Introduction
An attitude can be defined as a disfavor or favor that is openly expressed towards a place, a person, a thing, or an object. In fact, Allport refers it as the most indispensable and distinctive concept of the contemporary social psychology (1935, p.789) particularly within the area of management.
One can identify the attitude of his/her leader through evaluation. One can evaluate how leaders display certain tendencies in favoring or disfavoring certain objects. Chaiken and Eagly verify this when they say that attitude is a psychological predisposition, which is displayed through assessing a certain entity with inclinations of favor or disfavor (Eagly, 1998, p. 269).
Positive attitude is a crucial component of good leadership in management. In his theories of leadership, Chemers (1997, p.3) argues that leadership is a process that involves social influence where one person enters the will to assist and to support others to accomplish a particular task. A leader is a manager at a certain level. Therefore, the attitude of the leader is likely to determine the kind of leadership that he/she exercises.
Burns asserts that, for a leader to be transformational to his/her people, he/she must portray good personal relations. He/she must be creative and charismatic (1978, p.27). This paper seeks to explore on how attitude reflects leadership as it applies to professional development in management. Can a leader perform while his or her lousy attitude bars him or her from inspiring, motivating, and even instilling confidence on others?
Attitude and Likeability
When addressing the issue of professional development in management, one cannot avoid the subject of leadership. A leader with a bad attitude is a poor leader and manager. Leadership is mostly perceived as a contest of likeability. In most instances, leaders are seen as the most liked and respected people.
A leader who scores highly in likeability is accorded the full faith and even trust by the stakeholders. Any organization led by such a leader also experiences the warmth of a positive relationship. Such leadership portrays good attitude among the staff as the gap between the leader and the stakeholders is reduced. A leader who scores lowly in likeability faced self-inflicted obstacles. Such obstacles become a barrier to effective leadership in any organization.
In fact, Chemers (1997, p.4) argues that leadership development thrives through influence. It is therefore imperative that managers and staff at large should base any good leadership within an organization on the roots of good attitude. As a leader, ones likeability must always be high. A manager with a good attitude towards his or her stakeholders and his work is likely to score high in likeability.
It is therefore important for a manager to always ask them whether the people, project, and or organization he/she manages have confidence in him/her based on his/her performance. In fact, in likeability, a leader ought to ask whether people would have elected him or her to the same position willingly were it not for his/her appointment.
Attitude and Pessimism
A leader with a pessimistic attitude is likely to become a bad manager. If a leader always sees the negativity of events, innovations, and even steps of growth that people take, he or she is a bad leader. Attitude is reflected on a leader’s approach to issues. For example, a company manager who sees the impossibility of making profits will never attain or cross the company’s profit margins. Good attitude towards ones position as a leader enables him/her to have a smile at the break of each new day.
Pessimism is an attitude that makes the leader see every negative aspect of his/her position thus making him/her feel that he/she is feared, disrespected, or even undermined by the people he/she leads. A pessimistic manager will exercise the half-empty-glass attitude by turn a blind eye on the other half. This is a key issue in leadership, which has its foundation on the attitude of the leader. A leader with a bad attitude will channel the same to the people he/she leads.
Attitude and Attention
A leader with a bad attitude repels people from him or her while the reverse is true for a leader with a good attitude. Bad attitude towards the organization’s management and development, the stakeholders, and even ones position makes one scoreless in attraction.
No loyal stakeholder of an organization can trust a leader who expresses negative attitude towards his/her organization. In fact, in most cases, such leaders are seen as mobile statues that are on the move always. This makes the stakeholders withhold their loyalty and trust from this category of leaders.
On the other hand, leaders/managers who demonstrate good attitude towards people and the organization are like magnets in their work. In this end, Griffin (2010, p.138) points out that leaders with a good attitude delight in the satisfaction of their stakeholders. They attract the stakeholders towards them. It is also easier for them to attain a full control of the people they lead. The stakeholders exhibit loyalty to good leaders. Attraction also plays a key role in the formation and achievement of teamwork.
In team building exercise of any organization, the leader’s attraction is essential because other members tend to like those who like them and or even identify with them. If the stakeholders of a certain organization are not proud of their leader, they are likely to resist his or her leadership.
