Attitude: A Critical Quality 

Attitude may be one of the most critical traits or qualities for success in the business and professional world, although I did not always believe that.

As a young human resources professional, I ironically developed a negative attitude toward an emphasis on “attitudes.” One of my early tasks was to design performance evaluations for diverse employee groups. I called upon supervisors for input into what performance factors they thought needed to be assessed. Inevitably, every group felt it was important to evaluate their employees’ attitudes about their work.

My problem with this was not seeing how we could possibly measure attitude, since it was not quantifiable. Yet I deferred to the notion that an assessment of attitude had value since I needed the executives and managers to buy into the system I was proposing. What bothered me most about the use of “attitude” as an evaluation criterion was my perception of the supervisors. My own attitude was not right!

Over time I realized an important truth: We each have attitudes about many kinds of things. It is human nature to form opinions, and they influence the ways we think and act. You may even be developing an attitude about this “Monday Manna” discussion or concerned about where it might be heading. We have a right to our own attitudes, but sometimes they can keep us from the truth and hinder relationships with others.

Attitudes can keep us from making valuable paradigm shifts – changes in our thinking – on how we look at life in general and the lives of those we encounter on a daily basis. It can greatly impact our business, marriage, and other personal relationships. I believe we all need to take a hard look at the way we value others and try to understand that our Father in Heaven has made each of us into unique beings for His purpose.

Diversity can be beautiful when seen through God’s eyes, but from our perspective it can appear to be dysfunctional and even irritating. I would suggest the answer lies in striving to develop a “heart attitude” that is pleasing to God.

In the Bible’s Old Testament, King David was described as “a man after God’s own heart” (1 Samuel 13:13-14, Acts 13:22). Do not let your mind and your past experiences get in the way of seeing the beauty in God’s perfect plan for each of His individual creations. Do not fall into the trap of judging others because they don’t fit your perceptions of how you feel they should act. Philippians 2:3-8 speaks directly to this. Here is a portion of it:

“Do nothing from selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider each other better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus who, being in very nature God…made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant…. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself….”

Yes, there are absolute truths, but we are not to be the judge or the jury. That is God’s task and He simply desires for us to love Him with all our heart, mind, soul and strength, and to love others as we love ourselves (Matthew 22:37-39). That is what the Bible describes as having the right attitude!