positive attitude

A Positive Attitude In The Workplace Can Do These 10 Things

A positive attitude in the workplace can help you whether you own your own business, work as an employee, or manage others within a business environment. You’ll enjoy your work more and achieve your workplace or business related goals more easily and faster.

Here’s a picture of a work environment I’ve experienced. I’m sure many of you can relate to this in some way or another.

• Meetings in which most of the discussion is on what is going wrong rather than about ideas on how to solve the problem.
  
• Groups of people complain about the way the company is being run and how the company is “screwing them over.”
  
• Upper management seems to care only about how they are measured (usually by short-term profits) rather than about the long-term success of the company.
  
• General conversations occur around the workplace almost daily in which people complain to each other about how this, that, or the entire company is doomed to fail. Or about how much they “hate working here.”
  
• Employees backstab each other in attempts to “get ahead” in the company.
  
• People leave their workplace at the end of the day feeling drained and lifeless from all the negative energy.
  
• Customers receive poor service due to the negativity of the company representatives. These customers do not become repeat customers or refer new customers.

If you’ve ever worked in an environment like this, you know how easy it is to get sucked into the negativity. I even had days when I went into work feeling upbeat and positive but was quickly sucked down by the negative attitudes surrounding me. Attitudes are contagious!

A positive attitude in the workplace can make a big difference...

10 Things That a Positive Attitude In The Workplace Can Do.

1. Career success: Who is more likely to get promoted? Those who think positively and get results, or those who constantly complain and say something isn’t their job?
   
2. Stress reduction: You feel stressed when you see events or situations as stressful. Change your perception to something more positive and the stressful feelings will go away. Instead of problems, see issues as challenges, for example, from which you and your company can ultimately benefit. Try asking yourself how you can make something easier or more enjoyable. It's amazing what you come up with when you start asking yourself these types of questions.


3. Less sick days and better productivity: This is a side benefit of stress reduction.  Stress can have a serious negative impact on your health.  If you can reduce your stress, or the stress of everyone in your organization you'll enjoy better health, less sick days, and better productivity.


4. Improve customer relations and improve sales: Customers would rather deal with someone positive. Research has also shown that sales professionals who think positively and believe in the benefits of their product have much better sales performance.
   
5. Become a better leader: If you own a company or if you manage people, those who report to you usually get more from watching you than they do listening to what you’re saying. Be a good example of having a positive attitude in the workplace. Set goals and ask for people’s support in achieving them. Take a positive attitude approach to achieving those goals and to overcoming challenges. Your attitude and enthusiasm will spread throughout your workplace. A positive attitude is just as infectious as a negative one. Be careful about which one you’re fostering.
   
6. Improve the attitude of other employees or those who report to you: As I said, positive attitudes are infectious. Even if you’re an employee you can help create a positive attitude in the workplace by being the change you want to see. Refuse to participate in negative conversations. When you’re in a meeting or when you encounter a challenge, instead of dwelling on who’s fault it is or on the challenge itself, steer the conversation to focus on how the issue can be overcome. You might seem a bit odd to others at first, but your attitude will begin to affect change. Keep at it and keep focused on your goal of affecting change. Soon people will be drawn to you because they can’t help but like being in the company of somebody positive. And soon the attitude will spread throughout the workplace. Or at the very least, those who insist on staying negative won’t bother you anymore because they know you won’t entertain their negativity.
   
7. Improve teamwork: Teams are much more effective when the members are united in overcoming challenges and figuring out how they can achieve their objectives rather than dwelling on all the problems and obstacles that stand in their way.
   
8. Improve motivation for yourself and others: If you have a positive attitude about achieving goals and success in general, you will be much more motivated to take action. If you look at what you would like to accomplish and you see only the obstacles, your motivation diminishes pretty quickly. Ask yourself what might spur you to action.
   
9. Improve decision-making and overcome challenges: See challenges as opportunities to grow and become better. When you’re making a business decision, you can use this same approach and your options will really open up.
   
10. Improve Interpersonal Relations: People like positive people. They’re automatically drawn to a pleasant and upbeat demeanor. Your business and personal relationships will definitely improve when you employ a positive attitude. There are also techniques you can use to help improve other people's reaction and attitude toward you. (check out: 11 Can't Fail Tips for Improving Your Interpersonal Relations Skills for more information)