**1. Introduction**

Leadership is one among the most sought after topics spoken among corporates and academic researchers. It can be traced back to the Indian, Egyptians and Greek civilisation where philosophers such as Pluto, Socrates, and Aristotle spoke about it length. The author of epic literature Ramayana, Maharishi Valmiki defines leadership and its characteristics precisely during his conversation with Sage Narada at the beginning of Ramayana. This resonates with the theory of multiple intelligence (1983) by Howard Gardner (Harvard psychologist) to the current society or environment about leader's versatility, characteristic while they are in their pinnacle. Leadership lessons can be traced to the bhakti movement prominent during the eighth-century

in southern India, and spread towards other parts of the world. The spiritual leaders, social reformer and philosophers like Sri Ramanujacharya, a great exponent of the Sri Vaishnavism who presented the epistemic and soteriological importance of bhakti, was also known for his charismatic and virtuous behaviour, administrative acumen and managerial ability to balance inspiring followers as well as getting the task accomplished. His ability to conceive and execute the construction of the Thondanur Lake (Melukote-Karnataka-India) 1000 years back is a major irrigation source even today for both agriculture and drinking for that region. Through his virtuous behaviour and altruistic love for his devotees, he intrinsically motivated, empowered them to practice spiritual values, which lead to the ultimate goal of devotional service. Yet the understanding and significance of leadership studies begun only during the twentieth century however the social-scientific approach towards leadership studies only started during the 1930s. As the research progressed, leadership has been continuously redefined and several theories on leadership have been proposed, developed and still developing. The last quarter century has seen a positive orientation driven by cultural values towards a shared vision. As positive psychology plays an important role in the human behaviour and it is not about a feel-good concept. Leaders today have a disproportionate impact on workplace positivity and have undermined its power to improve organisational effectiveness. The fundamental characteristic that stands out among leaders are positivity, authenticity, to serve, share power and feel others wholeness. Similarly another spiritual leader Srila Prabhupada was known for his acumen for management principles and entrepreneurial skills in temple administration, revenue generation through publication besides people management influenced thousands of youth from across the world towards Krishna consciousness by applying positive psychology and affirmative behaviour via love, trust, empowerment and affection. These spiritual leaders demonstrated the components of having a vision (big picture thinking), positive attitude, and altruistic love for their followers to experience intrinsic self-value and satisfaction of life purpose. Which corporates leaders are incorporating based on spirituality and positivity to develop their virtuous behaviour, perceptions of trust, organisational support, and commitment among employees, which could have positive effects on organisational performance [1, 2]. Positive psychology has major influence on leader's behaviour at workplace and research indicates that positive approaches to empower people and building trust are a musthave leadership trait. Organisations are group of people who pursue common goals: leadership has been central to organisations because leadership has been a process by which groups create or achieve goals. Most of us right from childhood looked around those people who are achievers and automatically equated those achievers with leaders and assumed whatever the individual did to achieve the outcomes that they did constitute leadership. Part of the challenge of leadership education and leadership development in organisation is to overcome the implicit understanding that people come into the organisation based on the individuals inspired by in their past. Since last 30 years of leadership research, organisations and scholars have been looking at the subject of leadership. There are three things about leadership which we need to be understood.


*Positive Leadership Experiences of Software Professionals in Information Technology Organisations DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.100805*

(e.g. many organisations hire star performers from competitors. They try to replicate the success of the star performer in prior organisation but that does not work (always). Often the result of the star performer is due to his unique team composition, their strengths, organisational culture (context).

• Today leadership is associated with positive psychology, positive change and positive deviance. The concept called positive leadership.

Great leaders build significant economic value, excel under pressure and align meticulously with organisational business strategy to drive better performance. They try to bring employees together around the organisational objectives, motivate them to deliver by creating value for both. Various studies indicate that organisations which are value based enhance their performance and most likely sustain their long term objectives commercially. Leaders who practice positivity follow these basics to achieve their goals.

It is about practicing positivity continuously with virtuous behaviour; demonstrate organisational values, beliefs and integrity. They have a clear vision, shared values and set goals aligned to the organisational objectives. They recognise the importance of a team and develop them to excel in their tasks.

The chapter details positive leadership, significance and importance, the execution and benefits of positive leadership, the sub dimensions of positive leadership—recognition, strength based and perspective based approach, methodology adopted, sample, tools of measurement, results, discussion, theoretical and practical implications of positive leadership and conclusion.

#### **2. Positive leadership**

Leadership is optimistic or positive, when it is virtuous leading to heliotropic effect. It's about demonstrating high degree of excellence, such as optimism, compassion, integrity, and audacity. However, virtuousness takes place when an individual exhibits fineness in his actions that are pertinent in every situation at workplace. For example, in India, the National Disaster Rescue Force (NDRF) team members take up various rescue operations in challenging circumstances (both natural and man-made disasters) by exhibiting valour to venture, acumen to handle the situations of threat, empathy to aid the individual who are trapped, and the self-effacement to acknowledge what is beyond their capability. In contrast, let us look at a corporate performance appraisal scenario, where the supervisor needs to provide adverse feedback to his team member. At the same time expected to be candid in sharing the information about the performance is not unto to the expected standards. The supervisor is expected to be sensitive to the team member's feelings/emotions and also understand why his performance is suffering and what measures needs to be taken to improve it. Every state of affair or circumstance needs a divergent set of virtues to be practiced based on the situation and also upholding the interest of the team members who too upkeep the circumstances exhibiting excellence. To maintain the higher standards of performance, it needs both the supervisor and team member to demonstrate the pertinent intrinsic worth in their actions within a given circumstances. Therefore, leader's optimism or positivity may be a comparatively unusual episode. However, literature indicates leader's positivity exists alongside the continuum. At any given circumstance during the engagement between the supervisor and team member, the supervisors may demonstrate positivity. These positive actions and reactions of both may be due to virtuousness.

Positive leadership is a proprietary leadership strategy which helps organisations and leaders (at all levels within the organisation) excel under pressure. Positive leadership is heliotropic. It involves experiencing, modelling, and purposefully enhancing positive emotions. It is built around the application of positive psychology [3], positive organisational scholarship [4] and positive change [5]. These facilitate and nurture positive deviance in order to accomplish both individual and organisational objectives with effectiveness. Positive deviance herein, refers to the 'X' factor that distinguishes positive leaders from the rest. Positivity is about leaders having disproportionate stimulus in the workplace positivity by practising affirmative behaviour. It is based on the scientific evidence and theoretically-grounded principles to endorse consequences such as virtuous behaviours, interpersonal flourishing, and revitalising association [6]. Those who embrace positive leadership are authentic and passionate individuals, who enable positively deviant performance, foster an affirmative orientation in organisation by focusing on virtuousness. That is exhibiting positive emotions which influence, inspire, and empower them by building trust and showing keen interest in their follower's progression along with organisational bottom line. They continuously engage in positivity and have clarity about what they want, why and how in achieving their objectives through building positive work environment, relationship, communication and meaning.
