Towards a Definition of Happy Leadership: The Need for New Agenda in Management

Abstract

Happiness and wellbeing studies and publications are becoming more common in a culture that sees the need for a global effort in response to the stagnation of “happiness” in modern Western civilization. The business world, its leaders, and its organizations are no exception. This study analyzes happy leaders, roles, involvement, and organizational outcomes. The authors conducted an extensive search, concluding that there is a lack of academic papers that explain the presence of this concept in the field of leadership style studies based on a literature review and bibliometric analysis of documentary, hermeneutic, non- experimental, generalist, and descriptive types on the appealing concept of “happy leadership”. Therefore, it is clear that there is a need for more academic studies of strategic management and human resources in terms of the definition of happy leadership. This study opens new ground in happy leadership by combining seven actions into a conceptualization that goes beyond definition and can be used as an explanatory and practical model with an integrative approach. This chapter significantly contributes to management, strategic management and human resources. It sets out to conceptualize the term with an overview through a definition and proposes seven management practices that lead to “happy leadership”.