Attitude in Leadership

Does attitude affect the effectiveness of leadership and teamwork? Yes, attitude is one of the largest factors in a team’s success.   Positive attitude does not guarantee Success, yet a negative attitude does guarantee failure. Attitude can either lift you up or tear you down.

A positive attitude will inspire an individual or team to reach beyond their abilities, giving it their all to accomplish the goal and then some. People who surround themselves with positive attitudes increase their chances of growth. This is demonstrated when team members who have the ability to lead step back and allow another team member to take the lead. A positive attitude will praise the other members of the group, even though they may not receive any credit.

A negative attitude can tear down motivation and creativity. Negative attitudes prevent an individual or a team from reaching their goals and objectives.  A Negative attitude pushes people away from each other and erodes trust and respect among them. The worst characteristic of a negative attitude is that it compounds faster than a positive attitude. It may take a person smiling at the neighbor every day for two weeks before getting a smile returned; yet one frown will produce another frown in a second.

Negative attitude is easy to recognize in the workplace. You may have already witnessed a negative attitude within your college. A person who is unwilling to admit wrongdoing, failure to forgive someone who has apologized, or has displayed the “Disease of Me”. The “Disease of Me”, as you may have guessed, is the person who can only talk about themselves and their accomplishments, and has no thought for the team.

A positive attitude is recognizable, but sometimes a person with a positive attitude may appear to have a negative one. A person may have had a bad experience or just been given tragic news. As leaders, we need to know how to identify both of these attitudes and encourage the positive while correcting the negative. Sometimes that may mean just getting away from it. Examine yourself; do you have a positive or a negative attitude?