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Positive Organization
Chapter Behaviour (POB)
Syllabus
 Concept
 Optimism
– Dimensions of Optimism
– Optimism in the Workplace
 Hope
 Subjective Well-Being (SWB)
 Resiliency
 Emotional Intelligence
 Role of Emotion
 Role of Intelligence
 Meaning of Intelligence
 Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace
 Self-Efficacy - Meaning, Process and Impact of Self-Efficacy, Sources
of Self-Efficacy, Implications for Self-efficacy in the work place.

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 Concept of Positive Organizational
Behavior (POB)
 POB is defined as "the study and application of positively oriented
human resource strengths and psychological capacities that can
be measured, developed, and effectively managed for
performance improvement in today’s workplace" 
 Origins of POB: POB research is relatively new, its core ideas
are based on ideas of earlier scholars.
 POB origins developed from the Positive Psychology movement,
initiated in 1998 by Martin Seligman and colleagues. Positive
Psychology aims to shift the focus in psychology from
dysfunctional mental illness to mental health, calling for an
increased focus on the building of human strength.
 Fred Luthans has pioneered the positive organizational behavior
research in 1999.
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Positive Organizational Behaviour
(POB)

The Composition (Constructs) of POB

A. Major Positive Constructs B. Other Positive Constructs

1. Self-efficacy/ Confidence
2. Optimism
3. Hope
4. Resiliency
Result: When those constructs are
combined together
They form the construct of
psychological capital or psycap.
5. Happiness or Subjective
wellbeing (SWB)
6. Emotions
7. Intelligence
8. Emotional intelligence (EI)
These constructs have been
and will be important to POB

Composition of POB
Positive Psychology
 It is covered with optimal human functioning instead of
pathological human functioning.
 PsyCap
 It is founded in the belief that people want to lead a meaningful
and fulfilling lives to explore what is best within themselves,
and their experiences of love, work and play.
POB
 It is framed in the positive psychology movement. It is
composed of optimism, hope, happiness and resiliency, EI and
self-efficacy.
The Composition (Construct) of POB

 They can be classified as:

A. Major positive constructs are:
1. Self-efficacy: An individual's self-efficacy is that person's belief about
his/her capabilities to perform a task. People with high self-efficacy
believe that they can perform will in a specific task and vice versa.
2. Optimism: It is the extent to which a person sees life in relatively
positive or negative terms. The opposite of optimism is pessimism.
Important dimensions of optimism are: optimism as human nature and
optimism as an individual difference.
3. Hope: It is another important dimension of POB. It includes both the
will power and the way power.
4. Resiliency: It is the recently added component in POB. Other three
components of POB are proactive in nature but resiliency is reactive in
nature. Its main focus is towards the positive adaptation to adversity or
risk. It is a capacity to easily adjust in an uncertainty situation.
B. Other positive constructs are:
1. Happiness or SWB: It is defined as people's affective (emotions and
moods) and cognitive evaluations of their lives. It is subjective. The
same conditions of happiness (SWB) can be perceived by different
persons differently.
2. Emotions: It is any experience of strong feeling usually accompanied
by bodily change in circulation, breathing, sweating, etc. and often
accompanied by tense and impulsive actions. The opposite of emotion
is calm relaxation.
Types of emotions: (A) Positive Primary Emotions (like love,
happiness, surprise, etc.) and (B) Negative Primary Emotions (like
fear, sadness, anger, disgust, shame, etc.)
3. Intelligence: It is the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills.
It is decided by both nature and nurture. There are two groups of it. (a)
original intelligences (mathematical, verbal, interpersonal, visual,
musical and bodily), and (B) New intelligences (Naturalist, existential
and emotional).
4. Emotional Intelligence (EI): It describes, certain qualities namely
understanding ones own feelings, empathy for feelings of others and
the regulation of emotions in a way that enhances living.
Components of EI are:
i. Personal components. It involves an awareness of emotions, self
awareness, an ability to manage those emotions, and self regulations.
ii. Interpersonal components. It involves self awareness, self-
management, self-motivation, empathy and social skills.
 Optimism

 Optimism is a mental attitude reflecting a belief or hope that the

outcome of some specific endeavor, or outcomes in general, will be
positive, favorable, and desirable. A common idiom used to illustrate
optimism versus pessimism is a glass filled with water to the halfway
point, where the optimist is said to see the glass as half full and the
pessimist sees the glass as half empty.
 The term derives from the Latin optimum, meaning "best".
 Being optimistic, in the typical sense of the word, is defined as
expecting the best possible outcome from any given situation.
 It thus reflects a belief that future conditions will work out for the best.