People will seek the advice and wise counsel of a leader who scores high on attitude. The expectations of the people are also high especially on performance. Leaders with a bad attitude are also not able to attract and even retain the tier-one kind of executives and talents.
Many employees look forward to working with the best leaders. A leader with a positive attitude will score high in attracting talents and top rated executives because people desire working for and with leaders who have much to offer them. There is a lot for one to learn from a leader with a positive attitude who believes in the power of positivity and success.
Attitude and variation in Perspective
Leaders with bad attitudes differ with the stakeholders on a variety of issues because they have different attitudes towards the issues. Such leadership will be reflected on the many arguments and confrontations that pessimistic leaders experience each day. It is also very difficult for a leader with a bad attitude to build consensus with the stakeholders. The energies of such organizations or groups are channeled towards different dimensions. Hence, there is much wastage of useful resources.
Attitude and Teambuilding
For an organization to work effectively, teambuilding must be fostered. A leader with a positive attitude is expected to exhibit the relationship-oriented kind of leadership. The leader should focus on building strong relationships with the stakeholders. Team building enables the stakeholders to work towards meeting a common goal.
In fact, Griffin (2010, p.135) points out that a leader should be more concerned with satisfaction and well-being of the stakeholders. An optimistic leader will always believe in the success of his or her followers. Such leaders will ensure that there is a two-way communication between them and the people. This will in turn result to trust, appreciation, and confidence. The attitude that leaders display determines the expected performance of the people they lead.
Positive Attitude and leadership
A leader with a positive attitude is able to cope with activities of every day. Positive attitude is the foundation of optimism in a leader’s life. A positive minded leader will evade the impact of negative thinking and or causing of worry that makes other people arrogant and anxious.
Leaders with a positive attitude are exceptional in that they appear brighter, happier, and successful. Such leaders always see the positive side of life. They believe in the positivity of the most difficult activities. This instills confidence in them thus making them expect the best results in life. Leaders with a positive attitude will always be willing to learn. They become very strong because of knowledge acquisition.
Ways in which positive attitude manifests good leadership
A leader with a positive attitude is able to think creatively. Creativity is a key building block for organizational success. With a positive attitude, a leader will initiate new ideas and developments in his/her institution. One has an open mind to foreign ideas and contributions from other people. It is also from positive attitude that one learns to look at the possibility of success especially in novel ideas. With a positive attitude, a leader’s mind is never gridlocked.
It keeps on evolving. Such people are also open to new developments for example in technology. Positive attitude is synonymous with positive thinking. A person with a positive attitude is able to convince others to see the possibilities of the most impossible ventures. Positive thinking persons work with determination to achieve what they believe. Such people do not listen to discouragements from their environment.
Rather, they have their minds and energies focused on success and nothing else. Leaders with a positive attitude do not give up easily. These people believe in their abilities. They do not recognize the prevalence of obstructions. Rather, they see the life that is beyond the current zone of sufferings and difficulties. At all times, these leaders expect success and positive development. Positive attitude is a source of inspiration.
This makes the leader able to search for solutions instead of giving up on difficult situations. A person with a positive attitude makes the leaders able to look for opportunities. Positive attitude can be manifested at three levels. According to Scouller (2010, p.35), both public and private leadership are behavioral levels, which implies that the ability of one to exhibit good leadership both publicly and privately is dictated by the leader’s behavior.
These behaviors are portrayed through one’s ability to motivate his/her group, ability to pursue development, results and activities done, ability of a leader to foster unity and teamwork, and the motivation of individuals and their ability to select the best for the people. Level two of attitude manifestation in leadership is through personal leadership. At this level, the attitude of leaders determines their ability to build their skills and knowhow.
Scouller enumerates three levels of personal leadership as skills and technical knowhow, ability to develop a positive attitude towards the people especially in servant leadership, and self-mastery in a psychological dimension, which form the foundation of originality in leadership.
