Courses from the University of Michigan and around the country are outlined in these syllabi, highlighting the study of Positive Organizational Scholarship and positive leadership methods. These courses guide students to new, positive leadership styles, embracing emotion and human nature, acting as an alternative to traditional leadership and teaching them to discover the potential of their workforce.
This course is founded upon an academic perspective that originated at the Ross School of Business. It has grown into a global field of study called Positive Organizational Scholarship. Scholars in this field examine people, groups, and organizations when they are operating at their very best. Their findings indicate how to move systems from normal to exceptional functioning with extraordinary results.
Many opportunities exist, and more are emerging daily, for value creation in the “wellness space.” By better understanding gaps in their ecosystem, students will be able to identify and pursue potential new ventures. And, by studying the various attributes of wellness, participants will also learn best practices for enhancing personal health and well being.
While time constraints may continue to create challenges, knowledge about best practices for personal physical health and psychological resilience will increase the odds that participants will be able to successfully cope with personal and professional stresses, particularly those associated with the launch and growth of new ventures.
Students participating in the course will:
Organizational psychology is “the science of psychology applied to work and organizations”. Psychology, when applied to work, has often adopted a problem-focused perspective and focused on avoiding or alleviating negative consequences of work, such as stress, burnout, and social conflicts. However, during this seminar, students of the course will focus on solutions and strengths – on the positively deviant (rather than only neutral or negative) psychological and also social phenomena and processes at work.
The aim of this course is to enrich the students’ perspectives about the relationship between leaders and followers in organizations. While most approaches depict managers as the crucial actors, the perspectives included in this course emphasize the role of the subordinates.
This seminar will cover a variety of topics from the emerging field of Positive Organizational Scholarship (POS) and the related field of Positive Psychology. We will focus in-depth on the research and principles of POS and the approach to topics. Given that this is a relatively new field, my objectives for the course are to have you thinking about research in work and organizations from the POS perspective by sampling from the domain of research and topics that have been approached from this vantage point. Importantly, I want you to be able to think critically about your own research from the POS perspective. This is another “lens” through which you will be able to view your own and others’ research.
This course is designed to give students (undergraduate and MBAs) a working and practical knowledge of the growing domain of positive organizational scholarship (POS) based on an intensive immersion in POS research and practice. POS is an interdisciplinary approach to leading and being in work organizations in ways that call forth the best in people, resulting in individual and collective flourishing. Flourishing is a term that captures the optimal state of functioning of individuals, groups or organizations, with indicators such as thriving, engagement, health, growth and creativity as well as other markers of being in a state of positive deviance.
Jane Dutton taught this course on how to create, foster, and manage organizations in which people thrive and perform at their best, assuming that employee and group thriving is the key to organizational excellence.
Wayne Baker teaches this course on how to create, foster and manage organizations in which people thrive and perform at their best.
This 8-week overview course will provide an introduction to positive psychology and strengths-based perspectives, theories and methods that have been revolutionizing HR practice over the last few years. While historically, scholars and practitioners have been primarily concerned with what goes wrong in organizations and how to remedy problems, the positive approach focuses on what works, and how to capitalize on strengths. Accordingly, this course will provide an overview of topics such as strengths-based and positive approaches to talent management, performance management, training and development, job design and job crafting, employee empowerment, managing diversity, virtuous downsizing, and job satisfaction. This is a hands-on course and will involve active participation and discussion.
The main purpose of this course is to gain exposure on how to create an attractive corporate culture, increase employee engagement, infuse meaning into the workplace, cultivate openness to change, build trust, create sustainable performance, enhance employee well-being, and foster organizational flourishing. Drawing from positive psychology principles, this course along with the other courses in the Positive Human Resource Development concentration is designed to attend to the ever-changing market needs of the HR function to go beyond the administrative role of HR and actively cultivate and support a flourishing, positive organization.
