We study the positivity properties of Hermitian (or even Finsler) holomorphic vector bundles in terms of L p -estimates of ∂ and L p -extensions of holomorphic objects. To this end, we introduce four conditions, called the optimal L p -estimate condition, the multiple coarse L p -estimate condition, the optimal L p -extension condition, and the multiple coarse L p -extension condition, for a Hermitian (or Finsler) vector bundle (E, h). The main result of the present paper is to give a characterization of the Nakano positivity of (E, h) via the optimal L 2 -estimate condition. We also show that (E, h) is Griffiths positive if it satisfies the multiple coarse L p -estimate condition for some p > 1, the optimal L p -extension condition, or the multiple coarse L p -extension condition for some p > 0. These results can be roughly viewed as converses of Hörmander's L 2 -estimate of ∂ and Ohsawa-Takegoshi type extension theorems. As an application of the main result, we get a totally different method to Nakano positivity of direct image sheaves of twisted relative canonical bundles associated to holomorphic families of complex manifolds.