Attitude Makes the Difference

Not Intelligence, Not Chance, Not  Hard work.  It is Attitude that finally makes somebody a great performer, it is attitude that defines success and it is attitude that takes you a long way.

Who cannot forget Zig Ziglar quote:  "You cannot tailor-make the situations in life, but you can tailor make the attitudes to fit those situations"

It is easy to say -  have a positive attitude,  your attitude decides your altitude and so on but the question I have is what really determines your attitude.  If having a positive attitude alone made you a winner everyone would have been there and done that.   Why is it only some maintain a positive attitude and rest of them do not.  That's the question I want to explore in this piece and the next.

Is attitude determined by behaviors exhibited or is it vice-versa? 

To understand better:  An attitude is a learned tendency to exhibit behavior in a certain way.  The way I think,  feel or display behavior on / to an  issue, a person, a group, a subject, a trend are all examples of  attitude.   

We can be conscious of our attitudes or - they can be sub-conscious (blind spots about the attitudes)

Attitudes can be influenced in either positive or negative direction and it is here that role of managers  leaders and other key influencers in organizations is very important.  A person can develop a very positive attitude towards work and at the same time a very negative depending on the experience.    It is the experiences we have or the conditions we are exposed to that determine our attitude towards a phenomenon, place, person,  event etc.

So behavior changes according to the attitude toward something.  However remember that it is the behaviors itself that influence attitude.  If you want a person to change from a extremely negative attitude towards say "gender diversity"  it cannot happen just by feeling it.  He / she has to actually start being more accepting of the other gender being equally contributing in team work or other gender being as competitive, or the other gender being as hard working or whatever the negative bias he or she has about "gender diversity"

So next time you find you are carrying your problems in your mind and it is affecting you negatively you need to check whether it can be attributed to attitude you have about something.  Can you change the way you are affected by just changing your attitude? As a manager you need to see what behaviors the person needs to change if the attitude has to change.   Well more about how managers can work on attitudes with examples in a coming post.  

Meanwhile if you have something to share, your experiences, your observations, your thoughts are welcome.