Positive leadership in challenging times
Where theory meets practice – Australian Positive Organisational Scholarship (POS) Community of Practice
On 12 October 2022, the Australian POS CoP held our third virtual event on Positive Organisational Scholarship and Positive Psychology, with a timely discussion on the role of positive leadership, together with insights and practical tips.
The pandemic and its aftermath have challenged workplaces in unprecedented ways: how can our organisational leaders use this opportunity to foster flourishing workplaces and encourage optimal functioning of their people, amidst growing concerns of psychological health and safety?
From academia
- Kim Cameron, William Russell Kelly Professor Emeritus of Management & Organizations, Ross School of Business and Professor Emeritus of Higher Education School of Education, University of Michigan. Kim co-founded the field of Positive Organisational Scholarship and has inspired the positive leadership movement. His latest book, Positively Energizing Leadership: Virtuous Actions and Relationships That Create High Performance, written in the context of a ‘confluence of challenges’, provides in-depth insights based on validated research across business, university and the public sector.
From the field of practice
- Louise Baxter, Chief Executive Officer, Starlight Children’s Foundation. Louise is nationally recognised as an exemplar in positive leadership and acknowledged by CEO Magazine in 2016 as Australia’s NFP Executive of the Year.
- Anne Johnstone, Principal of Ravenswood School for Girls. Anne is an exemplar in positive education and chair of the Positive Education in Schools Association (PESA) and Vice-Chair of the International Positive Education Network (IPEN).
The conversation was facilitated by Dr Rosemary Sainty, UTS Business School and Dr Suzy Green, Founder & CEO, The Positivity Institute. The event was hosted by UTS Business School.
Watch the webinar recording
Welcome to the Australian POS Community of Practice. Our third event is hosted by myself, Dr. Rosemary Sainty at UTS Business School, and my colleague Dr. Suzy Green, the founder and CEO of the Positivity Institute. The purpose of our POS COP is really to bring theory together with practice for those of us that are interested in fostering positive organizations.
For our third event, we had wonderful speakers, Kim Cameron, who of course is the co-founder of Positive Organizational Scholarship, and Louise Baxter, the Chief Executive Officer from the Starlight Children's Foundation. And Anne Johnston, the principal of Ravenswood School for Girls. We hope that you enjoy this webinar.
WEBINAR BEGINS
KIM CAMERON: I encounter a lot of executives, military officers, attorneys, engineers, people, scientists who say, Look, Cameron, we're in a very difficult position, and I mean a big, you know, a big resignation. The stock prices in the tank. I mean, people are griping each other. The division in the world is worse than it's ever been.
And frankly, this is a deflection, this business of positive. Just think happy thoughts. Put a smile on your face. It's toxic positivity. I mean, it deflects us from what's really relevant for heaven's sake. If you could actually show me how this has any relevance to what I'm held accountable for. I mean, stock price and productivity, and the morale of my people and retention and so on.
I mean, I might pay attention otherwise. This is just a deflection. It gets in the way. So what I've been doing with my own career the last 20 years is asking that question, Does this matter at all? In terms of bottom-line performance and what people are accountable for, that is leaders or accountable for, And the answer so far with no disconfirming evidence is absolutely, it matters at the bottom line.
Now, why does it matter at the bottom line? The theory that has emerged from this research is that every human being, everything alive, is attracted to light and away from dark or toward positive energy, away from negative energy. See, in nature, the sun is the source of positive energy. It's the life-giving force.
So photosynthesis happens only in a presence of life. Life happens only in a presence of life. For a seed in the ground, it will grow toward the light. Every living system has a tendency toward positive energy toward life, giving energy away from life to cleaning energy. Now there's a lot of research.
I mean, hundreds of studies literally that have confirmed that that's true. Human beings flourish in the presence of positive energy and languish in the presence of negative energy. So what are the implications of that for organizations? Because literally it'll affect your heart rate, it affects brainwaves, it affects your vagus nerve, all kinds of physiological activities that are affected by positive energy.
However, what we've been doing, I've been doing with some colleagues is asking the question, Yes, but does it happen in organizations so far? Again, no disconfirming evidence. What we've discovered is if you implement positive practices, I haven't talked about what those are yet. If you implement an abundance culture, a virtuous culture, you'll get in the profit sector, higher levels of profitability.
Now, if I could show you the slides, I'd show you some of these studies. In some cases, five times industry average. When we were studying Wall Street firms, that is those that implemented positive practices over a two-year period of time did five times better than the industry average in healthcare. 30 hospitals in that study, 10 times industry average on nine different dimensions that hospitals care about, airline industry, and many others.
And the whole point is profitability goes up, productivity goes up, quality goes up, fewer errors, less waves, more efficiency, innovation goes up, more entrepreneurship, more, creativity, more interesting risk taking to the benefit of the organization. Customer satisfaction. Customer loyalty goes up. I mean, literally lifelong loyalty occurs.
And employee retention, employee engagement, employee satisfaction, all those kinds of things. Yes. I mean, executives are held accountable for those six outcomes. And those are the six outcomes that we've identified as being, highly related to, in a causal way. I mean, we've, in some of these studies, we intervene and then simply measure whether we're getting better or not in terms of popular practices.
And over the same two-year period of time, what happens to outcomes, profitability and productivity and so on? Well, so in other words, we're, we're talking about causal relationships as opposed to just, Well, we're doing things, everybody's happy, so we do things that are positive, not, that's not the causal relationship.
And what we've discovered is significant enhancement. So I've become convinced that if you can get people to pay attention, and that's often the single most, challenging, issue we face is pay attention. Cause it sounds like it's superficial and, you know, irrelevant and, you know, super syrup piece, saccharine sweet and all those things.
Things, but not so, so organization performance goes up. Now what's also interesting to me, we just finished a study, 12 different regions in the united, I mean in the world, not just the United States. The reason we did this, 12 regions in the world, not including the United States, is because periodically people say, Well, Australia, United States, okay, well, Western cultures, it's okay there, but not in the rest of the world.
So, 12 regions in the world, essentially virtually all, all the regions in the world. And we did two interesting studies. One of them was we took 14 professors. And they were, they represented 14 different, disciplines, accounting, math, chemistry, all the way through psychology, sociology, healthcare. We simply exposed them for one full day to positive principles, positive practices, and so on.
And then we asked them to teach the same class. They taught last semester, next semester, only embedding in their course positive practices. Just don't change the content, just embed positive practices in your course. At the end of that semester, we simply tested several things. One is student satisfaction, 10% improvement.
We measured grade point average in test score, almost a full on a hundred-point scale, almost 10% higher. We measured, student attendance, 10% higher attendance for sake in the students and so on. In other words, Holy cow. College students responded, and it was not only college students, but I have a friend who lived in Bhutan and went to the Bhutan Education Association.
