The Power of Attitude

The Power of Attitude Have you ever noticed how, when some people find themselves in financial difficulty, they immediately start finding and working on solutions to the problems, while others panic, lose hope, surrender to their circumstances and become immobilized?

Do you know people who can turn a one-room apartment into a beautiful and comfortable haven that is more appealing and inviting than many mansions?

There is nothing as powerful as attitude. Attitude dictates your response to the present and determines the quality of your future. Attitude creates your world , designs your destiny and determines your success or failure in any venture in life. More opportunities have been lost, withheld and forfeited because of attitude than from any cause. Attitude is a more powerful distinction in life than beauty, power or title or social status. It is more important than wealth--- and it can keep one poor. It is the servant that can open the doors of life or close the gates of possibility.

What is Attitude? Attitude is the mind-set or mental conditioning that determines our interpretation of and response to our environment. Its our way of thinking. It is also important to understand that attitude is a natural product of the integration of our self-worth, self-concept, self esteem and sense of value or significance. In essence your attitude is the manifestation of who you think you are. In sum, you are your attitude and your attitude is you.

Leaders think differently about themselves and this distinguishes them from followers. No amount of training in leadership skills, courses in management methods, power titles, promotions or associations can substitute for the right attitudes. Your leadership development is determined by your perceptions of who you are and why you exist—in other words your sense of significance to life. This point is fundamental to understanding our leadership potential and capacity as humans and the power of attitude.

The self discovery of your inherent leadership potential and an understanding of who you are and what you are meant to be are the keys to fulfilling your purpose for existence as a leader. Because true leaders discover and understand who they are and what their purpose is, they influence their environments more than their environments influence them.

Title, position, power, notoriety, fame or family name cannot make you a true leader. For example you can hire someone as a manager in a company. You can give him a title, a budget, a desk, a staff, and everything else. But then suppose he doesn’t take initiative. He doesn’t try to solve problems by himself, seek better ways of performing tasks or improving systems or understand that part of management is pushing the boundaries and exploring new concepts and ideas. He just does as he’s told and doesn’t disturb policy or challenge old outdated methods. That’s not leadership.

Though we often don’t recognize it for what it is, every human on this planet has a natural instinct for leadership in one form or another. As birds have an instinct to fly and fish have an instinct to swim, humans have an instinct to be in control of their lives, circumstances, decisions or environments. When we aren’t in control, we want to be.The essence of leadership again is not techniques for controlling and manipulating people but it is to some extent all about attitude.

True leadership is an attitude that naturally inspires and motivates others and it comes from an internalized discovery about yourself. You cannot learn an attitude. If you try to learn an attitude you are actually engaged in what is referred to as conditioning or mere mental assent. That’s not leadership.

You can condition an animal to do something by rewarding or threatening it with an external result. But an attitude is a perspective, a motivation, a desire that comes from within and is not based on temporary external consequence. It is something deeply personal and internal that influences and transforms your thinking about yourself and your ability, value self worth, self esteem, outlook on life, actions and perceptions of others.

William James wrote, “The greatest discovery of our generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitude of mind. As you think, so shall you be. This was really a discovery because centuries earlier another generation heard a similar truth from King Solomon, the wisest and richest man of his day who said “As a man thinketh in his heart so is he.” What a person thinks in his heart will ultimately come out in his actions. However, the challenge is in knowing how to change one’s attitude. If attitude transformation were simple, then many of us would have changed a number of times during our lifetimes. Most of us are not leaders today because in our hearts we don’t believe that is who we are.

Your future and ability to succeed aren’t tied to what other think of you. They are tied to what you think of yourself. The source of your attitude is your mindset and thoughts. We must have a clear understanding that true leadership is an attitude of the heart birthed by a renewed understanding of purpose. It is more a matter of being something than doing something. It is a self discovery that translates into meaningful activities such as creating, building and nurturing.



The Power of Attitude - To learn more about this author, visit Jasmine Renner's Website.

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