Life and liberty: the power of positive purpose

The authors believe that health care and the courts, through their commitments to positive purpose, are the fundamental keepers of life and liberty in American society. In fact, they postulate that the power of positive purpose works in every sector-public, private, and not-for-profit. More specifically, by the use of data, operational examples, and cases, this article shows how high performing hospitals, courts, and other organizations make optimism tangible by developing concepts, theories, and policies based on positive values. Effective court and hospital leaders take the abstractions and hopes of wishes and dreams and make them concrete and operational in a caring, sensitive, and humane way. Increasingly with the new generation of employees, loyalty and motivation are based more on affirmative values anchored in empowerment, participation, involvement, and spirituality than on cash. Leaders in health care and the courts must possess and be able to communicate a clear set of positive values to these individuals. Consequently, the authors show that we in health care and the court arena can influence the events in our personal lives and in our organizations' lives by making the values, visions, and cultural anchors in our organizational settings the foundations of performance. Strong leadership that ties the organizational goals to uplifting values based on a committed sense of optimism is the key to confronting creatively the philosophical, strategic, organizational, and operational changes necessary to improving the institutional effectiveness of health care and the law as we move into the new millenium. As reflective-practitioner leaders, it is our responsibility to be the catalysts and role models for our professional colleagues by retaining, communicating, and demonstrating a profound sense of optimism and a high level of performance in judicial and health care organizations.