Now, you have to understand in Bhutan, they have a federal ministry of happiness. I mean, heads like to be the minister of happiness. Wouldn't that be great? ? Anyway, so 11 high school said, Okay, sure, we will implement positive practices. We're not going to change the culture. We're not going to eliminate a class.
We'll just embed this in our, educational approach. Nine high schools did not. So you got a nice comparison group. One year later, they measured student wellbeing. How are you doing? You like your friends, you like your class, and so on. Excuse me. Significant statistically significant improvement over the other group.
Well, that is the 11 high schools were significantly, more characterized by student, wellbeing. The thing that's really interesting about this study. They also then measured scores on standardized tests, college prep tests, significant improvement in academic performance. Then he measured a year later, make sure it wasn't just a single blip and it wasn't.
They stayed at that different state. significant. Then he went to Mexico, 35 high schools in each condition. Bingo, same result. Student wellbeing was significantly higher, better than Bhutan academic performance, significantly higher, better than Bhutan. Then he went to Peru, 347 high schools in each condition.
Bingo repeated the results. That is, and Marty Seligman about 15 years ago, I think, did something similar, in one of his studies. But the whole point is this actually does affect individuals, students. And it translates into organization performance. Mm-hmm. So, I, I don't want to go on and on and I, I could certainly share a lot more studies with you, but the idea is all their practices, especially in a post pandemic, conflict-ridden, chaotic environment is really relevant.
I mean, instead of saying, I'll put this on the shelf until we fund it, solve our problems until we get better. Instead of that, we say, No, no, no. This is a prescription for handling. It's not the only prescription. It's not that it's not a silver bullet for heaven's sake, but boy, I'd put my money there before I'd put my money on other things.
Oh, all somebody in the chatbook just said Alejandro Adler. Bingo. That's the guy who did the study of high school students. . Yes. So, Mindful of, of the time and wanting to get as much from you as possible. the, your latest book, when it, looks at positive leadership, I mean, you, you've emphasized the, the role of virtuousness, creating a a positive energy.
can you talk just briefly on that? Yes. Thank you. So the latest, book, And by the way, I'm not, I'm so uncomfortable trying to sell a book. I am not trying to sell a book. I just, I feel like I write a book in order to say something that I don't think has been said before. And one of the things that's emerged from my research is the importance of something I, we refer to as positive leadership.
Now, what in a world is positive leadership? Well, there are lots of different, we can talk about positively energizing leadership. That's the name, title of the book, Positively energizing leadership. There are lots of kinds of energy. One is called physical energy, which when I use it, it diminishes. I mean, if I run a marathon, I can't do it again.
Emotional energy. If I get in an intense interaction and debate, I get exhausted. I’ve got to have recuperate, recuperation time, mental energy, the same. That's why we have semester breaks. That's why we have weekends. We all get tired. The only kind of energy that elevates with use is relational energy. I mean, when do you get exhausted by being around a person with whom you have a loving, supportive relationship that's renewing.
In fact, when we get exhausted in other ways, we often seek out people who can renew us. So the research we do is on relational energy, which means how, What happens when I interact with Rosemary? Is she uplifting, elevating life giving. Or is she exhausting, depleting it sucks the life right out, in which case she said, Deener, energizing.
Well, we measure energy in organizations and there are lots of, I think lots of interesting findings that occur. Let me give you two or three of them. One of them is energy in an organization and hierarchical level are not related. You can be the ceo, you can be the big shot, you can be a senior, or you can be a junior, you can be a new analyst.
Doesn't matter because energy and hierarchical level are position are not related many, many times. We'll do an analysis in an organization and discover that junior level people are really highly energizing, giving life to the system, and often people at the top end of the organization are second to life right out of the system.
So having that energy network matters a lot. I, I can talk more about that. Another is energy is often confused with just extroversion, introversion, or in other words, personality. It is not the correlation. In fact, between energy and extroversion, introversion, personality variable is essentially zero.
Immuno extroverts. That is just exhaust the rest of us. I mean, it is, Holy Joe, I'm . It's nice to be around you, but boy, I'm exhausted. Not always, of course, other, we also know people who are introverted, but who give life, give energy to other people. Other people flourish in their presence. So it's not personality.
In fact, and positive energy is a set of behaviors. It's a set of actions that people take, which anyone or everyone can learn. In other words, one bottom line is anyone can become a positive energizer. You're not born with it. Another
is, it turns out your, Well, I need to, back up. One of the ways we measure energy in an organization is we draw network maps. Now, you know what a network map is, is in the back of an airline magazine. Some cities at the hub, some in the proof of you connect them with airline routes, or you can do that in organizations except people rather than cities become the notes.
And the question is, well, how do you connect people? Well, one way to connect people is on the basis, for example, of information flows. Who gives information to whom? Who gets information from whom? Now the research is very clear. I mean, there's a whole subfield in sociology called network analysis. The research is clear if you're at the hub or center of an information network, all the information flows through you and so on.
Your performance is higher, as is the unit we manage. No surprise. I mean, you know all the secrets. You can decide what to share and so on. You have an advantage. Another way to draw a network map is influence networks who influences whom, who is influenced by whom. No surprise, if you're at the Harbor Center of an influence network, your performance is higher than the norm, as is the union manage.
No surprise. Okay. Here's the surprise. Another way to draw a network map is on the basis of energy. Who energizes whom? Who is energized by home? Here's the results of the research. Your position in the energy network. Is four times more important in predicting performance than your position in the information network or the influence network.
Now think about that. We're constantly managing information. Did you come to the meetings? You get the minimum money, understand the goals. We're constantly managing influence. Here's the incentive system, here's the pressure, get the numbers and so on. The question is, does anybody ever manage energy? I mean, does anybody ever get rewarded or recognized or hired or promoted for being a positive energy energizer?
Cause it's four times more important in predict than in predicting performance than what we normally manage. So that's another finding. Yes, and I haven't talked at all about what, what that is. A third, a second. I mean, a fourth finding. Excuse me. The, best performing, the highest performing organizations have at least three times more positive energy.
Than normal or energizers than normal organizations. Meaning that, everybody can be one and you want more of them. It's not just the C-suite. It's such a, not just the folks at the top. So the whole point is in, in organizations that flourish, you're try, are constantly trying to flourish or trying to help develop positive, energizing, energizing leaders and Energizer.
Yes. I'll, I'll stop. Thank you, Rosemary. Well, that's a, a perfect segue to actually hear from some real life positive energizers. firstly, Suzy Green herself definitely be in that category, here in Australia, plays a really important role. but Kim will come back too. And, and I'd like us to also talk about sort of the vir, the Virtuousness, Dimension of this, but, but just to, to hear from our other panelists and to introduce Suzy a little bit, more thoroughly.
