Hope has often been misunderstood and underestimated as a potentially powerful human capacity. Traditionally, hope has too often been dismissed as a whimsical and abstract concept that could not be well defined, let alone measured, developed, and applied to the workplace. However, the recent emergence of positive psychology and positive organizational behavior has now clearly shown that hope is a strength that has many important implications for today's embattled organizations- both in terms of effective leadership and employee retention and performance. The purpose of this article is to not only give the background of the positive approach and define hope as an important strength in positive organizational behavior and authentic leadership, but to also propose that hopeful leaders can have a contagion effect on the resiliency of employees and organizations undergoing traumatic change.
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