Karen Norum taught Leadership and Literature with a theme of Hope and Affirmation. Positive leadership was examined through different kinds of literature (poetry, biography, historical fiction, wisdom stories, etc…)
Gonzaga University Doctoral Program in Leadership Studies
Leadership in Organizations (MO 321) invites you on a journey of personal exploration, understanding and development—with the explicit goal of making demonstrable progress towards becoming a more effective leader. To achieve this goal, the course offers an extensive examination of leadership in organizations and provides you with a set of experiences that are designed to enhance your self-awareness and capacity for effective leadership.
Leading a Good Life (MO 620) provides a roadmap for living the best life possible. This course is about leading oneself in a positive and purposeful manner. The course is divided into three key components of leading a good life:
The course invites you on a journey of personal exploration, understanding and development—with the explicit goal of leading you on a path to living a good life. Although this topic can feel lofty and amorphous, all learnings will be grounded in the extensive body of scientific research aimed at addressing this topic.
Leading a Good Life (MO 320) provides a roadmap for living the best life possible. This course is about leading oneself in a positive and purposeful manner. The course is divided into three key components of leading a good life:
The course invites you on a journey of personal exploration, understanding, and development—with the explicit goal of leading you on a path to living a good life. Although this topic can feel lofty and amorphous, all learnings will be grounded in the extensive body of scientific research aimed at addressing this topic.
This course develops the skills you will need for leading and thriving amidst change. Change is a basic ingredient of life. Recommending, planning, managing, enacting, surviving and evaluating personal and organizational change are challenges that concern everyone. If the ability to execute timely change differentiates successful individuals – and successful organizations – from the run-of-the-mill, then taking this course will give you an important competitive advantage as a leader.
In this course, students will explore the theory and practice of creating change, with an emphasis on how insiders can create desired organizational change through micro-level, every day action. By the end of the course, students should be more capable facilitators of change, sensitive to the nuances of change, and more knowledgeable and wise about its enactment. To cultivate this capacity building, course participants will examine how people access new lines of sight that prompt change, imagine new possibilities for making a positive difference, and deliberate best pathways using an experimental attitude and open heart. When successful, these collective initiatives foster the meaningful and productive contribution of all involved, support human development, and generate significant personal and organizational outcomes.
Karen Golden-Biddle taught this MBA elective course on “Managing Organizational Change.” It has a natural focus on POS through both its content (everyday leading, enacting high quality connections, crafting positive organizing practices, drawing on and changing cultural competences) and its pedagogy of building the learning community’s capacity for navigating the dynamics of change.
Jane Dutton taught this course on managing professional relationships from a Positive Organizational Scholarship perspective. The course syllabus has embedded teaching notes in it for most classes. Click on each class number to access the teaching notes.
This course will help each of us become more effective leaders of change in our organizations, communities, families, and personal lives.
Karen Norum taught Organizational Change and Appreciative Inquiry, which looks at the emerging field of Positive Organizational Scholarship and specifically, Appreciative Inquiry. A highlight of the class is the sharing of the best-self portraits produced during the Reflected Best Self Exercise.
This course on Organizational Resilience is part of a concentration of courses leading to a Organizational Dynamics Master of Science degree for working professionals. University of Pennsylvania Organizational Dynamics program
The goal of this course is to improve students’ effectiveness as leaders, managers, and team members by introducing them to frameworks for understanding how communication affects individual and group performance.
Students focus specifically on positive communicative behaviors that can be used to not only foster exceptional performance but to also address some of the most common interpersonal workplace challenges. Positive communicative behaviors fit within the larger scope of positive organizational practices as they serve as strategies for building high quality connections, sparking positive emotions and energy, expanding possible business solutions and fostering individual and group performance.
The goal of this course is to provide students an overview of the positive organizational psychology field and an analysis of major factors that can ensure organizational excellence and an optimal human functioning at work with positive effects on general and career well- being.
David Cooperrider taught this course on Positive Organizational Analysis and Development to Executive MBAs. Slides.
Jane Dutton and Barbara Fredrickson co-taught a doctoral course on Positive Organizing and Human Flourishing. This course invites students to explore the opportunities presented by two vibrant and emerging fields: Positive Psychology and Positive Organizational Scholarship.
This course invites you to explore the opportunities presented by the vibrant, intellectually rich, and enormously popular field of Positive Psychology.