SUZY GREEN
Suzy is a leader in the complimentary fields of coaching, psychology and positive psychology. Having conducted a world first study on evidence-based coaching as an applied positive psychology. Suzy's published over 20 academic chapters and peer reviewed journal articles. she's the co-editor of Positive Psychology and Practice and Positive Psychology in the Workplace, both recent publications and the positivity prescription.
She's lectured on applied positive psychology as a senior adjunct, in the coaching Psychology unit at Sydney Uni for 10 years, and is an honorary vice president of the International Society for Coaching Psychology. Suzy's an honorary visiting professor at the East at the University of East London and holds honorary academic positions at the Centre for Wellbeing Science, University of Melbourne, the Black Dog Institute.
and she's an affiliate of the Institute for Wellbeing at Cambridge. So I think it's fair to say Suzy is what we would call a PR academic, and she straddles both, both sides of this, community of practice. So, Suzy, over to you to introduce our next speakers. Thanks so much Rosemary, and thank you so much, Kim.
It's always a delight. It's always inspiring and energizing. I've heard you speak so many times now and I guess I've been really fortunate to have, I guess observed the POS movement and field, evolved since it first launched, since it first, first launched. And. Have been fortunate to have, you know, many interactions.
And I think, Kim, when I first had a quite a large positive program project at, the Reserve Bank, which I think I have to have to say, I nearly fell off my chair when I got a call from the Reserve Bank of Australia, asking about positive psychology. And look, it was just one department. It wasn't the whole RBA.
But, I reached out to Kim and said, Kim any, any, suggestions or recommendations? And he very, very generously shared resources with me. And that was a very successful program. so thank you, Kim. Thanks for joining us today. But I'm also very excited because, our two guests, Louise Baxter and Anne Johnston, I've also known for quite a period of time, they're absolute champions in this space.
They're pioneers, they're exemplars. If I think about positive energizing leaders, Anne and, Anne and Louise certainly come to mind. So I'm going to start with Louise. Louise is most well known as her role as the CEO of the Starlight Children's Foundation, and I've been very fortunate to work with Starlight for 10 years now.
And in fact, they were my very first organiz broader, scale organizational client, and I would argue the first organization in Australia to take a strategic approach to the application of positive psychological science and positive organizational scholarship. we also, I I just wanted to sort of highlight for people, at the Positivity Institute, we've worked really hard over the last 10 years at integrating these complementary sciences such as pos, positive psychology, POS org scholarship coaching psychology, which we really think is the secret sauce in many ways to, beneficial outcomes and appreciative inquiring.
LOUISE BAXTER
But Louise, you've held a number of senior roles both in commercial and in the NFP sectors. you are passionate. I see that passion every time I have the opportunity to work with you and, the people at Starlight Children's Foundation. You're an absolute, as I said, exemplar. You practice positive leadership.
You've been acknowledged as this by CEO Magazine in 2016 as Australia's NFP Executive of the year. so many accolades, but, great to have you joining us today, Louise. And I think my first question is, given we've been in this space, if you like, and you've been applying this science for nearly 10 years.
What would be your comments? Well, I guess firstly on the, the research that Kim's presented, but then secondly, having just, you know, we're emerging from three years of covid and, having had all of these increasingly significant stresses and challenges, it would be great to hear from you, any insights that you've had over this period of.
Okay, well, hello to everyone and thank you Suzy and Rosemary for having me. And great to hear you, Kim. I was, rereading one of your older books a little, a few days ago, which is filled with coffee and has yellow stickies all the way through it, and, so, so what you are saying really, resonates with me and, and I also think it's common sense because as human beings we always want to spend time with those people who are positive, who are happier, who energize you.
And we try to manage our time, with those people who maybe drain our energy, you know, wingy whining. Now sometimes we have to move into caring mode because they're people who've moved from being heavy, positive people and we need to change that. But as human beings, this just makes so much sense. And, and you know, to start at kind of the top.
Since we have introduced this in a formal way, and we as an organization have been really about positivity right from the start, so over three decades, but we have moved every business metric in a positive direction. we have grown, you know, when I first started at Starlight, we are around 65 people.
We're now nearly 400 team members. We have grown from supporting, I think 127,000 children in terms of positive, we call them positive experiences, delivered to last year, over a million. we're in every children's hospital. We're in 140 remote indigenous communities, and we support children. And what we see is the benefits of positive psychology for children in health.
So there's a lot of what Kim has been talking about that is absolutely a hundred percent what we see every day. If we step back and talk about there, there's one thing actually that I'll say with the positivity is we were a positive organization. Then we became incredibly focused because I do come from the commercial world and really needed to focus people on, alignment to our vision and mission.
Because we need that absolute clarity of purpose. And today, if you speak to anyone, clarity of what we do is important for the organization right through to every individual so they know their role in delivering our impact of starlight. So I think that clarity of, of purpose, and alignment and engagement to, to mission and vision is absolutely critical.
You can't have a positive workplace, without that. Or you can, but it won't be as effective. You won't see the business results that you see when you pull all those things together. So, you know, we've always been about positivity and we actually have a vision, where we say we want every child to experience, a happy childhood.
Because happiness in childhood is the strongest determined or a clear determinant and how you will perform in your education, in your employment, and long term healthy life. A child who is diagnosed with a serious illness had their ability to be happy and to experience those pure moments of joy, of childhood, extremely restricted, taken away from them.
And what we do at Starlight is give back those moments of childhood to a child and a young person, which are incredibly important and actually improve their health outcomes. So it's all so linked that, and for us to be an authentic organization, and I don't use the word virtuous, but I do use the word, authentic, my bias, strength there in the areas of zest and, and teamwork and honesty.
And so having that honesty, through what we do is really important. A decade ago, we made the decision that while we had been in this space for a long time, we really needed to formalize that and we needed to give our team the tools for us to be an authentic organization. We couldn't just be delivering positive experiences for the children and young people we support and the health practitioners we partner with.
We needed to be doing that for our team. And we truly did it from the perspective of we wanted to do this so that our team could be their best self in life. And we knew that by doing that, they would then be able to bring their best self into Skylight. So we truly did it from the position of we wanted them to be the best they could be personally and in their personal life, and then they would bring it in.
And we did not do this with the vision of we are doing this to make skylight better. We knew that would be a side effect, but it was about the authenticity of our team having the tools to draw on when they needed to top up their cup. And so, I know we're talking about kind of pre and post pandemic, but from my perspective, Having that before the pandemic made Starlight match fit for what we had to move through in these last three week, three years.
Because never before have we had to really draw on, well, we, we had a, we had an environment where trust was, was the order of the day. So, and for me, I, I speak about trust as not earned. I think that if you trust your team and your processes, every person who joins your organization should be 100% trusted from the minute they walk in the door.
