There are many ways you can get ahead at work – presentation, conscientiousness, actually being good at your job… But not many people are aware of just how important office relations are if you hope to be as successful as you can be. This is unfortunate as in fact, a positive attitude in the work place may be one of the surest ways to guarantee success and can help you land a job, secure a place on the team, avoid being asked to leave, be a better leader, sell and persuade clients more convincingly and hopefully put yourself in position for a promotion.

Let’s start at the beginning by explaining how a positive attitude in the workplace can help you to secure a job in the first place. What you need to remember when going for an interview is that your boss and the guy interviewing you are human just like you are. That might seem obvious, but when you’re sitting in an interview room it can be easy to dehumanise them and see them as simply cogs in a faceless organisation. The fact that their human though gives you a big advantage when trying to land a job if you try to put yourself in their position. The thing is, they know that once they’ve hired you they’re going to have to work with you – probably in the same office. That means they’ll have to see you every day and so if they don’t get on with you it’s going to make life unpleasant for them. You could be the best person in the world then, but if you don’t seem like someone that they’d want to work with then they’re hardly going to hire you for the job. Similarly the same goes for the team, and any good manager knows that if some members of the team don’t get on it’ll damage productivity more than anything else possibly could – and potentially end in someone leaving the job (which makes the whole hiring process kind of pointless).

Demonstrating in your interview that you have a positive attitude in the workplace then can greatly improve your chances of getting hired and give you an advantage over better qualified competition. To do this you should slip in stories of how you helped out other members of staff in previous jobs and how you enjoyed the social aspect of the office drinks etc. You should also consider this when you write your CV and try to make yourself into someone that others might want to work with rather than some robot. Do this by carefully filling in your hobbies and interests and be sure to put something that might serve to act as common ground with an employer. Similarly try to make sure you put something social down, for example ’going on holiday with friends’ or ‘playing pool in the local pool club’. Some people also advise you to include a friendly looking photograph which can make you stand out in a pile of otherwise near-identical CVs (though others advise that this looks unprofessional).

Once you’ve got the job though that’s only the beginning and now you need to maintain a positive attitude in the workplace for the rest of your stay in the role (otherwise it’s kind of like… false advertising). Obviously in doing so you will maintain good relations with other members of staff and will be liked by your superiors. If you’re pleasant to work with then it will be you who the boss chooses to take to industry fares and big meetings and you’re bound to get ahead as a result. Whether rightly or wrongly, having a positive attitude in the workplace will also make you a bigger candidate for promotion – though managers are meant to be as objective as possible, no one can truthfully claim that personal preference plays no role in their decisions at all. In other words, if you’re liked then that will most likely be reflected in your salary. It’s not just your relationship with colleagues and your superiors however that will benefit from a positive attitude however, but it’ll also be picked up on by clients and customers. This is obviously important in any business but for you it will be incredibly beneficial financially too if you’re self employed or receive commission. More to the point though, having a positive attitude in the workplace will benefit other people too including those working for the business and the clients relying on your service.

What is meant by a positive attitude in the workplace though? This term covers many different aspects of your outlook and your interpersonal relations. First and foremost you need to demonstrate a passion for what you’re doing. Granted that can be hard if what you’re doing is producing and packaging ink, but it still pays to have a little bit of professional pride and other people will pick up on it. Try to think about the reasons you’re still doing the job and were drawn to it in the first place and focus on those aspects (if you really can’t think of anything good about your position then maybe you need to change…). That doesn’t mean becoming a job’s worth as few things will get you hated quicker, but just take the time and the effort to put real effort and professional pride into your work.

Positive attitude in the workplace also means getting on with other people and not succumbing to the ’office politics’ that plague so many offices. This happens as any group of people in a confined space will naturally compete to get ahead and faction off into smaller like minded groups but unfortunately it can result in some quite bitchy behaviour and certain groups’ or individuals’ feelings can be hurt. The best way to react in these scenarios is to rise above the office gossip and focus on yourself as you will otherwise risk alienating certain groups and people which will limit who you can work with and potentially damage your reputation with the manager (this is particularly true where office gossip is about the manager). Treat all your co-workers equally and inspire trust by not spreading rumours and you will quickly find yourself one of the more popular employees in any business.

Mack LeMouse

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