17. Becoming a Positive Leader: The Challenge of Change

Motivational interviewing is a collaborative—not a prescriptive—approach, in which a trainer evokes the person’s own intrinsic motivation and the resources he or she can leverage to achieve it.

It is interesting to note that, “besides individual intrapsychic forces, the satisfaction of these needs also varies according to the characteristics of the social context. Among these characteristics, we consider, in the cultural dimension, the degree of limited morality, a feature of societies where obedience is highly valued, trust is low and respect is not recognized as one of the fundamental values to transmit to children. In these societies, trust and respect are bound to kinship-based relations and the individual’s search for socio-economic opportunities is limited by the coercive power of the family (e.g. through the internalization of the obedience norm). As most of the socio-economic interactions are subordinated to the interests of closely-related persons, individuals achieve less self-determination. In particular, high obedience would hamper the satisfaction of autonomy and competence, while low trust and the scarce importance given to respect would limit the satisfaction of relatedness” (Conzo et al. 2017).

Positive Psychology refers to “the scientific study of positive human functioning and flourishing on multiple levels that include the biological, personal, relational, institutional, cultural, and global dimensions of life” Seligman and Csikzentmihalyi (2000). This psychological research and therapy emerged in the 1960s in the US, driven by theories and studies focusing on people’s strengths and psychological capabilities.