Is Your Attitude Showing?

Have you ever known something to be true, but didn't realize it until someone else wrote a book and clearly defined for you what you have instinctively known all along? That’s what happened to me when my mentor and leadership expert John C. Maxwell released his book “The Difference Maker” back in 2006.

John uses his classic insights to clearly identify, categorize, and clarify the subject of one’s attitude, and the role it plays in one’s leadership ability and personal success. In The Difference Maker John C. Maxwell deconstructs the notion that attitude, by itself, determines a person’s success or failure. However, a positive attitude does make a tremendous difference, and John lauds it as a leader’s greatest asset. Although attitude isn't everything, it can help you to do anything better.

While the book has been published for some seven years now, and I find it as relevant today as when he first published it. Admittedly, I discovered a few new ah-ha moments among the truths I already knew, and I found a long list of takeaways to apply for myself. From that list, here are my big three:

Attitude always has an impact on your team. Talent is not enough. These five truths clarify how attitudes affect teamwork and a leader’s team: 

• Attitudes have the power to lift up or tear down a team
• An attitude compounds when exposed to others
• Bad attitudes compound faster than good ones
• Attitudes are subjective. Identifying a wrong one can at times be difficult
• Rotten attitudes, left alone, can ruin everything

Attitudes are really about how a person is. That overflows into how he or she acts. Attitude is an inward feeling expressed by behavior. (Any parent of a toddler instinctively understands this one!)

Your attitude and your potential go hand in hand. When your attitude is positive and conducive to growth the mind expands and the progress begins. Attitude determines success or failure.

For me, probably the best point John drives throughout the book is that attitude is a choice. Your attitude isn't set in stone; you shape it through the choices you make each day. That means you can decide, intentionally, what attitude you will take to work with you each day.

Question: How are your customers and co-workers affected by your attitude?