Proactivity: Definition, Examples, & Skills

I imagine I’m not alone in this. We can all get stuck in a place of inaction, forgetting our own capacity to step out into the world and change it. Especially, we can lose sight of our ability to get out ahead of issues or even to troubleshoot ahead of time in areas where no issues have yet arisen.

But sometimes, inspiration strikes and I take decisive action, all on my own, to fix something that I know will become a problem. In these moments of proactivity, I feel great – powerful, purposeful, and self-confident. What brings us these moments of proactivity? How do we become proactive? Let’s explore proactivity together and see what the science has to say.

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The clearest benefit of being proactive is that proactive people experience more success in their professional and personal lives (Fuller & Marler, 2009). This may be because proactivity leads to getting one’s needs met. The satisfaction that comes with this not only makes us feel better about ourselves, but also increases our interest in continuing to be proactive. In other words, over time a person can become more automatically proactive through building a positive feedback loop between proactive behaviors and positive emotions and thoughts about oneself (Strauss & Parker, 2014).

Perhaps it is no wonder, then, that people who are proactive show higher levels of healthy independence, feel more vital and confident, and see themselves as competent and able to determine their own fates (Cangiano & Parker, 2015). It is likely that these personality traits and proactivity positively reinforce each other, too.

What does a proactive person do? Imagine you have a very useful uncle who loves to work with his hands – a do-it-yourself type of guy. Whenever he comes over to your house for a holiday meal, he might engage in a number of proactive behaviors (Thomas et al., 2010): He might ask you how your house is doing, ask to take a walk around the property, give a visual inspection to each room he enters, and then offer to address both what he sees needs fixing and what might eventually need fixing.
 
If your uncle is a proactive person, he’s doing all of this because he is naturally driven to help others and improve the world around him. You’ve probably made it clear to him, several times over, that you don’t expect him to take care of your house – his place at the holiday dinner table is not contingent on his efforts to take care of your house. Each time, he has probably smiled and said something like, “I just like making sure everything is in order.”

Another proactivity example
​Another example of proactivity comes from the finding that proactive people engage more than other people do in what is called organizational citizenship behavior (Bergeron et al., 2014). What does that term mean? It means proactive people see themselves as involved citizens with a responsibility to keep things organized and running smoothly. So it should come as no surprise that people who are more proactive spend more time volunteering and engaged in other extracurricular activities, start more businesses, and offer more suggestions than people who are less proactive (Thomas et al., 2010).
 
For proactive people, all of this comes in addition to taking on more tasks at work and working longer hours (Bergeron et al., 2014). This can be a source of frustration for the more proactive among us. After all, they see what needs to get done and go out of their way to do it, while everybody else seems content to wait until the need becomes more urgent or somebody tells them to do it.

By now, you might be saying, okay, I get it, proactivity is good. So how do I become more proactive?
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One way is to find and use tools of planning ahead (Presbitero, 2015). This is particularly effective for career success, as people who plan for their careers are more likely to take proactive steps toward their career goals (Presbitero, 2015). Some examples of planning ahead in a career context can include researching career trajectories online, seeking out informational interviews with people in your field, and using goal-setting apps or planners to build a vision for yourself.

More generally, you might be able to increase your proactivity by changing your mindset about the different environments you inhabit. For example, we can make a deliberate effort to see ourselves as leaders in our homes, schools, and workplaces (do Nascimento et al., 2018). We can ask ourselves, “How would somebody who is responsible for everything here look at this room? This project proposal? What would they say?” It can be helpful in this context to articulate what your own values are, too, because these can also be a lens for seeing the world that motivates proactive behaviors (do Nascimento et al., 2018).

Finally, you can walk through the world with a loving and critical eye. What do I mean by this? Look around the room you’re sitting in. If you were somebody who wanted the very best for this room, what would you change? Would you clean the windowsills or buy new screens? Redo the paint in the corner? Add a piece of artwork to an empty stretch of wall?
 
If this sounds like a lot of effort, I get it – it is more effort. But it will sustain itself and you: people who are proactive are more connected to their reasons for working and caring, and that motivates them to keep helping others (Lebel & Patil, 2018).
 
For more tips on proactivity, I recommend watching the following video:

• “Proactive people carry their own weather with them.” – Stephen Covey
• “The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope.” – Barack Obama
• “Be a creator of circumstances rather than just a creature of circumstances. Be proactive rather than reactive.” – Brian Tracy
• “If you don’t make a conscious effort to visualize who you are and what you want to become in life, then you empower other people and circumstances to shape your journey by default. Your silence makes you reactive vs. proactive.” – Shannon L. Alder
• “People who end up with the good jobs are the proactive ones who are solutions to problems, not problems themselves, who seize the initiative to do whatever is necessary to get the job done.” – Stephen Covey
• “I believe that everyone chooses how to approach life. If you’re proactive, you focus on preparing. If you’re reactive, you end up focusing on repairing.” – John C. Maxwell
• “Recast your current problems into proactive goals.” – Suze Orman
• “Folks who never do any more than they get paid for, never get paid for any more than they do.” – Elbert Hubbard

Want to learn more? Here are some related articles that might be helpful.

To keep learning, here are some books to explore:​​

• Bateman, T. S., & Crant, J. M. (1993). The proactive component of organizational behavior: A measure and correlates. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 14(2), 103-118.
• Bergeron, D. M., Schroeder, T. D., & Martinez, H. A. (2014). Proactive personality at work: Seeing more to do and doing more?. Journal of Business and Psychology, 29(1), 71-86.
• Cangiano, F., & Parker, S. K. (2015). Proactivity for mental health and well-being. The Wiley Blackwell handbook of the psychology of occupational safety and workplace health, 228-250.
• do Nascimento, T. T., Porto, J. B., & Kwantes, C. T. (2018). Transformational leadership and follower proactivity in a volunteer workforce. Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 28(4), 565-576.
• Fuller, B., & Marler, L. E. (2009). Change driven by nature: A meta-analytic review of the proactive personality literature. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 75, 329–345.
• Lebel, R. D., & Patil, S. V. (2018). Proactivity despite discouraging supervisors: The powerful role of prosocial motivation. Journal of Applied Psychology, 103(7), 724.
• Presbitero, A. (2015). Proactivity in career development of employees: The roles of proactive personality and cognitive complexity. Career Development International.
• Strauss, K., & Parker, S. K. (2014). Effective and sustained proactivity in the workplace: a self-determination theory perspective. In M. Gagne (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Work Engagement, Motivation, and Self-Determination Theory (pp. 50–71). Oxford University Press
• Thomas, J. P., Whitman, D. S., & Viswesvaran, C. (2010). Employee proactivity in organizations: A comparative meta-analysis of emergent proactive constructs. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 83, 275–300.
• Wanberg, C. R., & Kammeyer-Mueller, J. D. (2000). Predictors and outcomes of proactivity in the socialization process. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85(3), 373.