Abstract
The purpose of this viewpoint is to describe the necessity to use psychological capital (which includes the attributes of self-efficacy, optimism, hope and resiliency) in order to develop managers, especially senior ones.
 
 The viewpoint includes an example of optional steps of micro-intervention for senior management. In the 21st-century VUCA world, managers need to invest in processes that strengthen their resistance to psychological pressures and negative outcomes, while enabling them to cope with confidence with instability, volatility and uncertainty. In this regard, Psychological Capital (PsyCap) can and will contribute to significant changes for the better in managers and organizations as a whole. This viewpoint offers a relatively new view for developing senior managers.
Highlights
IntroductionIn a business world of expanding markets, increased competition and pressures to produce, the recent observation of David Petraeus (former CIA Director and Commander of US forces in Afghanistan) on the strategic importance of "getting big things done" (UBS Bank, 2018), should strike a critical cord among senior management of companies and organizations
In a business world of expanding markets, increased competition and pressures to produce, the recent observation of David Petraeus on the strategic importance of "getting big things done" (UBS Bank, 2018), should strike a critical cord among senior management of companies and organizations
In a VUCA world, managers need to invest in processes that strengthen their resistance to psychological pressures and negative outcomes while enabling them to cope with confidence with instability, volatility and uncertainty
Summary
In a business world of expanding markets, increased competition and pressures to produce, the recent observation of David Petraeus (former CIA Director and Commander of US forces in Afghanistan) on the strategic importance of "getting big things done" (UBS Bank, 2018), should strike a critical cord among senior management of companies and organizations. In a VUCA world, managers need to invest in processes that strengthen their resistance to psychological pressures and negative outcomes while enabling them to cope with confidence with instability, volatility and uncertainty In this respect, we may turn to the field of Positive Organizational Behavior, as seen in the workplace, with its emphasis on human empowerment and psychological capital. Following Rappaport (1987) who introduced the concept of empowerment in a wider social context and Kanter (1993) who applied the construct to organizations, empowerment refers to those measures aimed at increasing workers’ autonomy, self-control, and determination, so that they can represent the interests of their concerns in a responsible manner and act on their own authority This autonomy engenders control over one’s decisions, so that individuals attain power and the ability to utilize resources in the most productive way. This line of discussion brings us to the more recently researched category of positive organizational behavior identified as psychological capital which, besides its utility as a tool for enriching managers’ coping skills, can be used as an assessment criterion of senior managers
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