And if you, if you trust people, they do amazing things. So, you know, we had an organization where, Existed because of what we've done in, in the area of positivity. People had tools that they could use and we constantly reminded people of, you need to top up your cup. And also of the, of the whole idea of if we are going to be wonderful leaders and support our team through this time, you have to put yourself first and you, you can on and using the old, you know, airline mask analogy.
you know, you in the, when, when the plane's going down, you have to put your mask on first. and then you can help others. Exactly the same with positivity. We encouraged our team. So, so from my perspective, this has been a long journey because we were about positivity, but we were. From a program's perspective and a purpose perspective, we needed to get clarity and alignment around that.
And then we brought in a decade ago the ability for us to work with the Positivity Institute and provide our team with the tools they needed. To look after themselves and then care for others. And that is in their life and in their organization. And that is what has made the difference. And I think that, throughout this time, you know, we had to move work in very different ways and it was really necessary for us to constantly communicate that message.
you know, as a leader, I just said it, said it again and said it again because, you know, people were only hearing it for the first time. And we also introduced additional ways to support people in this space. But it, it was really the fact that we just, they had the tools. We had to constantly encourage people to use them, and we had to look out for our teams.
So on team meetings, you would see that someone wasn't parti. Engaged in a meeting or, you know, they didn't look, their normal self. And so what we were doing was, you know, encouraging people to either if it was appropriate, go directly to that person or call their manager and, and, and have a chat and provide the support and have the conversation.
So, that's kind of where we are and our, our, the programs we deliver at Starlight. For me, when I see a child come into a Starlight Express room, we have physical spaces in our hospitals, and we have a superhero called Captain Starlight. And they're professional performers who are trained in post psych and how to engage with children in our health environment.
And, you know, when you see a child coming to our space, especially a newly diagnosed child, and you see they have their head down, their shoulders down, they have an IV drip in their hand, they're in a wheelchair, and they come into the space and you see them suddenly lift. And for me to see that child 15 minutes later, Roaring with laughter, completely forgetting where they are and why.
That's the impact of skylight and that has important health outcomes because we all know, you know, when you get that cold, if you're in a great place, it's nothing. If you get that cold and you're really down in the dumps, it's the worst thing that's ever happened to you. And so that you know, can you talk to the difference that it has on you in a physiological point of view, we see that doctors tell us when they're working with our Captain Starlights, and they're using portable echocardio grafts to map, to, to diagnose rheumatic heart disease.
The heart is easier to, to, to view when Captain Starlight is there because the child is happy and relaxed. So it's all of those things and that's what we do. So our journey has been, has been long. Since we moved to this in a formal way and providing everyone the tools, the bottom line has seen the impact of that, and every business metric has improved.
So I think that's the kind of combination of, of what's being said today. Suzy, sorry. Thank you, Louise. No, and I think the beauty is, as you said, you've been doing this for, for 10 years or longer actually before, but 10 years since we first started working with you. there's been so many, initiatives.
In fact, I was on the world me Mental Health Day Internal Starlight, webinar this week. And there were at least two pages that were PowerPoint slides of initiatives that are offered at Starlight to support people. And I just want to say, because there has been quite a bit of backlash around, you know, just providing people with self care strategies, which is important, but clearly it's not the whole approach when we're talking about workplace mental health and wellbeing.
And, there are so many initiatives. Your recent best self leave time, Luis, did you want to mention that briefly? I was impressed by. Yes, no, no. we, we have one value at Starlight and that is to shine. And we talk about the fact that we shine for purpose. We shine by being exceptional. We shine, brighter together.
So that team works really important and to really feed into that. we've reviewed our initiatives, to support our team and we've introduced a whole range of things. And one of those is that we give everyone three best self dates so that they can go off and do whatever it is that tops up their cups.
So, you know, if they want to be doing, I don't know, French cooking classes, or they want to be doing a meditation class, they can use those three days to go and do that. To do what is. For them and what helps them to be their best. Fantastic. Thanks Louis. And look, there's so many more. the other thing I wanted to acknowledge is the investment in your internal capability.
So, Susan Henry, your head of people and culture who invested in a diploma of positive psychology with the Langley Group. And hi to Sue if you're on the call today. and then Mel Barker, who is your positive psychology advisor who has a master's in applied positive psych and coaching psychology. and I think that's a really important, step forward too, is that you're not relying solely on external consultants, but building up your internal capability and really owning it and living it in your own way.
And I think that's been, one of the secrets to your success as well. You have to invest in this, you know, your team and your talent. you know, they add the value to your business and, and to enable that, you need to ensure that you're investing in it. So it, it makes all the sense to us. Thank you so much, Louise.
ANNE JOHNSTONE
I wish we had more time, but I want to, move on now. Thank you to the delightful Anne Johnstone, who, as I said, has been a pioneer in this space, in positive education and is the principle of Ravenswood School for Girls. She's internationally recognized leader, renowned for her pioneering work.
She's also the chair and a founding board member of the National Positive Education in Schools Association, the peer Association who just held their conference, which sadly I missed last week and was amazing. , it was amazing. And, and having, you know, being POS Ed now over 10 years, 12 years or so here in, in Australia and something that we are very proud of here in Australia, isn't it, Anne?
That POS Ed started here and is now an international phenomena. And it was great to hear Kim, reference some of Alejandro's incredible research as well. And herself has studied with Marty Seligman and she's also currently doing a PhD. She's also a lawyer, which I think, it can come in handy at times and can't it, So come in handy.
Definitely. I'm going to hand over to you. There's so much where I could say, but I'm mindful of time and I really want this opportunity to share. Wonderful. It's an absolute joy to share and it's such a privilege to be on the panel with you, Kim and Louise and, and Suzy and Rosemary and the whole team.
Thank you for the opportunity to share. Well, I thought I would just begin by sharing a little bit about Ravenswood and I believe there's some slides that can be displayed here. Fantastic and fantastic. So, Ravenswood, let's just, move forward.
Thank you so much. Ravenswood was founded in 1901 the year our country was federated and is a uniting church, girls school from prep to year 12, boarding from year seven. Our school motto is “Sempe ad Meliora” - always towards better things. And I think this is such a positive education motto. And indeed our founder talked about the importance of being an encourager to young students and having a vision for empowering young women.
That was well beyond the time. She said this was not to be a day school for girls about the refinements of needer work, but a school that empowered young women to be the best they could be. And so I really want to pay tribute to the founder and to the generations of students and alumni that have gone before us, you know, in the present time, in our positive education, era, if you like, of Ravenswood.
And I can see somebody in the chat and said, I went to Ravenswood in the 1960s. How wonderful. All right let's keep moving forward. Well, I joined Ravenswood in 2016 and on my very first day, I had the opportunity to lead an Appreciative Inquiry Summit with the extraordinary staff team, every staff member teaching non-teaching admin, those in the grounds.
And we really did explore this question, what would it take for Ravenswood to become a leading positive education tool to help young people, flourish and be the best they could be and make a difference in the world. And, and certainly I think Ravenswood is all about recognizing that academic achievement and wellbeing are inextricably linked.
