title: The role of the positive emotional attractor in vision and shared vision: toward effective leadership, relationships, and engagement.
abstract: Personal and shared vision have a long history in management and organizational practices yet only recently have we begun to build a systematic body of empirical knowledge about the role of personal and shared vision in organizations. As the introductory paper for this special topic in Frontiers in Psychology, we present a theoretical argument as to the existence and critical role of two states in which a person, dyad, team, or organization may find themselves when engaging in the creation of a personal or shared vision: the positive emotional attractor (PEA) and the negative emotional attractor (NEA). These two primary states are strange attractors, each characterized by three dimensions: (1) positive versus negative emotional arousal; (2) endocrine arousal of the parasympathetic nervous system versus sympathetic nervous system; and (3) neurological activation of the default mode network versus the task positive network. We argue that arousing the PEA is critical when creating or affirming a personal vision (i.e., sense of one's purpose and ideal self). We begin our paper by reviewing the underpinnings of our PEA-NEA theory, briefly review each of the papers in this special issue, and conclude by discussing the practical implications of the theory.
authors.affiliation: Case Western Reserve University Cleveland, OH, USA.
authors.forename: Richard E
authors.initials: RE
authors.lastname: Boyatzis
authors.affiliation: Case Western Reserve University Cleveland, OH, USA.
authors.forename: Kylie
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Rochford
authors.affiliation: Babson College, Babson Park, MA USA.
authors.forename: Scott N
authors.initials: SN
authors.lastname: Taylor
keywords: engagement; leadership; organizational citizenship; positive emotional attractor; shared vision; vision