IE Executive Breakfast: Positive Leadership, Behavioral Fitness and the Next Best You
Leadership, from Dr. Newman’s perspective, is about establishing the conditions under which people can perform at their best. The field of positive psychology provides a rich source of ideas about how positivity and negativity in the workplace can affect the quality of our thinking and our behaviour daily – and offers ideas for how, as leaders, we can engage in designing employee experience to boost positivity and reduce negativity.
Even with positive leadership practices, difficult situations happen in every workplace. When people with different interests and diverse backgrounds work together under pressure, there is inevitably “turbulence” and friction. But how might these turbulent moments be turned into learning moments that catalyse self-transformation and growth? How might each of us pursue our “Next Best You”? Behaviour change not only requires effort but also the right conditions. When game-changing moments happen in conditions of trust, people grow.
Behavioural fitness is about how as leaders and colleagues, we might create these conditions and achieve a deep and lasting behavioural competitive advantage.
Professor Biography
Lee Newman is the 9th Dean of IE Business School and a professor of Behavioral Science and Leadership at IE University in Madrid, Spain.
At IE, he has been an educational entrepreneur who has successfully led the launch and ongoing management of a diverse portfolio of world-class undergraduate and postgraduate degree programs that integrate business with human sciences and technology.
His teaching and research focus on Behavioral Fitness and Positive Leadership–translating and applying behavioral science to help professionals optimize their performance in the workplace.
Prior to pursuing a career in academia, Dr. Newman served as an Engagement Manager with McKinsey & Company in Chicago working in the areas of organizational and operational performance improvement in the consumer-packaged goods, industrial manufacturing and natural resource sectors. He later was a founder and senior manager in two technology-based startups in New York City in the areas of social networks and SaaS.
Dr. Newman holds an interdisciplinary Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in Psychology (Cognitive) and Computer Science (AI), as well as a Certificate in Cognitive Neuroscience. He also holds an MBA from The MIT Sloan School of Management, a Master in Technology & Policy from MIT, and a Bachelor in Electrical Engineering with honors and magna cum laude from Brown University.
