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COMPOSING THE REFLECTED BEST-SELF PORTRAIT: …

COMPOSING THE REFLECTED BEST-SELFPORTRAIT: building PATHWAYS FORBECOMING extraordinary IN WORKORGANIZATIONSLAURA MORGAN ROBERTSH arvard Business SchoolJANE E. DUTTONGRETCHEN M. SPREITZEREMILY D. HEAPHYROBERT E. QUINNThe University of Michigan Business SchoolWe present a theory of how individuals compose their REFLECTED BEST-SELF portrait ,which we define as a changing self -knowledge structure about who one is at one sbest. We posit that people compose their REFLECTED BEST-SELF portrait through socialexperiences that draw on intrapsychic and interpersonal resources. By weaving to-gether microlevel theories of personal change and macrolevel theories of humanresource development, our theory reveals an important means by which work orga-nizations affect people s capacity to realize their extraordinary does not necessarily meanobtaining a position of honor or glory or even ofbecoming successful in other people s eyes.

composing the reflected best-self portrait: building pathways for becoming extraordinary in work organizations laura morgan roberts harvard business school

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Transcription of COMPOSING THE REFLECTED BEST-SELF PORTRAIT: …

1 COMPOSING THE REFLECTED BEST-SELFPORTRAIT: building PATHWAYS FORBECOMING extraordinary IN WORKORGANIZATIONSLAURA MORGAN ROBERTSH arvard Business SchoolJANE E. DUTTONGRETCHEN M. SPREITZEREMILY D. HEAPHYROBERT E. QUINNThe University of Michigan Business SchoolWe present a theory of how individuals compose their REFLECTED BEST-SELF portrait ,which we define as a changing self -knowledge structure about who one is at one sbest. We posit that people compose their REFLECTED BEST-SELF portrait through socialexperiences that draw on intrapsychic and interpersonal resources. By weaving to-gether microlevel theories of personal change and macrolevel theories of humanresource development, our theory reveals an important means by which work orga-nizations affect people s capacity to realize their extraordinary does not necessarily meanobtaining a position of honor or glory or even ofbecoming successful in other people s eyes.

2 Itmeans being true to self . It means pursuing ourfull potential (Quinn & Quinn, 2002: 35).Being extraordinary . All of us can recall ourown extraordinary moments those momentswhen we felt that our BEST-SELF was brought tolight, affirmed by others, and put into practice inthe world. These memories are seared into ourminds as moments or situations in which we feltalive, true to our deepest selves, and pursuingour full potential as human beings. Over time,we collect these experiences into a portrait ofwho we are when we are at our personal this portrait is composed graduallyand without much conscious attention or self -awareness. Other times, work organizationsplay an active role in providing us feedback,furnishing goals, and enabling relationshipswith others in ways that make this portrait ex-plicit and consciously changing over implicit or explicit, stable or changing,this portrait serves as both an anchor and abeacon, a personal touchstone of who we areand a guide for who we can become.

3 We call thisportrait the REFLECTED BEST-SELF (hereafter re-ferred to as the RBS).We choose the word REFLECTED to emphasizethat this self - portrait is based on our percep-tions of how others view us. Family members,friends and acquaintances, and organizationsprovide us with feedback about who we are, andthis information is integrated into our self -concept (Cooley, 1902; Tice & Wallace, 2003). Wechoose the word best to refer to the strengths,contributions, and enduring talents that eachperson brings to a situation. Taken together, thismeans that through interpretations of experi-ences and interactions in the social world, eachperson composes a self - portrait of his or her ownstrengths and contributions.

4 We posit that theprocess of COMPOSING the RBS portrait creates apathway to becoming extraordinary , in that itinvolves envisioning the self at one s best, andthen acting on this vision to translate possibili-ties for the extraordinary into purpose here is to define the RBS, de-scribe how and when it changes, and articulatethe ways in which it influences individual func-We thank Art Brief, two anonymous reviewers, the facultyand staff at the University of Michigan Business School,Brianna Barker, Robin Ely, Monica Higgins, Joshua Margolis,Leslie Perlow, Jeffrey Polzer, Ryan Quinn, Lloyd Sandelands,Neil Sendlebach, Kathleen Sutcliffe, David Thomas, KlausWeber, and Michele Williams for helpful comments on ear-lier drafts.