They feed off each other, they, mutually reinforce each other and they're equally as important as one another. to today we have our students in New South Wales sitting the HSC after three years of a global pandemic. And I really want to pay tribute to all the students who are completing school at the moment.
They've had three. Of a pandemic to navigate through with the benefit of the support of, teachers everywhere. But I want to say we know that our students will need more than their ATAR to be able to thrive, and they're worth so much more than their ATAR. And so really we're passionate about ensuring that yes, our students have the opportunity to fulfill their academic potential, but that they understand how to build each other's wellbeing and to build their own wellbeing.
And we bring that, emotional literacy through positive education. Let's keep going. We had the opportunity to work with Professor Martin Seligman in 2019. He was our in all rural psychologist in residence of Ravenswood, and it was such a blessing to have the benefit of working closely with him, hearing from him, sharing our programs with him, but also having, an amazing cohort, a cluster of schools from the Upper Hunter district here in New South Wales who've worked together to be able to share their resources and their understandings about positive education and bring them into the experience when Professor Martin Seligman joined us, we're also the first visible wellbeing school in New South Wales, working with Professor Lea Waters on the search framework.
And we've had the benefit of amazing experts such as you, Suzy Green, and other leaders in the field. What an honour to work with so many experts. Let's move forward.
Something I just wanted to share with you is that Ravenswood, our school is fondly referred to as Ravo, R A V O, and when I was studying the Master of Applied Positive Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and Philadelphia, it occurred to me that they had this amazing sculpture. Many would've seen it.
There's many iterations around the world, including in New York, but that this university had decided to display this culture, Philadelphia in. Means city of brotherly love. And I've wondered about the impact of a love sculpture, a stake in the ground for love, for relationships, for connection. And so inspired by that at Ravenswood we moved on and we'd go to the next slide.
We created our own sculpture, echoing this Ravo. the idea being that it is, an in of being a si a school of sisterly love. The difference that high quality connections make the difference of caring for one another makes the relationships. And in fact, when people visit our campus, they'll often say, I can't put my finger on it.
There's a warmth here, there's an atmosphere. And perhaps Kim, to your point, this is about having together an amazing group of positive energizers who are, may hear a difference to one another and looking beyond themselves. And now to our final slide. also really being, prepared to work together through difficult times.
Now, of course, like all schools, so many across the globe, I think 90% of learners across the globe were impacted by covid 19. the research, has suggested like everyone, we also have navigated a very difficult time, and Rosemary said at the outset, Yes, this was stress testing, positive education. It had been in place since 2016.
We believed that we were able to really embed a toolkit of strategies, approaches a culture that was about wellbeing and making a difference. this was the last time we gathered. Before we were locked down in March, 2020. In fact, we were gathering together, around the word hope to raise funds for, the bush fires, the terrible bush fires that were affecting, so much of our country.
And it reminded us as we moved into suddenly physical distancing, isolation, telling our students that we actually had to have them leave the campus and we weren't sure when we would come back together. Things like this, were reminder that we can, we don't know what the future holds, but we know who we are, what we stand for, and what we can do together.
And I think that's been really powerful, Suzy, in terms of the way that schools like ours, and I can speak of so many schools, we had this most extraordinary conference, as you mentioned, the PSA conference here at Ravenswood, last week. To see so many educational leaders, teachers, parents, counselors, students get together and say, We will keep going.
We'll find ways to bring hope to each other there. Phil Bell. Sorry about, That's actually very, very important. And so, I guess the first thing I would say in, in opening about positive education is it really has made a difference to us, and I can speak for so many delegates who came to the PSA conference.
It's making a difference in schools. Perhaps most remarkably, I had the opportunity to interview a panel of alumni and they talked about the difference it had made to them. And I was able to say them, You graduated in 2020, You graduated in 2021, You were the graduates during covid. What difference did it make?
And they said it made an enormous difference. And, one of them said, Look, I just feel so sad that not everyone has, the opportunity to learn about this to the same extent in school. And her comment was, I'm going to dedicate my life to positive education and to making a difference to others.
And so she's studying psychology at the moment, but really wants to move into this space. And I thought about that wonderful ripple effect, not just in our present generation, but generations coming forward, rising up, who are going to continue to make a difference in education. their ultimate message to us was things like strengths, mindfulness, cognitive reframing, the opportunity to, understand how to build each other's wellbeing during the tough times, but also the removal of the stigma around mental health in schools was probably really important, most important to them in terms of their school journey, as was help seeking behaviors when they really were struggling and they said, Thank you and keep going.
And I think that says it all. Wow. And that's so amazing, isn't it? And there's so many questions I could ask you, but I think the one that keeps coming back to me is the investment in your own growth, personal growth and development as a human being, as a leader. You know, I mean, we've often, well, for many years we've spoken about that in leadership training, but it's so easy.
I work with a lot of senior executives. It's very, very busy. It's how do you carve out the time for your personal growth and development to be the best person and human being that you can. Thanks, Suzy. look, it, he's always a juggle. I won't say, I won't say I've got the, balance entirely right all the time,
Yes. But you know what, Suzy, I think in the end it is, and I, and I know just looking around at this extraordinary panel as well, it is about making a decision, that. We're here to make a difference. And in order to make a difference, it is about, continuous learning and continuous growth and hopefully being able to set an example, particularly in a school of lifelong learning.
Yes, I think that's very important. But also, you know, I want to know, and that's, that's the thing that inspired me to, complete a PhD. I want to know that I am able to make a difference to the field as well. And it is in the practical sense, but also academically. There's so much research that needs to be done and it's a burgeoning field, positive education, so it's worth it.
Definitely. And if people's lives are impacted and hopefully positively transformed, then fantastic. And just finally, because I know we want to move on to the panel, questions more broadly, but, And your PhD Yes. What's the relationship between the topic? And I know many people will have heard of, you know, the fixed and growth mindset and, yours is on the other, I think mindset and, and its role to positive leadership.
Yes. Great. Oh, fantastic question. Well, yes, as you said, we've heard about growth mindset. It's so important in learning. You haven't made it there yet, but you keep trying, keep going. You will get there, we'll help you, you know, with mastery, et cetera. I'm really looking at what does it take to foster, a wellbeing mindset.
A mindset that promotes wellbeing. Now we know there are so many important positive interventions that we can learn and there are strategies and approaches, but what about the way we see the world? And so I'm, I'm focusing on this idea of an other person mindset and really echoing the words of the late great Chris Peterson who talked about other people matter.
If you were to distill positive psychology down to three words, other people matter. And so I'm looking at this question of what does it take to foster an other person mindset? And does that build the wellbeing, not just of those around us who hopefully were making a difference to, but to the person who is initiating, the wellbeing of others themselves.
