Why Positive Attitude Skills Matter

​A positive attitude is important because it frees your mind to:

• Focus on the current task.
• Be creative.
• Make decisions based on facts rather than feelings.
• See things from different perspectives.
• Be open to change.
• Be receptive to constructive feedback.
• Communicate with others.

A positive environment is much more productive than a negative environment. The team can focus on working towards a common goal without the distractions that occur in a negative environment.

When you have a negative attitude, you:

• Are more likely to complain and gossip.
• Have a level of distrust or lack of confidence between team members.
• Are more defensive and less receptive to change or constructive feedback.
• Tend to be more concerned about yourself than working towards the common goal.

Illinois Essential Employability Skills

Personal Ethic: Positive Attitude

• Cooperates in a pleasant and polite manner with clients, coworkers, and supervisors.
  
• Exhibits flexibility and adaptability.
  
• Takes direction and correction willingly.
  

Foundation Skill Other Examples

Attitude

• Cooperate with others.
  
• Act in a pleasant and polite manner.
• Value how attitude affects performance and group dynamics.

Self-Control

• Be able to suppress your own reaction and remedy difficult individuals or situations with a calm and non-defensive manner.

Supervision

• Require moderate or minimal supervision.
• Take direction willingly.
• Use feedback to improve work performance.

Adaptability/Flexibility

• Embrace new approaches.
  
• Use innovative methods when there are limited resources.
• Be open to change plans, goals, actions, or priorities when situations change.
  

Management Skill Other Examples

Motivating and Inspiring

• Generate enthusiasm.
• Recognize staff contributions and achievements.
• Reward employees for high performance.
• Lead by example.

Scenario Guides

If you’d like to quickly test yourself on these skills, check out our scenario guides. These guides provide you with a few example situations on the first page, as well as space where you can write your solutions. Once you’ve done this, measure your responses against our answers on the second page.

You can find these guides in the “Documents” section of this article.