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 Dimensions of Optimism

 Optimism as human nature

 Optimism as an individual differences
 Some unresolved optimism issues
– Little vs. big optimism
– Optimism vs. pessimism
– Learning and sustaining optimism

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 Optimism in workplace

 Motivated and motivating

 Develop desirable behavior
 Makes external attributes
 Link with positive outcomes
 Maintain high morale
 Failure consider as temporary
 Valuable in career field

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 Impact of Self-Efficacy

 Choices regarding behavior: People generally

avoid tasks where self-efficacy is low, but
undertake tasks where self-efficacy is high.
 Motivation: High self-efficacy can affect
motivation in both positive and negative ways.
 Work performance: Self-efficacy is positively and
strongly related to work-related performance.

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 Impact of Self-Efficacy cont…

 Thought patterns and responses: Self-efficacy has several

effects on thought patterns and responses:
 Low self-efficacy can lead people to believe tasks to be harder than
they actually are. This often results in poor task planning, as well as
increased stress.
 People become erratic and unpredictable when engaging in a task in
which they have low self-efficacy.
 People with high self-efficacy tend to take a wider view of a task in
order to determine the best plan.
 Obstacles often stimulate people with high self-efficacy to greater
efforts, where someone with low self-efficacy will tend toward
discouragement and giving up.

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 Impact of Self-Efficacy cont…

 Health behaviors: Choices affecting health, such

as smoking, physical exercise, dieting, condom use,
dental hygiene, seat belt use, and breast self-
examination, are dependent on self-efficacy.
 Relationship to locus of control: People with
high self-efficacy generally believe that they are in
control of their own lives, that their own actions and
decisions shape their lives, while people with low self-
efficacy may see their lives as outside their control.

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 Sources of Self-Efficacy

1. Past Performance:
Bandura stated that the most effective way of
developing a strong sense of efficacy is through
mastery experiences. Employees who have
previous experience with on the job success have
more confidence to complete similar tasks (high
self-efficacy) than those who do not (low self-
efficacy).

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 Sources of Self-Efficacy cont…

2. Modeled Behavior:
 Another source of self-efficacy is through
learning from modeled behavior.
 When an employee observes a coworker
successfully complete a task, they will feel
more confident they can also successfully
complete a similar task.

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 Sources of Self-Efficacy cont…

3. Social Persuasion or Feedback from Others

 Employees can be persuaded to believe that they have
the skills necessary to successfully complete a task.
 Both positive encouragement as well as convincing others
that they have the ability to succeed at the particular task
can facilitate self-efficacy.
 When managers are confident that their employees can
successfully perform a task, they perform at a higher
level.

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 Sources of Self-Efficacy cont…

4. Physiological Responses:
 The emotional, physiological and psychological response
of an individual can influence their level of perceived self-
efficacy.
 A person who expects to fail at a task, or finds the task too
demanding will experience a set of emotional cues: racing
heart, blushing, sweating, headaches, etc. If these
physiological cues are persistent and severe enough, they
contribute to a sense of weak self-efficacy in employees.

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 Emotional Intelligence (EI):
It describes, certain qualities namely
understanding ones own feelings, empathy for
feelings of others and the regulation of emotions in
a way that enhances living.
Components of EI are:
 Personal components. It involves an awareness
of emotions, self awareness, an ability to manage
those emotions, and self regulations.
 Interpersonal components. It involves self
awareness, self-management, self-motivation,
empathy and social skills.
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 Emotional Intelligence in the
Workplace

 Self-awareness – the ability to recognize personal emotions,

emotional triggers, and limitations
 Self-regulation – the ability to manage emotions so they do
not have a negative effect
 Motivation – an inner drive that comes from the personal joy
experienced after an accomplishment
 Empathy – the ability to recognize, understand, and
experience the emotions of another person
 Social skills – the ability to interact and negotiate with other
individuals in order to find the best way to meet the needs of
each person

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