5 We also thank Chad Brown for allowing us toshare his REFLECTED best portrait . Academy of Management Review2005, Vol. 30, No. 4, 712 in organizations. By providing a theoret-ical account of the situational and social mech-anisms through which people compose theirRBS portraits, we shed new light on how orga-nizations can enable people to develop to theirfull potential. In so doing, we build on the prin-ciples of positive psychology (Seligman & Csik-szentmihalyi, 2000) and positive organizationalscholarship (Cameron & Caza, 2004; Cameron,Dutton, & Quinn, 2003; Luthans, 2002), which aimto develop theoretical understandings of humanstrengths, virtues, and health, as opposed to thepredominant focus on weakness and pathologyin work theory of how people compose the RBSportrait builds on current research regardinghow individuals change their conception of selfthrough socially embedded experiences and re-sources (Higgins & Kram, 2001; Tice & Wallace,2003).

6 More specifically, our theory of composingthe RBS portrait sits at the crossroads of severalimportant research streams in organizationalbehavior. First, we build from theories of careerand personal change that purport that changesin self -knowledge structures are critical ele-ments in explaining how and why individualschange what they do and how they feel (Ibarra,1999; Markus & Nurius, 1986). Second, we buildon research that portrays individuals as activeparticipants in constructing their organizationalexperience through how they take initiative(Frese & Fay, 2001; Morrison & Phelps, 1999), seekinformation about themselves (Ashford, 1986),and create and draw from relationships withothers (Wrzesniewski, Dutton, & Debebe, 2003).

7 Third, we draw on research showing that therelational context in which individuals are em-bedded has a major effect on how people defineand feel about themselves (Bradbury & Lichten-stein, 2000; Ely, 1994; Gabarro, 1987; Gersick, Bar-tunek, & Dutton, 2000; Granovetter, 1985; Kahn,1998) which, in the case of our theory, is capturedin the power of mirrored REFLECTED BEST-SELFWe define the RBS as an individual s cogni-tive representation of the qualities and charac-teristics the individual displays when at his orher best. Our definition of the RBS shares somefeatures of self -schemas. Markus defines self -schemas as cognitive generalizations aboutthe self in particular domains, derived from pastexperience, that guide the processing of self -related information contained in the individu-al s social experiences (1977: 64).

8 Like self -schemas, the RBS is based on past experiencesand guides the processing of personally rele-vant information generated in the social example, someone who exhibits resilienceand determination in response to being denieda job promotion, to receiving chemotherapy, andto experiencing a setback on a church buildingcampaign may include her capacity to persistin the face of adversity as a core component ofher RBS. However, as the previous example in-dicates, the RBS is not based on a single domainbut is a more general and encompassing con-ception of the self that cuts across multiple do-mains. Thus, we use the term RBSportraitin-stead ofschemato describe this broadercognitive representation of the a positive portrayal of desirable, self -relevant characteristics, the RBS portrait alsoshares some features of the ideal self (the cog-nitive representation of one s hopes, wishes, oraspirations; Higgins, 1987) and the hoped-forpossible self (the manifestation of enduringpersonal goals, aspirations, and motivation;Markus & Nurius, 1986).

9 However, the RBS por-trait is distinct from the ideal self and thehoped-for possible self in that it is based onqualities and characteristics that the personcurrently has, as opposed to those the individualwishes or hopes to possess. As an example, takethis excerpt of a person s description of his RBS,which he wrote as part of an MBA course exer-cise to integrate feedback he had received fromothers about who he is at his best:At my BEST-SELF : I share, I strip away all that life isnot. I live large. I breathe deeply and inhale everywhisper of life. At my BEST-SELF , I challenge myselfmentally, physically, emotionally. At my BEST-SELF , I am neither at work [n]or at play, I am livingin the moment.

10 I am a lover of life. I am a seekerof truth and beauty. I am responsible for my ownactions, my own beliefs, and my own connectionswith other people and all living creatures. At mybest- self , I am small, invisible and don t see me, they don t feel me, however,they see truth and beauty in themselves and inthe world around them that they would not havenoticed had I not been there, and they feel phys-ically, emotionally and mentally better becauseof me (Chad Brown, 2001, personal correspon-dence).As we can see in the above statement, the RBSis a strength-based conception of the qualities2005713 Roberts, Dutton, Spreitzer, Heaphy, and Quinnand characteristics that this person believes heexudes when he is at his best.


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