And so that's the focus of my research, and I'm, I'm very excited. I'm, I'm, moving towards the, the active research component of this PhD. And it's going to be exciting and it fits beautifully with Kim's, I guess, conceptualization around virtuous behaviors leading to, you know, positive energy or positive, relational energy as well.
Such a perfect fit there. So, Kim, I'm, I'm, I'm going to hand over to Rosemary, but perhaps you have, may have a few comments or reflections on, on Louise or Anne's incredible examples of positive leadership. Oh, you have to unmute and, perhaps we'll move to gallery view. So we're all in the frame. Now, I do have a comment and that is, there's an old statement saying, if you can't do it, you teach it.
Well, I teach it, and we've just seen two people who are extraordinary in, in much more difficult task, and that is to apply this changing lives, making a difference. I mean, their impact will have generational effects. That is children, their parents, their parents, their parents and so on will be affected by what they're doing.
And so I admire them so very much. I really do. I, positive education, by the way, has been a, a real interest of mine for a long, for a long time. So I'm so, I admire so much. I'm in awe of those who are changing the lives, changing lives in a, in an educational setting. Virtuous as a concept is a, is a broad umbrella and there's lots of ways to approach the idea of virtuousness.
There have been people in ethics who say, Oh, Cameron, you're too narrow and so on. What occurred to me is I've simply measured a variety of what I refer to as virtuousness or virtues rather combined. We talk about those as virtuousness, the extent to which, for example, the extent to which an organization has embedded in their practices.
gratitude, the extent to which gratitude is simply something that occurs every day in our organization. The extent to which our organization is, is characterized by compass. I mean, in any group of people, more than 50% will be carrying some very painful load. So compassion is always relevant. So compassionate responses are embedded in the organization.
They simply support compassionate people, humility, integrity, honesty, trust, Louis mentioned, and so on. I mean, those, there are eight dimensions that I measure at dimensions of virtues combined together. Those are virtuousness. I call that virtuousness. Now, the reason for that is empirically, it is impossible to identify just one of those so-called virtues that's more predictive than the others, which makes sense.
I mean, I can express gratitude, but almost always gratitude is also associated. For example, with humility, it's really difficult for me to say, Gee, thank you so much, Anne, and do that in order to make myself elevated or somehow. You know, superior to her. It doesn't happen that way. So there are, excuse me, eight, these eight of these dimensions that empirically kind of hold together.
And when those are present in organizations, bottom line, outcomes go up, wellbeing of employees goes up, Attachment to the organization of self loyalty, desire to stay goes up. And the kinds of things we want, especially in a post, a post pandemic environment where, boy, we're challenged with lots of very difficult things and instead of being a side trip, Virtuousness ends up becoming an answer.
Now we sort of know that we learned that when we were tiny. I mean, you know, the study I was just affected by this study, which has been replicated multiple times in which children ages three months to eight months, We're simply put on a one at a time, put on a caregiver's lap. They watched a puppet show for maybe 20 seconds.
So a puppet tries to walk across the stage, tries to climb a hill, tries to open a box. Then you have two other puppets. One puppet tries to help encourage support. The other tries to hinder. It's a block up. You can't make up. The hill jumps on the box. You can't open the box. Then after 20 or 30 seconds, you bring these two puppets out, put it in front of the child, and the child can select whichever puppet he or she wants to play with.
Now at three months, you can't even grab. So they measure eye movement, Which ones is the child desire and want to play with? More than 90% of the time, children select a puppet that tries to help rather than tries to hinder. So from the time we were three months long before language, long before socialization, there is an inherent tendency in human beings to flourish, to desire, to want.
Virtuous, positive, uplifting behavior as opposed to the reverse. I mean, it's inherent in the human condition. All we're doing is unlocking human potential. That's inherent in all of us. Now there's more to say about that. Okay. So, thank you Kim. we had a discussion yesterday about the role of corporations here and how applicable these concepts are and how open to, to them, a kind of competitive environment might be.
And, and you probably have to deal with this sort of issue a fair bit when you're talking about, the virtuous positive, energizing leadership and pause in general. what, what, what would you have to say to that? Excuse me. Well, I need to tell you another study, . So I'm going to answer the study, by, by taking a side trip.
First of all, I mean, I answer the question by taking a side trip. So this study was done in the United, I mean at the University of Michigan. In my university, I have a colleague in a psychology department who took entering freshmen. She simply asked them to identify their goals for the year. Now everybody has lots of goals, but she categorized the goals into two types.
One with type was called achievement goals, and in this case, I want, I want to be popular, I want good, I want good, good grades. I want a girlfriend or whatever. The other kind of goal she categorized as contribution goals. I want to make a difference. I want to have something get better because what I've, what I've done, some people are dominated by one type of goal.
Some were dominated by the other. So she put people in two groups depending on which type of goal was dominant. Then she simply followed these students for one year, one academic. Measuring things like, for example, how well they got along with the roommates, how many times they got elected to a club office.
I mean, social factors, how many minor physiological symptoms they experienced, got a cold or got flu missed class, got cramps, whatever, physical factors, academic factors, what their grade point average was, what their test scores were at the end of each semester on every single dimension. Contribution goals were more predictive of outcomes than were achievement goals.
Now, let me translate that into organizations. As it turns out, organizations that are so focused on, I gotta get it, I gotta get it, I gotta get it. Achievement. Achievement, achievement, as it turns out over time, are not nearly as successful as those who say our job is to contribute, make a difference, have something get better because of what I, what I've done.
So one way to answer that question is not the only way, and it's not the silver bullet. But as it turns out, contribution trump's achievement. And by the way, physically, psychologically, I mean, one other study, there was a study done where, the, the, these individuals were all multiple sclerosis patients.
MS patients. Half of these people were signed to place a phone call once a week expressing love, support, and concern to somebody else. The other half of these people were signed to receive a phone call once a week, having somebody express love, support and concern. Two years later, they measured wellbeing, physical activity, self-efficacy, hope depression, eight fold difference.
Those people who placed a phone call were eight times healthier than those who received the phone call contribution, Trump achievement, or getting by a factor of a and so on. I'm, you can translate that into organizations. It matters a lot. So meaning and purpose and those kinds of things, which both Anne and Louise have talked about, matter of law.
It, it trumps the kinds of things that dominate executive's mindset. Mm. And, and actually that, that it's a shift in mindset, isn't it? To think about contribution as opposed to achievement goals. And, perhaps that needs to be built into a few more work planning and work and performance review, documents.
I think, yes, it's sort of to integrate. Suzy, I'm just going to , I think we might just jump into the q and A there, just to link up. this, and Louise, Somebody has asked, what are the types of tools that staff have at Starlight to build a culture of positive leadership? And I think that would be a nice segue from what Kim's just been saying, because you do have very high levels of staff employee engagement, and you have been working on this.
Yes, we have, and, you know, we are our engagement, our organ. We recently did the McKinsey Organizational Health Index, and we were, we were 89% for that, which is, apparently quite extraordinary. So, we, we measure this constantly, and we constantly change this. So, you know, our team has, access to a lot of learning, including coaching.
