Abstract:
The importance of hope in the leader-subordinate relationship is discussed and
placed in the context of South African organisations struggling to overcome the
legacy of the past, and trying to compete in a competitive environment. The article
draws on the field of positive psychological capital and uses this as a framework
to investigate the impact of high-hope leaders on employee engagement and
work performance. It asks what it is that leaders do to generate hope in their
followers and how their actions affect their followers’ feelings and intentions. The
research involved in-depth interviews with the followers of high-hope leaders,
seeking to identify the traits and skills exhibited by these leaders. In addition to
competences usually associated with good leaders, the high-hope leaders display
additional competences which set them apart from others. The article proposes a
checklist of attributes required by leaders to generate hope in their followers.
