If you assume that Kim Cameron’s book is about making people happy at work, you are shortchanging this contribution to leadership literature. Cameron’s thesis is this: All human beings flourish in the presence of light or of positive energy. This is called the heliotropic effect. The kind of positive energy that usually accounts for the flourishing of individuals and organizations is called relational energy. In this book, Cameron explains how relational energy is created and enhanced through the demonstration of virtuous actions by leaders.
Those familiar with leadership literature will find a great deal of commonality with the work of others such as Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee in Resonant Leadership but Cameron offers another model for leaders to consider. His contemporaneous engagement with the pandemic makes his writing especially fresh and engaging. He reminds us, “In order to effectively manage turbulent circumstances, we must identify something that is stable, universal and constant.” This is his antidote to the VUCA—volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous—world in which we find ourselves.
Cameron cites three important conclusions from research on positive energy in organizations. First, people who are positive energizers are higher performers than others. Second, positive energizers impact the performance of those with whom they interact. Third, highly performing organizations have many more positive energizers than normal organizations—as many as three times more. He devotes the remainder of the book to showing how leadership can exemplify, develop, and maintain positive energy in leaders and organizations.
The author is very practical, providing guidelines, questions, and examples. Of particular interest is a chart of the attribute of positively energizing leaders.
This is not light reading, but it will engage those seeking to take their organization to a new level.
(A review copy of the book was provided to the writer with the expressed purpose of soliciting an open and unbiased review.)
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