So, we also work in the, in the coaching space, we. We ensure that all of our team, when they do, when they're trained in positive psychology, they all have their, their bias strengths. So we have c teams build trees as to the strengths that they have within the team, and also set up mentoring groups.
So people might say, I'm really strong and appreciation of beauty. And someone who has that as a lower strength will say, Well, I want to work with you to, to improve that. So we see people collaborate and work together. we have online learning and development that we, provide for people. we have things like EAPs, of course we have the CALM app, which we actually give to people and have them give them a premium access so they can actually share it with their friends and family, and provide that.
So I think that there are multiple levels within the organization. We also believe very strongly that, that leadership is not hierarchical. I think, you know, it was, it was interesting to talk about the positive energy, suppliers within your organization not being hierarchical. And we believe that everyone leads, we all lead.
It's a kind of ebb and flow when we move into this. So we provide, leadership training, which we refer to as base camp because that, that acknowledges that no one's at the bottom of the mountain, everyone's on the ascent. and so we provide that across the organization. It's not provided to people who are more senior.
and we're also looking within the organization to say, you know, where are the roles that actually add future value to the organization? So, you know, and they are also not hierarchical. So I think, I think from our perspective, we have, a very accessible. Organization. you know, for example, when new team members join, I used to be able to meet them cause I was traveling.
So now we have an online CEO connect with a couple and I sit down every month with all the new team members and meet them, over a couple online. And I think that this is great at making, the, making the fact that we all can listen, I will listen, the whole team will listen. So I think that listening skill is really important as well.
So, you know, there is a range of coaching learning. A formal development that is provided and then also the teams are left to their own devices with additional learning in those areas and tools to support. We also have an app in terms of, gratitude. So we have an app that every team member has, and at any moment you can actually send praise and you actually list that praise under whether they were shining brighter together or shining for purpose.
So it actually matches our value and that is cross-functional as well as within teams. And people use that, to a really high level. And that's wonderful for people to be able to do that. So that whole promote. Of, of appreciation and thanking people is incredibly strong within the organization. So I suppose there's, So do you want to add to that?
Because I was just going to say, Louise, I, I recently was in, a group last year of CEOs and, whilst there was a lot of agreement, as much of us are, you know, on the same page here today, one CEO said, Well, I'm sorry Suzy, but I think the pendulum swung too far and we're pandering to people now. What would you say to that?
I would say, I would say absolutely not. We're seeing best results. We're seeing, you know, enthusiasm within our team and we've had a really hard three years. And if you think, you know, you know, education's been impacted. Health, we have been restricted in ho we work in hospitals, you know, and in community.
And that has been, the restrictions have been severe. So we've had a really challenging time. But, from my perspective, we have, the pendulum has not swung too far and I think it will swing further, because there is more coming. You know, we've just introduced not only the best self days, but also a public holiday swap, which speaks to diversity and inclusion.
So if you know, Easter is not your time and you don't want that off, you can in advance have other days taken off and you can work at Easter. You know, you know, we are letting people work overseas for 20, you know, for a month every year. So we recognize the fact if you are from another country, you know, using your annual leave is not a break, to go and visit family.
So, you know, you can work from there. So I, I think that, and what we are seeing is, is we're seeing smart, bright, wonderful people contributing more, and the innovation, our innovation is through the roof. We have 205 collaborations in play at the moment. So, so I say no and, and, and a great sense of, gratitude still Louise, because I guess I've also had feedback that people then become entire, you know, habituate in a sense and become entitled.
You haven't experienced that either in your organization? No. No. I don't think people are entitled. I think we're at a, an, an interesting point on just the whole working arrangements. and, I think that younger people. Demanding, earlier than we possibly were. But is that about, is that a bad thing?
Who knows? , you know, if they're, if they're confident enough to be doing that and holding ups to account, that's got to be a good thing. Just to add something else in there, because the, the psychological health and safety, so, social psychosocial hazards, that whole piece has become, what would you say, much more prominent.
I see we have Louise Parks as well, on the webinar, and I was listening to her talking about this, and I'm assuming that this is a, a real issue in schools. Very much so. very much. How, what would you say about, you know, they, they're really serious issues and they sort of carry kind of risk and compliance dimension as well.
Yes, Yes. Could you just briefly talk to that in terms of the positive approach? I think, I think it's such an important area, and this is also where we come back to that idea of building wellbeing, literacy, emotional literacy, being able to, make a wellbeing visible to use leave water's, sort of, terminology around that.
I think it's really important not just for students and of course for students the appropriate help seeking behaviors, checking in with their friends, saying, Are you okay? I'm not sure that you are traveling as well as you might want to. Is can I help you? Can we, can we seek help together? building that sense of care for one another is really important.
But similarly with staff building one, another one another's wellbeing, understanding how to build our own wellbeing, not just here at school, but in our families, in our broader life, is so important. So in many ways it is a proactive, preventative approach, but what is, what is also significant is that we've seen that in, crisis.
That people are able to mobilize more powerfully when they have those tools and they have that language, and there's not the stigma. And so I think it's really important that we have these conversations and we, and we build into, structures and approaches that really do positively, build wellbeing across school ecosystems and across society more generally.
The other thing I wanted to share is that, and I was reflecting on Louise, talking about this extraordinary multiplier effect within the organization, but we have, teachers, we have the most extraordinary teachers and non-teaching staff who have also learned along the way a, a positive journey and who are now teaching others.
And so I think that's really important too, to see this mentoring of one another, of being able to lead their own workshops and share what's worked for them and why, and maybe what hasn't worked and, and, and what they've learned from that. And similarly with students, we've had our students, for the last couple of years join together, with, our brothers school and present wellbeing strategies to other students.
So have a big conference, with hundreds of students from across, Sydney and, and, and a bit further a field to be able to share with everyone. And I think that's really important too, making sure that we're sort of continuing to find ways to build each other's, wellbeing and also to measure that, to understand how we are, traveling.
And there are so many wonderful me measurement tools. We use one through the University of Melbourne and Lee Waters as well. but it's important to be able to measure that and to check in to see how people are going, how are students going, how are staff going, really, that matters as well. Mm, thank you.
I've sort of realized we've got seven minutes left and , there's definitely a kind of theme in the question, the q and a, sort of for practical tools, et cetera. And so I think, Kim, if we, we get your slides and, and I'll make sure that your papers up there with the search model. Louise, I know you've got some slides, so I think we can, we can build up that kind of practical tools side of things to include on a, the, the link that we send out everyone that's, on this webinar.
So we thought we might sort of round things up with, a question to each of you. Starting with Kim giving, given the confluence of challenges and they're not letting up really, are they? This confluence of challenges. They're still sort of emerging from covid and, and there's other things. And we, we are pretty adaptable.
