Top 10 Ways to Foster and Maintain Positive Attitudes in the Workplace

Promoting employee engagement and positive attitudes in the workplace is an activity that is a constant for all leaders if they want to keep workplace productivity on the up and up. Done well it helps reduce turnover, employee complaints and make your team a place that people look forward to being a part of.

Tip One: Set Goals and Deadlines

The greatest keys in helping people to become self-motivated are clear goals, a sense of purpose and urgency and challenge. These elements provide a feeling of accomplishment, the "Wow I did it!" feeling. People thrive on challenge and this will drive the positive attitudes in the workplace that you want.

Tip Two: Make Sure You Are Charged Up

It's impossible to help your team members have positive attitudes in the workplace if you aren't positive. Instead of walking around and grumbling about the fact that people's attitudes aren't where you would like them to be, focus your energy on creating and finding the positive in others. Be a guiding light that lifts your people up.

Tip Three: Encourage People to Achieve & Create Meaning in the Work They Do

While not everyone working for you wants to be the next CEO of the company, most people do want more out of their jobs. Find out their goals, desires and strengths and help them to create in their job more of that which causes them to feel fulfilled.

Even in the most mundane of jobs, help people to see the meaning and purpose to what they are doing.

Tip Four: Be Flexible in Your Leadership Style

Emotional maturity and good judgement enable you to know when to be relaxed, open and warm to team members and when to put on the leader's hat, set limits and accept final responsibility.

Different people respond to different styles of leadership and communication. One person will respond to warmth, a certain amount of familiarity and a lot of encouragement. Another will want only a business-like relationship, with a leader that is firm and direct. Yet another gets bored if not continually challenged and stimulated whereas someone else will want things to remain stable and have a sense of sameness about the job.

It's your job to find the right buttons to press for each person to get the best results and foster their positive attitudes in the workplace.

Tip Five: Listen to Your Team Members Opinions

There is a saying that the person closest to the task generally knows the best way of improving it. Tap into the knowledge and talent of your people. Help them to understand the 'real' constraints about why things may not always be able to be changed, but as best you can work to implement the suggestions they have to improve job performance, quality of work or environment.

Tip Six: Promote Respectfulness

Job titles may mean that there is a certain order to control and responsibility but that doesn't mean someone with a lesser job title is any less important. Respect each individual for what they bring to the organization. At the end of the day man would not have walked on the moon without the janitors making sure that the halls of NASA were pristine. Success and positive attitudes in the workplace are created when the entire team respects the value of each position and the diversity of thinking, talents, styles and experience each person brings.

Most teams have articulated in their team values the value of Respect. Make sure you and the team take the time describe what the value means.

Tip Seven: Be Appreciative of Others

Ask anyone what is one of the biggest issues they have with their job and they are going to tell that it is lack of recognition and appreciation. "What difference does it make if you do a good job or not, no one notices you until you mess up." Make an effort to let others know when they are doing a good job.

Tip Eight: Practice Random Acts of Kindness

This can be as little as offering a cup of coffee to someone who is feeling under the pump. Or giving a much-needed day off to someone who has gone above and beyond the call of duty. It will ensure others know that you care and that they are important to you.

Tip Nine: Make Work Fun

Ok, so you can't throw a party at work everyday. It is possible, though, to make the work day more fun. Fun can be a tool to help improve job performance and promote positive attitudes in the workplace. It doesn't have to be anything momentous - offering ice cream on a really hot day, a surprise lunch/morning tea, having a silly hat day.

The effective use of humor can release team members creativity to resolve dilemmas because they feel safe to "think outside the box." The appropriate use of humor can create and maintain positive attitudes in the workplace.

The book Fish, A Remarkable Way to Boost Morale is a fabulous little book about how one organization has taken the use of fun to the limit.

Tip Ten: Make Sure People Are Rewarded Fairly

This is deliberately the last tip ... because if you get the rest of these tips right this becomes the least important. Having said that, as you will discover in the "Creating A Motivating Environment Workbook" high wages do not motivate people, but low wages can demotivate. So your job is to make sure that people feel they are fairly rewarded so that it is a non-issue for them ... but most importantly make sure the other success factors are set up in your workplace so that the environment enables positive attitudes to thrive. You can purchase "Creating A Motivating Environment Workbook here" or get it for free as one of your premimum resources if you are a member of the Align-Lead-Inspire Club

Take the Is Your Workplace Motivating? Quiz

These are simple tips to help promote positive attitudes in the workplace. In business, much as it is in life, it is really the small things that make the most dramatic impact.