The Center for the Advancement of Positive Leadership (CAPL) was created to bring a positive, strengths-based approach to leadership and professional development. It represents a shift from deficit-based leadership development programs to a more relational and affirmative way of working and leading, based on the idea that positive processes get positive results.
Appreciative leaders understand how to bring out the best in people and organizations; to uncover potential and bring it to life. Positive leadership is a means of promoting engagement, positive emotions, and energizing relationships. The goal of positive leadership is to create workplaces that foster high satisfaction and high productivity. Research shows that satisfied employees are more engaged, perform better, and are more committed. They have reduced negativity, absenteeism, and turnover.
Leadership exists between people. That is why having authority is not the same as leadership. This relational perspective of leadership allows us to work on improving leadership effectiveness. Our programs are designed to help leaders raise self-awareness and eliminate self-defeating patterns of behavior. At the highest leadership levels, even small changes in behavior can have a large impact. With top executives, behavior modification may be the only attribute that can be changed in a cost-effective manner.
Positive leadership development requires the assessment of personal strengths and the training of individuals on how to better develop and utilize those strengths. As Industrial/ Organizational Psychologists, we see the value of bringing aspects of positive psychology and applied behavior analysis to the discipline of leadership training and organizational development. Our training in the psychological and behavioral sciences allows us to bring time-tested models of leadership and the latest empirical research on organizational change and development to our leadership programs. Our blended backgrounds as educators, researchers, consultants, and coaches make us uniquely suited to offer science-based solutions that are grounded in practical business reality.
