Grow your business with a positive attitude

No matter how hard you try, you can’t hide your attitude very well. You give off many verbal and behavioral cues that others will interpret or misinterpret. The good news is that a positive attitude generally leads to positive behavior and communication. Pretending to mask a bad attitude just doesn’t work. As a leader, you must recognize the significant impact of your communication and behavior on those who follow you and those who would be partners and advisors.

You choose your attitude every day and you choose how to deal with events or people that challenge your positive outlook. Others will respond to your words and actions and even mimic your behavior. Verbal communication that expresses optimism, confidence, and encouragement goes a long way toward keeping your team motivated. Nonverbal cues that reflect attitudes can often reveal negativity that others will notice. Worse yet, these non-verbal cues are often misinterpreted and blown completely out of proportion, exploiting the specific problem you were trying to hide.

You can train yourself to try to say the right thing in every circumstance to avoid revealing your true feelings. In the heat of battle, you will make small unintentional slips. For example, your team is working hard to meet a deadline to respond to a big customer opportunity. You are there with them, helping them in any way you can. Then, reflecting the opportunity, you say, “If we get this…” instead of “When we get this…” Up until that point, your team believed that meeting the deadline would mean they DID get the ” .. .” That little word “If” conveys doubt at the very least and may suggest that you know something they don’t. Productivity in the future will be affected.

Nonverbal cues can be even more powerful. These could be avoiding an employee you don’t like or trust, showing favoritism to one over others, or assigning menial tasks to a potentially valuable person. These behaviors create a problem for you, the employee, and your teammates, since no one but you can correct the situation. The person you don’t like may need some training or may be dealing with personal issues that will invariably affect their work. Maintain a positive outlook by building rapport and developing the skills and talents of everyone in the organization.

One non-verbal signal will quickly damage your reputation and that is tardiness. Everyone deals with traffic delays, or urgent phone calls, or maybe the dog really did eat your homework. Routinely being late to meetings without notice is disrespectful and communicates an arrogant belief that you are the most important person in the room. Employees will tolerate this because they have to, but they will also emulate the behavior and no meeting will start on time in your business. More importantly, you will alienate clients, partners and advisors and have a hard time regaining their trust.

Instead of working hard to choose words and actions that mask your negative attitude, choose a positive attitude and the right words and behaviors will easily follow. While a negative attitude turns people away, a positive attitude acts like a magnet attracting others who want to participate in the success of your dream.