Positive Psychology began in 2000 by challenging the field of psychology to deeply explore the positive aspects of life. Instead of drawing exclusively from a “disease model,” Dr. Martin Seligman, founder of positive psychology and past-president of the American Psychological Association, encouraged psychological scientists to focus on strengths as well as weaknesses, on building the best things in life as well as on repairing the worst, and on making the lives of normal people fulfilling as well as on healing pathology. Topics of study include happiness, character strengths, positive emotions, creativity, resilience, positive connections, kindness, meaning, empathy, compassion, positive interventions, lifestyle change, and positive organizations. One basic premise of positive psychology is that human flourishing – a life rich in purpose, positive relationships, and enjoyment – will not result simply by curing pathology and eliminating behavioral and emotional problems. Rather, flourishing requires us to build and capitalize on human strengths and capacities. Another basic premise is that human flourishing involves unlocking or building potential resources and capacities at multiple levels – in people, and also within teams, groups, communities, and institutions.
This course will challenge you to engage with the core topics and foundational research and theories of positive psychology. Coursework will involve reading, viewing video resources, individual and group experiential exercises, as well as personal reflections. This is also a search-exposure course, in which you will help design and carry out a course-based research project to test the effects of various positive interventions. Together with your classmates, you will provide data over a period of 4 weeks. Individually, you will draw on and analyze a portion of these data to write your Final Research Paper. Throughout the semester, you will receive assistance with this research project from both me and our Graduate Research Consultant (GRC), Khoa Le Nguyen, who is a fourth-year doctoral student specializing in positive psychology. The GRC Program is sponsored by the Office for Undergraduate Research (www.unc.edu/depts/our). I encourage you to visit this website to see other ways that you might engage in research, scholarship and creative performance while you are at Carolina. I have designed the course in this manner with the hope that, as you learn about positive psychology and the research process, you will also learn about how to enhance your own health and happiness as well as that of the communities and organizations in which you reside and work.
This course will help you learn how to create, foster and manage organizations where people thrive and perform at their best. It makes the case that individual and group thriving is the key to organizational excellence.
This seminar concentrates on the field of Positive Organizational Scholarship (POS). When seeking to develop individuals and organizations, the focus is often placed on correcting what is wrong. However, the aim of POS is to focus on strengths, resources, and potentials on the level of individuals, groups, and organizations. Therefore, POS develops understanding of how positively deviant (rather than only neutral or negative) phenomena and processes in individuals and organizations at work emerge and can be supported. It addresses generative dynamics at work and explores various enablers and mechanisms of individual and organizational well-being. POS also draws attention to positive organizational phenomena earlier neglected (e.g., compassion in organizations).
This doctoral seminar offers an introduction to established and emerging trends, theory, and research in the field of Organizational Behavior. A session on POS is included at the beginning, and POS readings are integrated throughout the course.
Abraham Carmeli taught this course on positivity in organizational life to MBA students.
As students launch into their post-undergraduate journey, they will experience a great deal of change. Some they can anticipate: new geography, new schedule, new dress code, new boss, new coworkers, etc. Other changes may sneak up on them: personal impact of evolving business landscape, job loss, challenging relationships with managers and colleagues, changing personal priorities, etc. This course introduces students to the science in several related fields to help them learn to thrive for personal and professional success in the new world of work.
The new world of work might be characterized by more flexibility and uncertainty, more people are switching jobs and careers at a frequent clip. Sometimes this is by choice to learn new skills or move up the career ladder. Other times, employees may be choosing a more freelance or entrepreneurial career path. And for others, the choice to change jobs may be forced through corporate restructurings or displacement due to technology.
In this course, students will reflect upon and synthesize their academic studies and action learning experiences to proactively craft a meaningful career and life. Specifically, they will learn to reveal and leverage their knowledge to adapt to their evolving professional and personal priorities, and the changing business world.
Sigmund Freud was wrong about many things, but one big thing he seemed to be right about was that love and work are the main determinants of human happiness. In this course, we will explore what it takes for work (and love) to be both satisfying and effective. We will begin by discussing “happiness”—what it is, what affects it and why it matters. We will also discuss how effective people are at making decisions that promote their happiness.