Instigating and maintaining a Positive Mental Attitude (PMA) in the workplace IS easy and in these times, when there is a good deal of negative doom and gloom about, it is really important for leaders and managers to concentrate on their own PMA.
The combination of end of financial year truth injections, wintery weather here in the southern parts of our state and working pretty damn hard to get to the middle of the year can take its toll.
So get your PMA on and while you have all those positive vibes happening, this is a great time of year to do something with them.
Here’s our list of things you can do as a leader to promote positive mental attitudes in your workplace:
- Work on your own PMA! Call out your self-talk and address it if it is constantly negative or critical.
- Demonstrate what a positive mental attitude looks like. What actions do you take, what words do you use that provide positive examples?
- Regularly share good news stories with your staff about your business, your products, the services you offer, the wins on the board that your customers achieve..Get it out there, spread the good news and give everyone a confidence boost.
- Make a point of congratulating your staff for all the good things they accomplish. If it’s a project or a sale they’ve been struggling to get over the line, then congratulate them for trying and especially if they do get it over the line. Remember “There is no failure,only feedback”. Positive people look for ways to try again (just look at JK Rowling’s journey to get her Harry Potter books over the line with a publisher).
- Share with your staff your positive vision for the future and how you intend achieving that (your ‘Mission’). Bring staff on-board with your ideas and help them understand the how-to’s, why’s and wherefore’s of your future direction.
- Relax a little, sit and have a coffee with individual team members and have some fun. Use your sense of humour and don’t be afraid to show that you are only human too.
- Have more fun! – consider some team building, training or relationship building events.
- Show you care.
- Ask for feedback.
- Do something with the feedback you receive. Decide what you can do to action it, share the feedback and then share the things you are doing to address the feedback.
There is a lot of negativity reported and finding its way into all of our daily lives but by individually taking action and paying serious attention to our own PMA the negative things start losing their paralysing grip on us.
By the way – here’s a dad joke for you to start your PMA journey…
Did you hear the one about the employee who used to have a job at a calendar factory?
He got the sack because he took a couple of days off!
(Oh well – we didn’t say it was a good dad joke!)
BONUS TIP!!!!! Take a look at the photograph on the Home page of our website and tell us it doesn’t make you smile.