers and coaches, we like the academic and theoretical nature of these theories and approaches but I suspect the average manager isn’t waking up asking himself, “How can I focus more on what works today?”
Cooperrider, who developed AI in the 1980’s talked of always seeking stories of what was working well in a particular area: so for example, if we are interested in improving team morale and motivation, we collect stories and examples of people’s best team experiences, and focus on how we can generate more of this – and this seems at least a start to a plan of action.
What I’d be interested to know is, if there are any simple suggestions or techniques which your average manager can take away from all the theory. How do we, as coaches and trainers, make this interesting material more accessible and “real”? How do we answer the question the manager might ask which is: “OK – so what can I actually do – starting tomorrow, which will help make a difference?” And how do we help organisations to look for more creative ways to involve managers in the changing of mindset and culture which I believe is crucial to allow any form of AI to work? After all – after years of appraisal processes which focus on weaknesses, plugging gaps and “fixing” people – as you so rightly say – getting managers to understand why and how AI can be a powerful force for improving performance might take some doing!
I’ve been using some of Gallup’s work – and Buckingham’s strengths assessments within some of the teams I’ve been working with – as a practical way of helping people focus on strengths, and understand some of the fundamental principles behind human learning and performance. Does anyone have any stories of how they have helped managers/organisations successfully apply the principles of AI?
Shona
Thanks for your thoughtful response. I hope that others will repsond to the question regarding “stories of how they have helped managers/organisations successfully apply the principles of AI”? The Appreciative Leadership book actually has some good stories about how this has been done. In my work helping companies develop competency models I always look for opportunities to include appreciative language. But it seems to me the best way to integrate the principles of AI into the fabirc of an organization — and its leaders — is through an an actual AI informed change initiative. It is frequently in those appreciative interviews that the light comes on for many leaders and managers. I think it would be ideal if that “awakening” could be followed up with some appreciative leadership development.