The attitude that a leader has in any organization determines the staff’s ability to exhibit stable emotions. In fact, George (2000, p.1027) argues that leadership is an emotion led process, which means that, since attitude is mainly manifested by the emotions that one exhibits, a leader ought to have a certain attitude that controls his/her emotions.
A leader with a positive attitude will be able to monitor his or her emotions at various levels. If a group has more members who exhibit a positive attitude to each other, the whole mood of the group becomes enthusiastic. Positive attitude enables the members of the group to share emotions.
In the same way, an organization that has a leader who exhibits positive attitude towards the members is likely to perform better than that of a pessimistic leader. In such groups, members also learn to exhibit negative attitude from their leaders.
According to Sy (2005, p.295), through emotional contagion, leaders are able to transmit moods to their group members. This explains why a leader is able to influence a large number of followers towards what they believe in. For example, a leader who has a negative attitude towards his/her institution is likely to influence the stakeholders to dislike the organization too.
As a result, the organization is likely to collapse. Leaders with a positive attitude also use contagion mechanism to influence the stakeholders. According to Bono (2006, p. 317), charismatic leaders use the contagion mechanism to influence their followers. To influence the followers towards a certain direction, leaders with positive attitude use contagion to achieve their goals. Leadership is about influence.
A leader stands at an advantaged point to influence people either in a positive or negative dimension. People also like emulating what leaders do in order to be as successful as they seem are. Moreover, an organization’s affective attitude is the aggregate of the attitude exhibited by each member, as derived from an analysis of the moods of various members who comprise a certain group.
According to Sy (2005, p.299), if a group has a leader with a positive attitude, it scores high in the positive group’s affective attitude. This implies that leaders play an integral role in determining the attitude of the group that they lead. If the leaders suffer from a negative attitude syndrome, then the people that he or she leads also learn and exhibit negative attitude. Attitude affects the ability of a group to have coordinated efforts in achieving objectives.
The attitude of the leader determines the strategy his/her organization adopts. The attitude of the individual group members determines how they act and even think. When individuals express their attitudes toward certain objects, ideas, and even persons they communicate certain information to others. In fact, Sy (2005, p. 295) says, a group with more members with a positive attitude is more effective than that of negative attitude-minded members.
A group that trains its members to have a positive attitude towards themselves, their work, their colleagues, and new ideas is likely to meet its objectives. Moreover, George (2006, p.778) argues that a leader with a positive attitude is able to improve the performance of his/her group, which is a proof that leaders ought to be trained on how to have stable attitude because the attitude that the leaders exhibit eventually trickles down to the members.
To this end, Dasborough (2006, p.163) argues that it is always important for organizations and groups to always put into consideration the response they get from their leaders. One can therefore argue that the emotional responses of leaders can manifest their attitude towards their followers. On the other hand, the followers can infer the attitude that their leaders have towards them from the way they respond to them.
Conclusion
In conclusion, attitude reflects leadership. The attitude that leaders like managers have concerning ideas, objects, people, and even themselves determines whether they can be good leaders or not. Since attitude affects the emotional wellbeing of leaders, it is important that leaders learn the importance of positive attitude in group performance. A leader with a positive attitude is optimistic and does not give up easily.
He/she also believes in the positivity of life. Leaders are influential. Their attitude influences their followers. Therefore, based on the expositions made in the paper, professional development in the field of management calls for a positive attitude of all stakeholders.
Reference List
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Bono, J., & Ilies, R. (2006). Charisma, positive emotions and mood contagion. The Leadership Quarterly, 17(4), 317-334.
Burns, J. (1978). Leadership. New York: Harper and Row Publishers.
Chemers, M. (1997). An Integrative theory of Leadership. Lawrence: Erlbaum Associates, Publishers
Dasborough, M. (2006). Cognitive asymmetry in employee emotional reactions to Leadership Behaviors. The Leadership Quarterly, 17(2), 163-178.
Eagly, A., & Shelly, C (1998). Attitude Structure and Function. In Handbook of Social Psychology. New York: McGraw-Hill.
George, J. (2000). Emotions and leadership: The role of emotional intelligence. Human Relations, 53(2), 1027–1055.‏
Griffin, R., & Ebert, R. (2010). Business essentials. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.