WORKING ATTITUDE

I was on my way back from Los Angeles on Sunday evening. I met with a new friend who was on the flight with me, his name is Lawrence. We discussed about people’s working attitude.

Attitude is ‘a way of looking at life’. What then is your way of looking at work? What is your definition of attitude at work?

This is an important question that needs to be answered sincerely. Your way of approaching work is an important determinant of your career success.

We both agreed that achieving success in our career isn’t just about brains, talents and connection. It is also about attitude, it is about our definition of attitude at work. One of the attitudes I adopt throughout my career is one of "Belief". And one of my favorite quotes on belief is:

"Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe it can achieve."
- Napoleon Hill



Take Personal Responsibility


Believe that you have a personal responsibility for your own career success. You need to realize that you are in charge of your own destiny. If something bad happens, do not blame anyone else. Remember each time you point your finger at someone - 3 points back at you. You have 3 times more responsibility to whatever blame you want to assign others.

If you would like to understand yourself more, please take a personal personality profile.

Nothing Is Impossible


Believe that nothing is impossible in your career success path. Every position and every project is within reach. If only you set out to do it. Believe you can do it and ask for it. Don’t just sit and talk. People who are successful at their careers are people who believe they can do it. Thus, put together an action plan to achieve what you have been talking about every day. By taking actions to pursue your dream, you are closer to achieving your goal in life.

Failure Is The Best Teacher



Believe that as long as you learn from your mistakes then it is not a wasted mistake. There will be setbacks in your career success path. So long as you learn from them then it makes you a better worker. Your attitude towards failure will determine how successful you become in your career. Do not lament over your mistakes. Learn from it and move forward.

I am a strong advocate of learning from failure. And I appreciate the lessons from successful people who have been through the ups and downs in their life journey.



Developing positive attitudes at work isn’t easy. As with everything in life, you need to practice. Just pick one of these listed and remind yourself of it each time you start to worry or face any challenges.

Attitude Example

During the flight, we activated the “ help “ light as we would like to have some cool drinks. The “ help” light was activated and we waited for 15 minutes before an air stewardess come to help. “ Miss, we need tow glasses of orange juice, “ said Lawrence. “ Thank you. Can you off the ‘ help’ light before I serve you the orange juice ? “ said the air stewardess. Lawrence was annoyed that the air stewardess was more interested for him to off the “ help “ light than to serve us with the drinks. The air stewardess said, “ if the light is not off and if our supervisor found out, we will be in trouble and that is the way how we work on board this airline. “

The air stewardess is not interested in attending to the service requirement of the passenger, she is more interested to avoid having problems with her supervisor. This is what I called the attitude problem. She would have said:- “ Sir, thank you very much, it is my honor to serve you the orange juice immediately. Please help to off the ‘ help’ light, thank you very much. “ If she had said this to Lawrence, I believe Lawrence will have no problem with that.



Lawrence shared a story with me on board the flight. He said that he called an airline office asking for help in December 2007. The person who answered the phone call, said, “ sorry sir, I am not in charge of the route that you have asked. The person who is in charge is on leave, please call next week Monday. “ This is another attitude problem with the staff that Lawrence had spoken to. The staff could have find out Lawrence needs and find out how he may be able to be of assistance to him. If the staff at the airline has possession of his work, he could have said, “ Thank you sir for calling, let me find out the information that you need and I will call you back. Please leave with me your phone number. “

Work Behavior Attitude

Behavior to me refers to the ‘do’ part of your work. It relates to how you do your work and how you get your work done. Work behavior attitude can be seen. It is the actual work. You can see the result of your work behavior attitude be it a report or a finished good. Your colleagues can see it. It is the action.

They can see if you worked hard. They can see if you do your work with skills and applied the knowledge you know into the work. They can see for themselves if you are the "all talk and no work" type. Work behavior attitude is the real thing. You cannot fool people into believing that your work behavior attitude is good when it is not.

It is equally important to have a great work behavior attitude, as it is to have a great work attitude behavior at work.


Let’s Break It Up

Let’s break up these two terms. Work attitude is the ‘feel’ part of your work. It usually is a ‘subconscious’ transfer of feelings about your approach to work. Do you do things with pride, passion and belief? People can feel this. So, from now on, let’s just refer to work attitude behavior as work attitude.

On the other hand, work behavior attitude refers to the ‘do’ part of your work. It is the tangible part of your work. It is the action. How you do your tasks. Are you hard working at work? Do you apply your skills and knowledge or do you do it lazily. All these can be seen. To keep it simple, let’s use work behavior from now on when referring to work behavior attitude.

Why is it Important to Know the Difference?


In my experience, a positive work attitude does not necessarily lead to a positive work behavior. Neither does a positive work behavior indicate positive work attitude.

Let me illustrate by asking you to do this. Have you ever come across colleagues who are extremely positive about a certain project? They can talk all day about what can be done and should be done. They speak with pride and they truly believe in the work. But when it comes to the real deal, you see that they do not work hard at completing their end of the bargain. Yet others work very hard at their tasks but lack the passion they inject into the work. These work are done but is far from perfection.

When you know the difference between work attitude and work behavior, you can begin to align the both of them. Once you align both your work attitude and work behavior to be the same, you will increase your chances of succeeding in your career as a newbie by many folds.

Conclusion

People see us the way we behave. Having a negative attitude, always putting blame on others and never appreciate will put you in bad light at the work place. Having a positive approach to work, admire and appreciate will enable us to attract success into our life more and better. We can manage our attitude to have more success in our work place.

I like to conclude this week writing with a quotation from my mentor Bob Blakley, “ The richest reward from our work is not what we get out of it in wages, but what we become through it. “