Learned Optimism
By
Martin Seligman
Knopf, 1991
Martin Seligman, the leading authority on the concepts of
learned helplessness and explanatory style, wrote this book to explain his
lifelong research on motivation and personal control to a lay audience. The text
succeeds in putting Seligman’s and others’ research on motivation and the
cognitive treatment of depression in a practical light and provides valuable
tools in the third chapter for testing and scoring oneself on the degree that
one has a negatively or positively oriented explanatory style. Dr. Seligman’s
research findings from the ‘80s regarding individuals’ pessimistic and
optimistic tendencies are summarized eloquently according to six ‘realms of
life’ in the second part of the book (e.g., work, sports, school, children and
parents, health, and politics, religion, and culture). The third part of the
book provides practical suggestions for how to change from being more
pessimistic to being more optimistic by learning the skills of optimism through
techniques rooted in cognitive therapy.
From a leadership perspective, this book is a valuable
resource for helping the leader to select appropriate people for success in a
challenging task and helping the leader to determine which situations call for
the pessimistic explanatory style and which call for the optimistic one. Drawing
on information from chapters 6, 9, 12 and 14 (Success at Work, Sports, The
Optimistic Life, and The Optimistic Organization, respectively) Seligman makes
some suggestions regarding these issues.
Regarding traditional selection wisdom, the author points out
that optimistic explanatory style is the key to persistence and resilience and
accompanies cognitive ability and motivation as the third determinant of
predicting who will succeed in the face of a difficult, challenging job task. A
large portion of chapter six is dedicated to providing evidence that an optimism
test predicts job success equal to or better than an employment test (i.e., in
the case of a sales job). Overall, tasks or jobs characterized as requiring
persistence and initiative and which are accompanied by frequent frustration,
rejection and defeat call for individuals with an optimistic explanatory style.
These include PR, fundraising, sales, and jobs of a highly competitive or highly
creative nature. A strong case is also made for the more pessimistic explanatory
style, with sizable evidence that pessimists see things more realistically and
accurately than do optimists. Tasks and jobs requiring a strong sense of
reality, and the knowledge of when to err on the side of caution, call for
individuals with a pessimistic explanatory style. These include statistics,
technical writing, contract negotiation, quality control, and jobs that call for
technical specialties to be used in low-pressure settings. In the ninth chapter,
Sports, a final selection and recruitment guideline is posed (Seligman, 1991, p.
166), “If two prospects are close in raw talent, recruit the optimist. He’ll do
better in the long run.”
Regarding the leader needing to balance between optimism and
pessimism, Seligman (1991) makes an important observation when he comments on
the role of a CEO, stating, “…at the head of the corporation must be a CEO, sage
enough and flexible enough to balance the optimistic vision of the planners
against the jeremiads of the CPAs” (p. 112). Situations in which there will be
high costs if the team or organization fails do not call for optimism as the
correct strategy. Optimism shouldn’t be used in the following cases: planning
for a risky or uncertain future, counseling those whose future is dim (although
use optimism after the initial interaction), appearing sympathetic to others’
troubles (although use it later when empathy and confidence are established).
Optimism should be used in the following cases: achievement situations (sales,
winning a competition, obtaining a promotion), when feelings are a concern
(maintaining morale), when inspiring others is a concern, and during elections.
Overall, the leader’s number one question when considering which people to
consult and which orientation to take should be, What will be the cost of
failure? When the cost of failure would be high, don’t use optimism and when the
cost of failure would be low, optimism is the better bet.
Overall, the author provides much empirical evidence to
support his claims and takes a balanced approach when looking at the benefits of
optimism by also examining pessimism’s place in life. The book proves an
invaluable resource for self-discovery and provides simple techniques for
undoing destructive habits of pessimism. Some critics may beg even more
empirical evidence regarding the authors’ recommended cognitive strategies for
changing from pessimist to optimist, but one must remember the author’s
objective to present to a lay audience.
In closing, people in leadership positions should pay special
attention to lessons in the sixth and ninth chapters and should take the
optimism test in the third chapter to see where they fall. Overall, leaders will
find this book useful for discovering their own approach to explaining personal
success and failure and for acquiring a framework for “reconciling the
polarities” of pessimists and optimists of their team.
~ Contributed by Brigitte Pfeiffelmann
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