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Anyone who has ever had a 2-year-old fully understands the terrible twos and the attitude a 2-year-old can give you. While that person might be pint-sized, his attitude during the terrible twos can be over ten feet tall and bulletproof.
Now, not all attitudes are as intense as our little 2-year-old, but they are indeed present in every person, and they are part of who we are. Our attitudes are shaped by our experiences, and as we experience more, our attitudes can change. You see, attitudes are a way of thinking, and they shape how we relate to the world both in work and outside of work. Taking this a step further, attitudes have several different components, and those are cognitive, affective and behavioral.
Before we can discuss how attitudes impact the workplace, we need to understand the components of attitudes. Those components are:
Each one of these components is very different from the other, and they can build upon one another to form our attitudes and, therefore, affect how we relate to the world. For example, we can believe teenagers are lazy (cognitive), we do not have to hate the teenagers for being lazy (affective), but we could still try to keep them out of the library because of that fact (conative). Or, we could indeed believe they are all lazy (cognitive), hate them for it (affective) and that would drive our behavior towards them (conative).
Taking this a step further, we can assemble some ideas of how these three components can impact the workplace. The challenge in the workplace is that now these components are tied to work functions, policy, procedures and organizational structure, as well as the people and individuals present in the organization.
For example, we could have thoughts or beliefs (cognitive) about managers in general, and those thoughts or beliefs could manifest themselves in not trusting a manager (affective), and thus we would never want to develop a close relationship with a manager (conative).
It is important to make the point here that these are attitudes - and yes, they can be wrong. Just because we have an attitude (remember our 2-year-old), that does not mean it is correct. It is just how we feel about a person or situation. The problem, though, is if employees let attitudes like this direct their personality at work, it can indeed stunt their ability to grow in an organization.
Obviously not every manager is trustworthy, but if we let our negative attitudes dictate how we view and react to managers, we will never be able to see if some are indeed good people and can be trusted. Certainly having a good relationship based on trust with your manager is a great thing to have in the workplace.
So, it is good to have attitudes in the workplace, as long as they are used with caution. Use them to help guide you with your first steps in a situation, but do not let them blind you or keep you from seeing a potentially different side of the person or situation. This goes for both good and bad attitudes.
Attitudes are present in all of us. They are a part of who we are and they help us to deal with situations that arise both personally and professionally. Once again, attitudes are a way of thinking, and they shape how we relate to the world both in work and outside of work. They have several different components:
Each can build upon the other to form and shape an attitude, or they can reside by themselves. For example, we can have a thought or belief on spinach, but we are probably not going to have strong beliefs of love or hate for it, and almost certainly, it will not impact our behavior. However, we can have thoughts or beliefs about doing a certain aspect of a job that we do not like, and those thoughts can cover the entire spectrum of cognitive, affective and conative. It all depends on how strong our attitude is towards the issue at hand.
This lesson will teach you how to:
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Business 107: Organizational Behavior22 chapters | 142 lessons | 13 flashcard sets
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