自我反省如何幫助領導者保持積極性

We tend to romanticize leadership. When friends are promoted to managerial positions, we slap them on the back, tell them that they finally made it, and congratulate them for their hard work. Our reactions are understandable. Occupying a leadership role often comes with more prestige, financial resources, flexibility, and future employment opportunities. We often forget, however, that there is a flipside to this coin — leadership is hard and exhausting work.

我們傾向於將領導力浪漫化。當朋友被提升到管理職位時，我們會拍拍他們的背，告訴他們，終於成功了，並祝賀他們的努力工作。我們的反應是可以理解的。擔任領導職務通常會帶來更多的聲望、財政資源、靈活性和未來的就業機會。然而，我們常常忘記，這枚硬幣也有另一面——領導力是一項艱苦而累人的工作。

Leaders have many responsibilities (e.g., budgeting, hiring and firing, paperwork), requiring them to perform diverse tasks and to monitor progress on a multitude of goals. In addition to managing their own performance, leaders are also accountable for their followers’ performance. Employees tend to bring their worries and anxieties to work with them and expect their leaders to manage those too. For example, research suggests that when followers struggle with emotional issues, they approach their leader more often than their coworkers, thinking that it is the leader’s job to help them cope with emotional distress at work. When compounded with getting work done, management of followers’ emotions can exhaust leaders’ own energy, leaving them depleted and unengaged at work. No wonder that survey data suggest that the majority of leaders are exhausted and unengaged at work. For example, in 2017, Gallup reported that only 38% of managers and executives are engaged at work (the number is 29% for middle-level managers). Given these disconcerting numbers, we were interested in developing an intervention that enhances leaders’ engagement at work.

領導有許多責任（例如預算、招聘和解僱、文書工作），要求他們執行不同的任務，並監督各種目標的進展。除了管理自己的表現，領導者還要對下屬的表現負責。員工往往會帶着他們的擔憂和焦慮與他們一起工作，並希望他們的領導也能處理好這些事情。例如，研究表明，當下屬有情緒問題時，他們會比同事更頻繁地接近他們的領導，認爲領導的工作是幫助他們應對工作中的情緒困擾。在完成工作的同時，管理下屬的情緒會耗盡他們自己的精力，讓他們在工作中精疲力竭、無所事事。因此，調查數據顯示，大多數領導人在工作中疲憊不堪、無所事事。例如， Gallup在2017年的報告中指出，只有38%的管理者和高管在工作中投入了精力（中層管理者的比例爲29%）。考慮到這些令人不安的數字，我們有興趣開發一種干預措施，以提高領導者在工作中的參與度。

In a study forthcoming in Journal of Applied Psychology, we draw from positive psychology research to develop and test a short daily intervention that helps leaders remain energized throughout the day at work. Research suggests that leaders’ sense of self is closely tied to their leadership role, and leaders care about being successful in their role. For this reason, we expected that an intervention that asks leaders to reflect upon positive aspects of themselves as leaders may energize them by reversing their depletion and improving their engagement.

在即將發表在《應用心理學雜誌》上的一項研究中，我們從積極心理學研究中得出結論，開發並測試一種短期的日常干預措施，幫助領導者在一整天的工作中保持精力充沛。研究表明，領導者的自我意識與他們的領導角色密切相關，領導者關心的是在他們的角色中獲得成功。由於這個原因，我們期望一項要求領導者反思自己作爲領導者的積極方面的干預，可以通過扭轉他們的消耗和改善他們的參與來激勵他們。

The intervention is simple. Leaders take a few minutes in the morning to think and write about three things that they like about themselves and that make them a “good leader.” The leaders in our study wrote about personal qualities that they valued (e.g., “I am a good leader because I’m willing to take a stand in the face of injustice”), skills they possessed (e.g., “I am a good leader because I consider others’ opinions”), and achievements they were proud of (“I am a good leader because I helped my team meet deliverables during a crisis”). We ran two studies to investigate whether the intervention helps.

