In my last post (October 13) in the Management Library's leadership blog (managementhelp.org/blogs/leadership), I offered history and some detail on the Five Core Strategies of Appreciative Leadership. Today, instead, I’ll share some of the practices of Appreciative Leadership.

This blog entry – consistent with my entry from October 7 -- is a commentary on Whitney, Trosten-Bloom, and Rader’s book Appreciative Leadership: Focus on What Works to Drive Winning Performance and Build a Thriving Organization. I want to be transparent about my biases related to this current series of blog entries on Appreciative Leadership (AL).

In this posting, I build on the October 7 blog, in which Steve Wolinski introduced Diana Whitney’s, Kae Rader’s and my book, Appreciative Leadership: Focus on What Works to Drive Winning Performance and Build a Thriving Organization. Expanding upon Steve’s clear summary of our book’s content, I provide some history behind the approach and the design of the text, along with more detail about the five core strategies that together unleash positive power.

Imagine this scenario… The charismatic founder of a small (but influential) nonprofit resigns suddenly and moves across the ocean, leaving the organization in turmoil. Stepping in quickly to clean up the mess, the Board promotes Douglas from Deputy Director to Acting ED. Douglas has been in his new position for a month when the Board …

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Reason’s whole pleasure, all the joys of sense, Lie in three words — health, peace, and competence. ~ Alexander Pope Alexander Pope penned those lines of iambic pentameter in the first half of the 1700s. But I wouldn’t be surprised if I heard them from a stressed-out 21st century nonprofit executive director. Imagine the conversation. …

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In her recent (April 16) blog, “To Lead” vs. “To Manage” (see: https://management.org/blogs/leadership/), Julia Fabris McBride observed that “Organizations need leadership AND management.” That made me realize that … up to now, I’ve been talking about fundraising from the perspective of “management – the role of the director of development – managing the volunteer leaders …

If I think about “Leader” as a job description I get confused. How can anyone “Lead” all the time? How exhausting! A sure recipe for failure! An invitation to the dread-disease BURNOUT. Don’t you at least need to “manage” your own schedule? What about “Management” as the complete and total sum of what you do …

Personal and Professional Coaching: A Growing Field Purpose of this Coaching and Action Learning Blog This blog helps you improve your personal and professional coaching and your Action Learning skills by providing articles, opinions, commentary, and many related resources. The blog is for a general audience, including beginners and those advanced in coaching. The benefits …