How Attitude Affects Leadership

This is the third of a four-part series on the role of values, beliefs, attitudes, and behavior in leadership. 

Let’s say you believe that keeping your teams motivated requires inspiring a positive attitude. Why do you believe that? “It’s obvious–because motivated teams perform better,” you might answer. But what about your motivation and attitude? Shouldn’t the best attitude for leadership be the same one you’d like to inspire in those who follow you?

Do you believe in the mission? Do you believe in your teams? Do you believe in yourself? In order to inspire, you must act the part of the motivator. To act the part, your attitude needs to align. You are your first audience whom you must motivate.

A Leader’s Attitude Affects Everyone

As a leader, your attitude is important because your team instinctively reacts to it. A highly motivated leader lifts the spirits of their team. Conversely, if your attitude is poor, your team will either mirror you and join your downward spiral or hold you in contempt and sideline you. A great leadership attitude is about demanding more from yourself to better serve your team and organization.

Mirroring: A Direct Example of How Attitude Affects Leadership

Teams who respect their leaders will naturally take their leader’s side. If a leader is unhappy, their loyal team will be unhappy as well. The team might even become hostile toward whatever or whomever they perceive to be the source of their leader’s problems.

What about the work? A loyal team might react to your attitude by taking on more responsibility, which might actually be a positive change. However, increased workloads can also lead to a decline in morale. Everything pivots around the leader. Your visible attitude is a fixed point around which your team bends all other variables to fit.

Understand how attitude affects leadership: only you can change your situation to get the team back to work on the job rather than on you. Be thankful for such loyalty, then promise yourself not to abuse it.

Intervention

If your team stages an intervention this is your alarm bell ringing, “Last chance.” You are on the verge of losing the loyalty of your team. Your team may not call it an intervention by name, and it might not be as formal as what you see depicted in popular media. However, you will know when your team—or your boss—is staging one. If ever there were a time to find the best attitude for leadership it would be when your team is asking, “Are you okay?”

“I’m not, but I will be.” Make this promise, and keep it.

Contempt

Worse for you, though perhaps better for the team, is contempt. Your negative attitude is pulling your team down, so the team takes charge and proceeds without you. You can do and say whatever you want, be it good or bad. The team will nod in acknowledgment, then ignore you entirely.

This is how a bad attitude affects leadership if you let it: it will stop you from even being a leader at all. Instead, you become an obstacle for your people to route around. The only way out of this situation is to try and foster the best possible attitude for leadership before a disaster occurs.

The Best Attitude for Leadership Means Taking Responsibility

Clearly, when you haven’t adopted the best attitude for leadership it’s not your team who will save you (assuming they even still want to). The best attitude for leadership—and really, the only one—is to take responsibility for yourself and your mistakes just as you do for your team.

Look Up to a Leader

If you have a leader that you admire, take inspiration from them. It doesn’t violate any sacred management code to mirror your leader if they have the best attitude for leadership. If your leader is a worthy role model, have the wisdom to model your leader as your team mirrors you.

Your role models have almost certainly endured hardships similar to your own. Be mindful of the good example they set when dealing with pressure and difficult situations. “If they can do it, so can I,” is a good exercise in perspective. But don’t be too hard on yourself if you fall down a few times on your way to success. Setbacks are a necessary part of any leader’s journey–your role model probably had more than a few before they got to where they are too.

Practice Gratitude

Surround yourself with positive influences. Mirroring isn’t just for leaders and followers but for peers and colleagues as well. Find good listeners, and be a good listener. Find peers excited about the work and reflect that excitement back. Be generous giving people credit for good ideas and they will match that generosity. To show gratitude for positive influences you must be one yourself.

The best attitude for leadership is to practice gratitude literally — as in “practice makes perfect”. Make gratitude a regular habit. The constant automatic flow of small adjustments to your attitude will keep you positive when adopted as part of your daily routine.

Take Care of Yourself

Nowhere will you find a better example of how attitude affects leadership than with your own well-being. If you’ve heard the phrase, “Mind, Body, and Spirit,” think of mind and body as indicators of wellness, and spirit as a projection of your attitude. Your self-presentation, presence, and even posture are your team’s first point of contact with your attitude as a leader. Likewise, your own well-being is your first responsibility as a leader. Lead yourself into a virtuous cycle: as you improve your well-being, your well-being improves your attitude.

The best attitude for leadership means taking responsibility for your own well-being. This means you must try to get enough rest, eat well, exercise, and commit to a lifetime of learning.

Conclusion

To adopt the best attitude for leadership, you need to understand how attitude affects leadership. Then you can start to take responsibility for your own outlook and actions. A negative attitude can drag you down and might take your team with you. With a positive attitude, you’ll inspire loyalty from your team, and they will naturally mirror your positive stance, resulting in better productivity and a more satisfying work experience for all.

If you need further assistance with maintaining a positive attitude as well as fostering strong values and beliefs among your team, check out our 8-week online leadership training course.

Don Baker

Don is a multi-skilled leadership and strategy consultant with significant experience derived from his career as an Australian Army Officer, owner of his own international import/export company, ISO accreditation consulting for Veteran’s assistance programs, and working as the Vice President/Treasurer of his local RSL. Don completed 17 years as an Army Officer, specialising in highly complex and strategically sensitive environments, with Operational commendations received for excelling in high-pressure situations under considerable time constraints. Strategic leadership is a focus of Don’s as he successfully identifies strategic roadmaps for a diverse group of Military, Government, NGO, and NFPs, however, is underpinned by effectively translating visions into tacit operational imperatives. Recently, Don established ISO Certification for HomeFront Australia which provides home services support to Veterans in need and conducted strategic mission thread planning in the digital arena for the Land Network Integration Centre (AS Govt). Don has also been continuing his own personal entrepreneurial endeavors and supports his fellow Veterans through roles within RSL. Don has approached his role within Eighth Mile with the same intensity and passion he is renowned for and espouses the values of wanting to develop those in need.