Developing the Leader Within You - Attitude : Part 1

We will continue our leadership journey, learning new skills and refreshing old ones, with John C. Maxwell's book Developing the Leader Within You.

Great leaders understand that the right attitude will set the right atmosphere, which enables the right responses from others.

This chapter of Maxwell's book deals with attitude. 

Just as our attitudes are the extra pluses in like, they also make the difference in leading others. Leadership has less to do with position than it does disposition. The disposition of a leader is important because it will influence the way followers think and feel.

Our attitudes are Our Most Important Assets:

• Our attitude may not be the asset that makes us great leaders, but without good ones we will never reach our full potential.
• Our attitudes are the "and then some" that allows us the little extra edge over those whose thinking is wrong.
• Our attitudes determine what we see and how we handle our feelings. Those two factors greatly determine our success.
• What we see:
• Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.
• Our expectations have a great deal to do with our attitudes. And these expectations may be totally false, but they will determine our attitudes.
• How we handle our feelings.
• There is a great difference between how we feel and how we handle our feelings.
• Everyone has times when they feel bad.
• Our attitudes cannot stop our feelings, but they can keep our feelings from stopping us.

It is Improbable that a Person with a Bad Attitude can Continuously be a Success.

• We cannot continue to function in a manner that we do not truly believe about ourselves.
• A leader's attitude is caught by his or her followers more quickly than his or her actions.

We are Responsible for Our Attitudes.

• "I have to keep working on my thought life. I am responsible to have a great attitude and to maintain it. My attitude does not run on automatic." - Melvin Maxwell
• The greatest day in your life and mine is when we take total responsibility for our attitudes. That's the day we truly grow up.

It's Not What Happens to Me that Matters BUT What Happens in Me.

• "Every time you make a choice you are turning the control part of you, the part  that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, you are slowing turning this control thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish one." - C.S. Lewis

The Leader's Attitude Helps Determine the Attitudes of the Followers.

• Leadership is influence. People catch our attitudes just like they catch our colds - by getting close to us.
• It is important to possess a great attitude, not only for your personal success, but also for the benefit of others.
• Your responsibilities as a leader must always be viewed in light of the many, not just yourself.
• A leader's attitude is caught by his follower more quickly than his actions. An attitude is reflected by others even when they don't follow the action. An attitude can be expressed without a word being spoken.

Next time, we will learn how to change our attitude.

Donald G Rosenbarger
Senior Vice President
Delta Companies Inc