January 26, 2010
Attitudes that can ruin a team
- An inability to admit any wrongdoing. Have you ever spent time with people who can't admit they're wrong? It's painful. Nobody's perfect, but someone who thinks he is does not make an ideal teammate. His wrong attitude will always create conflict.
- Failing to forgive. It's said that Clara Barton, the founder of modern nursing, was once encouraged to bemoan a cruel act inflicted on her years earlier, but Barton wouldn't take the bait. "Don't you remember the wrong that was done to you?" the friend goaded. "No," answered Barton, "I distinclty remember forgetting that." Holding a grudge is never positive or apppropriate. And whe unforgiveness occurs between teammates, it's certain to hurt the team.
- Petty jealousy. An attitude that really works against people is the desire for equality that feeds jealousy. For some reason the people with this attitude believe that every person deserves equal treatment, regardless of talent, performance, or impact. Yet nothing could be farther from the truth. Each of us is created uniquely and performs differently, and as a result, we should be treated as such.
- The disease of me. In his boo "The Winner Within", highly successful NBA coach Pat Riley writes about the "disease of me." He says of team members who have it, "They develop an overpowering belief in their own importance. Their actions virtually shout the calim, 'I'm the one.'" Riley asserts that the disease always has the same inevitable result: "The Defeat of Us."
- A critical spirit. When someone on the team has a critical spirit, everybody knows it because everyone on the team can do no right.
- A desire to hog all of the credit. Another bad attitude that hurts the team is similar to the "disease of me." But where the person with that disease may simmer in the background and create dissension, the credit hog continually steps into the spotlight to take a bow - whether he has earned it or not. His attitude is opposite that of NBA Hall of Fame center Bill Russell, who said of his time on the court, "The most important measure of how good a game I played was how much better I'd made my teammates play."
This info came from John C. Maxwell's
Attitude 101: What Every Leader Needs to Know.
