Jacqueline M. Stavros

Creating Sustainable Relationships Using the Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations and Results Framework, Trust, and Environmentalism: A Research-Based Case Study

New forms of organization development are moving from a classical diagnostic perspective to a dialogic perspective. This move includes a focus on exploring positive states of organizing, shared aspirations, and the design of preferred futures as key outcomes of a strategic change process. Training and development that applies the elements of the strengths, opportunities, aspirations and results (SOAR) framework allows for stakeholders to engage in a dialogue that represents the whole system, and builds trust and environmental management systems that can positively impact supplier performance. In this study, we examined the interrelationship between the SOAR framework, trust, environmental management systems, and supplier performance in respect of 71 program managers and customers from the Hass TCM Group, the largest chemical management services provider in North America. Hypothesis testing was carried out using correlation analysis, multiple linear regression, correlation analysis and Sobels test for mediation. Our results support a combined framework in which the SOAR framework can be used to build trust and pro-environmental behaviors to train suppliers to develop collaborative relationships with customers.

“SOAR” from the Mediocrity of Status Quo to the Heights of Global Sustainability

A letter written by Walter Isaacson, the president of the Aspen Institute, a nongovernmental organization (NGO), to Aspen friends and partners reads At certain points in our lives, many of us feel the need to reflect on what it takes to lead a life that is good, useful, worthy, and meaningful. Perhaps we have noticed ourselves trimming our principles and making too many compromises in our careers, and we want to reconnect with our values. Or perhaps we yearn, in a world filled with clashing opinions, to understand the great ideas and ideals that have competed throughout the progress of civilization. (Isaacson 2006)

SOAR as a Mediator of the Relationship Between Emotional Intelligence and Collaboration Among Professionals Working in Teams: Implications for Entrepreneurial Teams:

A majority of ventures are started by entrepreneurial teams rather than individuals. More than half of team-based new venture failures are believed to be due to problems with the entrepreneurial team. Collaboration among entrepreneurial team members is important for increasing the likelihood of successful venture outcomes. We investigated collaboration in professionals working in teams using survey methodology. Results found a framework for collaborative dialogue, SOAR (strengths, opportunities, aspirations, and results), mediates the relationship between emotional intelligence and team collaboration. We discuss practical recommendations to increase the strength of the relationship between emotional intelligence and collaboration to increase entrepreneurial team performance. For example, behavioral coaches are recommended to use dialogical exercises to help team members develop emotional intelligence competencies of awareness and regulation of emtions in self and others. Entrepreneurs are recommended to create teams that build on member strengths and aspirations, and identify opportunities for achieving measurable positive results.

Lawrence Technological University ‘Leaders in the Making’: An Effective Leader is a Learning Leader

This article examines survey data on leadership from university students and alumni to characterize effective leadership using Appreciative Inquiry and SOAR. We define learning leaders as leaders who use lifelong learning, dialogue and collaborative communication to lead self and others through leveraging strengths, identifying opportunities and aspirations, and being results-driven and present recommendations for how to be a learning leader. T he purpose of this article is to consider an effective leader as an individual who is a learning leader. The article examines the phenomena

Relationship Among Emotional Intelligence, SOAR, and Team-Based Collaboration: Implications for a Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations, and Results (SOAR) Based Approach to Coaching Psychology

The aim of this chapter is to provide a theoretical overview of SOAR, a strengths-based framework with a whole-system (stakeholder) approach to strategy that focuses on strengths, opportunities, aspirations, and results, and to consider implications for its use within coaching psychology research and practice. We first present the results of an empirical study in which SOAR was found to mediate the relationship between emotional intelligence (EI) and team-based collaboration among team leaders but not team members. In finding that SOAR differentially mediated the EI-collaboration relationship in team leaders rather than team members, we suggest that SOAR may help a coach create a reservoir of positivity to support new ideas, innovations, and the best in people to emerge and thrive. We discuss how a SOAR-based coaching process may facilitate a coach’s ability to promote performance enhancement through a results-oriented approach focusing on the coachee’s strengths, opportunities, and aspirations.

Building Collaboration in Virtual Teams through Emotional Intelligence: Mediation by SOAR

In today’s global business environment virtual teams have increased rapidly worldwide due to advances in communication technology that facilitate communication and sharing of information among team...