Leadership’s Role in Appreciative Inquiry

Leadership’s Role in Appreciative Inquiry:

Intervening in the Drift

Leadership’s role in Appreciative Inquiry is all about intervening in the drift to allow members of a given team to realize their best possible outcome … either as a group or individually. In traditional leadership practices, leaders spend an enormous amount of time identifying and focusing on the errors or wrongs of a situation (Sherman, 2015). This focusing on the wrong, or negative, tends to emphasize the dysfunction of an organization as opposed to celebrating the positive attributes that generate far greater fruitful results. Leaders using the Appreciative Inquiry approach realize success by triumphing the four Ds: discover, dream, design, and destiny.

Leaders execute the discovery approach by spending time in the trenches with their people. It is here, in the trenches, that leaders are able to engage and connect with members that opens a free-flow of communication and a pathway to idea-sharing (Sherman, 2015). This connection and idea-sharing aides in breaking down barriers to communication that would otherwise impede an organization’s, and its people, ability to dream of new normals. By intervening in the drift, leaders are able to encourage and mediate in the dream stage, removing any barriers or nay-sayers to new ideas.

Transitioning from the dream stage into the design phase, leaders continue to serve as encouragers, mediators, and also as facilitators. The design phase is where common ground is realized through the effective execution of professional dialoguing and debate (Chompoo, 2018). Leaders are vital to intervening here, as it is easy for group decision to fall into the pits of group-think. Avoiding group-think and subsequently a forced group-decision leads to a new-found