Attitude is everything. There, I said it. There are few ingredients as important to a successful professional life as your individual attitude. Life can be challenging and work is hard enough without bringing a poor attitude to the situation. There are numerous essential characteristics to being a good leader. I hope to cover most of them during the course of my blogging career, but few are as important as the attitude you take into any given situation. I have always believed that we create our own reality/destiny and in the field of leadership, oftentimes having a good attitude can propel you into the success zone.
“Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.” – Winston Churchill
How do you nurture a positive vision? I often tell those who I work with that nothing bad ever lasts. The converse of this maxim is that nothing good ever lasts. It is a reality which helps me maintain balance and in any given situation I at least try to engage in any challenge with a positive attitude. There are few things I know for certain, but I will tell you that approaching difficult situations with a bad attitude will nearly always end with a negative result.
Manage your perspective in any given situation. I have been “accused” most of my adult life of being unemotional about decisions or being “all business” at work. I’m not the perfect example and this approach simply doesn’t work for some, but I have found that possessing an even keel when dealing with problems and delivering solutions tends to keep me in the proper zone for success. I am not always successful. Sometimes, especially when I encounter my trigger topics, I fail and fail miserably.
I get to work with some very intelligent and competent people every day. With that said, I’ve seen some of these folks miss the mark on some engagements or issues of change because of their less than stellar attitudes. In fact, when I think about my most difficult times professionally, I remember that a change in my attitude could have turned those difficult times into at least “moderate times.”
At the end of the day, part of it is about staying emotionally balanced, because this balance is necessary to ensure you have enough gas to get across the finish line. Our professional lives are a long haul and on balance I believe its very important to view this as time well spent. At the end you won’t be able to go back, but moving forward you can impact the trajectory of your future self by having the right attitude.
Follow me on Twitter: @mk_palmore
Follow this blog: Thoughts on Leadership