Positive leadership is an evidence-based leadership approach built on five strategies from the so-called PERMA model: fostering positive emotions, leveraging strengths, nurturing relationships, instilling a sense of purpose, and highlighting achievements. The goal is sustainable project success, where productivity and well-being work in tandem without lowering standards or glossing over problems.
Key Takeaways
- Positive leadership is not a “pony farm” approach, but rather an evidence-based leadership framework that directly links positivity and productivity as well as appreciation and value creation.
- The PERMA model describes five leadership strategies: positive emotions, engagement through strengths, quality of relationships within the team, conveying meaning through the “why,” and consciously celebrating successes.
- Leadership isn’t a matter of having the right personality or holding a formal role; rather, it’s a matter of concrete actions that anyone can start taking as early as next Monday.
- Those who demand responsibility and expect initiative from their team must not engage in micromanagement at the same time, because the two are mutually exclusive.
- Making success visible is particularly difficult in areas where good work remains unseen—for example, in testing, which only gets noticed when something goes wrong externally.
Positive Leadership Is No Walk in the Park
Positive leadership doesn’t lower standards or sugarcoat anything. Christian Thiele describes the approach as an evidence-based leadership toolkit with various strategies designed to combine appreciation with value creation.
At first glance, the label sounds generic. No one markets themselves as an expert in “Negative Leadership.” That’s precisely why it’s worth drawing a distinction: It’s not about lowering requirements until everything seems great and every emotional need is catered to.
The core lies in combining positivity and productivity. Teams are expected to achieve specific goals, remain successful in the long term, and ensure that people thrive in the process. Both together—not one at the expense of the other.
Why Leadership Today Is Caught Between Soft Skills and a Longing for Authority
Leaders are currently grappling with two conflicting expectations. On the one hand, the need for soft skills is growing because, in many organizational structures, no one can rule by decree anymore. On the other hand, there is a palpable yearning for authoritarianism.
The more uncertain the times, the greater the temptation to simply take charge and disregard the rules. In the short term, this can even be a relief—even for those being led—because it creates clarity. It can also speed things up.
The contradiction becomes apparent in practice. If you expect your team to take ownership starting Monday—that is, to think for themselves and show courage—you can’t micromanage them down to the smallest detail on Friday. You can’t do both at the same time.
If you want me to take ownership and think for myself starting Monday, then you can’t tie me down to every little detail on Friday.
Christian Thiele
Self-organization without guidance is a trap
Self-organization fails when it’s imposed overnight. Teams that have worked hierarchically for decades are accustomed to receiving instructions from above. If you suddenly tell them, “Starting tomorrow, you’ll organize yourselves,” the necessary input is missing, and a vacuum remains.
This problem often arises under the guise of agility. The expectation that a team will act in a self-organized manner does not replace the question of whether it has learned to do so and is currently capable of doing so.
In project contexts, it’s often unclear who has authority over whom and what the consequences of that are. That’s exactly where leadership becomes fluid: sometimes one person leads, sometimes another, and roles shift.
The PERMA Model as a Lens for Everyday Leadership
The PERMA model brings together five strategies that leaders can use to reflect on their team and themselves. Each letter represents a starting point for everyday practice, not a personality trait.
| Letter | Stands for | What it’s about |
|---|---|---|
| P | Positive Emotions | Consciously fostering calmness, inspiration, lightheartedness, and connectedness |
| E | Engagement, Energy, Commitment | Bringing strengths to bear; focusing on the “how” of the work, not just the “what” |
| R | Relationships | Working together rather than alongside one another; psychological safety; a culture of learning |
| M | Meaning, Mattering | Clarifying the “why,” making one’s contribution to the bigger picture visible |
| A | Accomplishment, Applause | Recognizing successes and patterns of achievement, not just analyzing mistakes |
Positive emotions broaden one’s frame of mind. People who experience a lot of them don’t get stuck in a mindset of merely avoiding mistakes. Thiele cites a study at British Telecom showing that employees with more positive emotions sold more.
Strengths are more than just skills. Modesty, humor, and thoroughness are part of it—in other words, the way someone approaches things. A leader who focuses on what someone does well and enjoys doing is working on the “E” of the model.
Why the “Why” Is Too Often Missing in Projects
Managers usually spell out the “how,” “when,” and “who” clearly, but the “why” often remains unclear. The “M” in the model—Meaning and Mattering—fills this gap.
Employees should understand what benefit the customer ultimately gains from introducing a process or phasing out a tool. Without this bigger picture, it remains unclear what contribution one’s own work makes.
In testing, this point strikes a chord. Testers adopt the user’s perspective and represent it within the project. If the ultimate purpose of a software application gets lost in the day-to-day routine, quality assurance also loses its point of reference.
Just Chipping Away at To-Dos Isn’t Enough—Celebrate the “Tadas”
Making successes visible is part of good leadership, not just an optional extra. Organizations are good at analyzing what went wrong and why. But they often fail to look for patterns of success.
Thiele contrasts the “to-do” with the “ta-da.” A project completed on time and on budget despite limited capacity is an achievement that deserves recognition—not just the list of the next tasks.
For testers, this is doubly difficult because good quality assurance remains invisible. As long as everything is running smoothly, the work goes unnoticed. It only becomes visible when problems arise externally. But seven bugs found can also be seen as seven “Tadas” if you make them tangible.
Leadership Isn’t Tied to a Role
Leadership isn’t the exclusive privilege of managers or project leaders. It often shows up in small ways, among people whose job descriptions don’t mention it.
Anyone who makes sure everyone gets a birthday card, organizes the summer party, or volunteers for a task is taking responsibility and leading the way. That’s exactly what leadership is all about.
A leader who wants more responsibility within the team should recognize such initiative instead of feeling threatened. When someone else says, “I’ll take care of that,” it doesn’t take anything away from anyone else’s authority.
Can positive leadership be learned?
Yes, positive leadership can be learned. The PERMA model is action-oriented: It describes what you can actually do starting Monday morning, in a meeting, or during a retrospective—not what traits you’re supposedly supposed to have.
The old “Great Man Theory” assumed that leaders were born that way—and almost exclusively men. According to this theory, innate traits are what make someone a good leader. The behavior-oriented approach contradicts this: Leadership lies in action, and that can be learned.
What that looks like varies slightly for everyone, depending on your background and personality. The strategies remain the same; their implementation can be individualized.
When the Best Developer Becomes a Leader
Technical excellence does not automatically qualify someone for leadership. In small and medium-sized businesses, the person who has spent the most time at the machine often becomes the foreman. In software development, the best developer has long been promoted to project manager, whether they wanted to or not.
The result is doubly costly. You end up with a leader who has never learned to lead, and at the same time, you lose a highly skilled technical expert. Some of these people see leadership as a distraction from what they love to do most.
That’s why more and more organizations are separating development, salary, and status from the leadership track. For a long time, advancement was almost exclusively tied to personnel responsibility. So far, few have clearly paved the way for a true technical career, but awareness of this is growing.
