Abstract
Government employees operate within the confines of a bureaucratic framework that often limits creativity and collaboration causing employee engagement issues. Positive Organizational Scholarship (POS) is a leadership theory that highlights self-efficacy, hope, optimism, and resiliency as catalysts to improve processes by helping an individual reach their full potential. This quantitative study attempts to understand the applicability of POS in a state government setting. Findings from a non-experimental survey of Indiana government employees reveal a significant negative relationship between POS– self-efficacy, hope, optimism, and resiliency–and an employee’s frustration level with bureaucracy. However, findings do not affirm a significant positive relationship with tenure. Based on the results of this study, the creation of an awareness campaign is suggested to help senior leadership in Indiana, as well as in other states, develop a better understanding of POS and how to apply the theory to their leadership style.|Keywords: Positive organizational scholarship, self-efficacy, hope, optimism, resiliency, bureaucracy