干預很簡單。領導者在早上花幾分鐘的時間思考並寫下他們喜歡自己的三件事，這三件事使他們成爲“好的領導者”。“領導人在我們的研究中寫了個人素質，他們價值（例如,“我是一個優秀的領袖，因爲我願意在面對不公正的時候找到自己的立場”），他們擁有技能（例如，“我是一個好的領導者，因爲我考慮別人的意見”），和他們引以爲傲的成就（我是一個好的領導者，因爲我幫助我的團隊滿足交付在危機”)。我們進行了兩項研究來調查干預是否有幫助。

The first study was a daily field experiment with a sample of leaders whom we surveyed for two workweeks. In half of the workdays, first thing in the morning, leaders reflected and wrote about three skills, achievements, qualities, capabilities, or traits that they liked about themselves and that they thought made them good leaders. On the other days, leaders wrote about daily activities not relevant to leadership (we wanted to make sure that the intervention effects were not simply due to writing or taking time to reflect). We then surveyed the leaders multiple times a day. We found that on days when leaders took a few minutes in the morning to reflect and write about aspects of themselves that make them good leaders, they subsequently felt less depleted and more engaged, and they reported having a positive impact on their followers. These effects lasted until the evening, suggesting that leaders felt more positive at home too on intervention days. In a second field experiment, we replicated the energizing effect of the intervention and found that the effect was stronger for employees who hold leadership positions within their organization. These employees self-identify more strongly as leaders and may derive more benefits from interventions that tap into their identity as leaders.

第一個研究是對我們調查了兩個工作周的領導者進行每天的實地實驗。在一半的工作日裏，每天早上的第一件事就是，領導者會反思並寫下他們喜歡自己的三種技能、成就、品質、能力或特質，並認爲這些特質使他們成爲優秀的領導者。在其他日子裏，領導者們寫的是與領導力無關的日常活動（我們希望確保干預的效果不僅僅是由於寫作或花時間去反思）。然後我們每天對這些領導人進行多次調查採訪。我們發現，當領導者在早上花幾分鐘時間反思並寫下自己的一些方面，這些方面使他們成爲優秀的領導者時，他們隨後會感覺精力更充沛，更投入，並且報告說他們對下屬產生了積極的影響。這些影響一直持續到晚上，這表明在干預的日子裏，領導人在家的感覺也更積極。在第二個現場實驗中，我們複製了干預的激勵效應，發現對於在組織中擔任領導職務的員工，這種效應更強。這些員工更強烈地將自己定義爲領導者，並可能從干預中獲得更多好處，這些干預可以挖掘他們作爲領導者的身份。

Those aspiring to leadership positions should recognize that leadership can be demanding and exhausting. Such self-awareness may motivate leaders to engage in activities that protect their energy at work. Second, taking a few minutes in the morning to think and write about aspects of oneself that make one a good leader is likely to energize leaders and to make them more influential at work. Finally, followers can help their leaders too. Followers tend to approach their leader for help requests more often than other coworkers and have ample opportunity to express gratitude. Expression of gratitude can benefit leaders’ as well as followers’ own well-being and may offset some of the daily depletion that leaders tend to experience at work.

那些渴望得到領導職位的人應該認識到，領導能力的要求可能很高，而且很累人。這種自我意識可能會促使領導者從事一些保護他們工作能量的活動。其次，在早上花幾分鐘時間思考和寫下自己的一些方面，這些方面可以讓一個人成爲一個好的領導者，這可能會激勵領導者，讓他們在工作中更有影響力。最後，追隨者也可以幫助他們的領導者。跟隨者比其他同事更傾向於向他們的領導尋求幫助，並有足夠的機會表達感激之情。表達感激之情不僅對領導者有利，對追隨者也有好處，還可能抵消領導者在工作中所經歷的日常損耗。