We're pretty good. but it, it, it, there is that stress test, to keep quoting Anne on that. what, what are your hopes, So where do you see sort of the positive organizing, positive leadership approach going? where do you hope it goes, I guess in the next few years? it would be wonderful if each of us made a commitment to live, live a more virtuous life.
That is the, the sort of overarching definition of a positively energizing leader is one whose actions help other people dream more, learn more, do more, become more. I mean, wouldn't that be great if we were all. That kind of motive when that happens. By the way, I mean, I, I just can't underline enough, emphasize enough that the empirical research is clear that organizations get better.
What that means is their members get better, be it or me, meaning they achieve their goals. They, their, productivity and effectiveness is higher. And, you know, all of positive psychology data about heart rhythms and brainwaves and coherence in your body at heart health and so on. I mean, boy, there's an abundance of rich of work that suggests if you simply behave in these ways, your grandmother taught you this when you were three years old to behave in that way.
you are better. The people around you are better, and the organizations in which you, work and, and live are better. Okay. And, and there's a nice link there, certainly for me in terms of corporate responsibility, if we're looking at the corporate landscape, the sort of virtuous leadership and notions of stewardship, et cetera.
So that does make some nice connection. Louise, what are your hopes? Well, well, I, I think, you know, what Kim has said is, is spot on. And, and, you know, when we started, I, I talked about the fact we originally started over 30 years ago. There were physicians who dismissed what we did as LA and, and not in value.
And that wave is just, you know, been moving ever since then where people completely recognize the physical benefits of being positive and building wellbeing and resilience. And, it's so incredibly important for our physical health outcomes, not only for children who are seriously ill, but for everyone.
And so I think that, you know, Starlight is really been at the crest of that wave, and people now recognize this. So the more that we, investigate and try and innovate, the more we're asked to do, the need is just increasing because people are seeing. The companionship really of, of physical health and mental health as that's when you achieve your best.
So I think that, I, I think that this is going to continue because people will see the benefits of it and, and the pendulum has not swung too far. so I, I'm, I'm excited about what this means. Very different workplaces to workplaces that I, you know, I commenced in the commercial world a long time.
Mm. Yep. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Anne? Yes, so look, I have a great deal of hope for the future, working in a school like this with the most extraordinary school leadership team, the staff, the students, the parents, the alumni, but also I think that it, I reflect on Marty Seligman's words, wellbeing is every child's birth role.
And so I think we must continue to move towards, a world where people are experiencing high levels of wellbeing. We know that, but I think what's also important to emphasize is that we can create such a difference in our own spheres of influence from where we are and from who we are with. And, and, and that's the point about leadership to, it's not about being a leader in the field, it's about showing leadership in whatever field you are in, in whatever capacity.
And, and I think if we, make a, make a, make a sort of commitment to make a difference, we will make a difference. And so I'm excited about that. And I think that three quotes from our students, each year they come up with a theme. For the last three years, these have been the theme. The Ravo connection.
So that's the power of connection. The next one was you strengthen the sisterhood. In other words, everyone can make a difference to strengthen their communities. And, and this year's one has been together, no matter the weather. And that was before La nina, which is a weather pattern, still you to dust. But, I think it's really important that connection, that togetherness and that willingness to, to, to make a difference.
But see the strength. Strikes in others. Thank you. a couple of the questions in the, the chat and the q and a, allude to sort of the environmental side of things, you know, and sustainability, and of course that's about connectivity too and that every person matters. so I'm going to use that as a segue to, to wrap things up, in that, for our next, our next CoP event, we're hoping to look at the positive approach, positive organizing and sustainability.
They're all, they're all interrelated. So, thank you Gary for those, those questions. Suzy, did you want to say anything quickly before I do a sort of final round? Just very briefly, and for those of you that are familiar with coaching on here, we talk about coaching, having three processes, which is you need the skills, you need a process.
But the largest part of being a great coach is the way of being, which, you know, Carl Rogers spoke about famous humanistic psychologist. And I think the same applies to leadership that unfortunately we see so many leaders because of the pressures and, you know, not carve that time out, that's so essential to their own personal growth and development, knowing that it's going to have this powerful ripple effect onto others.
So that would be my parting message, is to ensure that you do make that time for you, for, for your growth and development, ultimately, knowing it's going to impact others. Mm. Yes. Important message. So, so some, some quick thank yous. obviously, first of all to Kim, who I, I feel like I chased him around the country.
From Michigan to Nebraska, but here he is and we'll look forward to getting your slides too for the visual side of things. Thank you so much, Kim. It's really important for us in our, our sort of emerging. positive, community in Australia. well, not emerging really. We've certainly got expertise, but thank you, to Louise and, such an exemplar Starlight and, really great to, to hear from a practical point of view, really, how things are embedded and, and, I'm not sure how you do it, but it's a lot of support.
Yes. Well, well done. Really interesting to hear about, about Ravenswood and your approach. behind the scenes, of course, Rebecca Whelan from the Business School and Jay Hersh from, Suzy's Positivity Institute, Ben. very, very important. And we've also had ongoing support from Sue Langley, Felicia Hubert, Monica Worline, and Jane Dutton over your way.
Kim, Ace Simpson and Stewart Clegg, who I think may be on the webinar today. and yes, just a reminder that everything we've talked about today and any of the resources that we can garner together, we will put together on a webpage. Then we'll send everybody that link. So, so the idea is there's a legacy from each one of these sessions and continued learning.
And thank you, everybody, Rosemary, for all of your hard work in creating this as well. Thank you so much. Thanks, everyone. Thank you, Suzy. Okay. And thanks for the chat, Yes, an excellent chat. Thanks, everybody.
Event run sheet
Time | SpeakerS and topic |
---|---|
0:00:00 | Dr Rosemary Sainty: Introductions and purpose of the POS CoP |
0:00:53 | Professor Emeritus Kim Cameron: Positive Leadership in Challenging Times |
0:17:44 | Dr Rosemary Sainty introduces Dr Suzy Green |
0:21:04 | Louise Baxter: Positive Leadership and Starlight Foundation |
0:33:53 | Anne Johnstone: Positive Leadership and Ravenswood School for Girls |
0:46.13 | Panellist discussion |
0:55:23 | Open discussion with Q&A from attendees |
1:11:08 | Dr Rosemary Sainty and Dr Suzy Green wrap up the session |
Resources
Speakers presentations
- Kim Cameron – Positive Leadership in Challenging Times (PDF, 1.36 MB)
- Louise Baxter – Mental Health and Wellbeing (PDF, 1 MB)
- Anne Johnstone – Positive Leadership (PDF, 2.41 MB)
Acknowledgements
This event supports UN Sustainable Development Goals 3 and 17.
This event is organised by The Positivity Institute and UTS Business School, as part of our commitment to the Principles of Responsible Management Education (PRME).