Developing the Foundations for Leadership: Changing the way we interact through Appreciative Inquiry

Approaches to leadership that served well in the past do not address the challenges of the 21^st century work environment.  For over a decade we have applied Appreciative Inquiry (AI) (Cooperrider & Whitney, 2005), a process for individual and group development that uses narrative to identify what is best in the history of a person or group and what aspects of the past should be preserved and amplified. Rather than focusing on gaps, Appreciative Inquiry shifts the paradigm to build on what works. Appreciative leadership has emerged as an approach to explore the relational nature of this purposeful affirmative process. Through this process determination of “what works” and “what we want more of” leads to the generation of innovative ideas for future development, grounded in the best of the past and situated in the present.  This appreciative approach to change has moved from individual and group work within organizations to creating more partnered approaches to leadership,  engaging learning environments with students, and evaluating teaching practices with faculty ( Horton-Deutsch & Sherwood, 2012; Sims & Swenson, 2012). This presentation will further explore how the four phases of the AI process (initiating, inquiring, imagining, and innovating) can be used in the context of leadership to continuously learn, grow and change to develop positive environments.  Combined with other reflective models, appreciative leadership uses strategies and practices for working together to mobilize creative potential and to set in motion positive energy, confidence, enthusiasm and performance to address the ongoing transformations in health care. In this way, it builds on and further develops one’s self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and team capacity.