Importance of Positive attitutes as Medical Laboratory technologists

Attitudes

Mrs. Thamara Dayani, Tutor –Microbiology, National Institute of Health Sciences, Kalutara

What is an attitude?

Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference. Attitude is the way you look at things mentally. For an example, a health care worker may not have bothered to check whether vaccine has been kept at right temperature. In this case, it is assumed that health care worker knows what should be done and has the necessary skill to do it, but he has not used his knowledge and skills. This is seen as an evidence of an unsatisfactory attitude. This example shows the link between attitude and behavior. In fact attitudes are perhaps best thought of as the driving forces which determine how people tend to behave or perform. So attitude can be defined as, feeling that motivate a person to perform a task.

What are the factors effecting development of attitudes?

There are some factors that influence the attitudes,

·        Hereditary

·        Environments

·        Culture

·        Religion 

·        Biasness of supervisor

·       Interpersonal skills and knowledge

What are the types of attitudes?

Attitudes are divided in to three categories; positive, negative and neutral. Positive attitudes help to cope more easily with the daily affairs of life. Positive thinking extends and expands to positive attitudes which include positive thoughts, positive words and positive actions. If you are mainly negative, you will be mainly focus on bad things, sad thought and finally it will lead to unsuccessful out comes.

Benefits of having positive attitudes

• Better for your mental health because you are better able to cope with stressful situations at work
• Ability to inspire and motivate self and others.
• Ability to turn every challenge into an opportunity, or make less than ideal situations into better ones.
• Seen as role models and garner more respect.
• Other employees around you will also adopt a positive work attitude making it easier for everyone to get along in the workplace.
• Help achieving goals and attaining success
• Fewer difficulties encountered along the way   
• You expect positive outcomes and results, and you usually get them, resulting in more success at work.
• Ability to stick to activities and see them through.
• Stronger immune system

How to cultivate positive attitudes?

There are 12 words to inspire you to develop your positive attitudes. They are act, appreciate, begin, believe, connect, forgive, learn, read, review, trust, give, and hope.  Some measures to be taken to cultivate positive attitudes are listed below

• Take responsibility for your own life.
• Prepare for the day’s activity at a reasonable pace.
• Think about all the positive things you expect to accomplish during the day and always expect the best.
• Smile and laugh often – it’s powerful and relaxes the whole body.
• Develop a habit of using only positive language.
• Surround yourself with positive people.
• Perform your work with passion and enthusiasm.
• Always give thanks, acknowledge a job well done, and celebrate successes, even the small ones.
• Look for the good in every bad/challenging situation.

Can you teach attitudes to your staff members?

There are no guaranteed methods of teaching attitudes. There are five general methods suggested   to teach attitudes. They are providing information, providing examples or models, providing experience, providing discussion.

Providing information is not always enough to change people’s attitudes but it may help. For an example, the relationship between smoking and the risk of cancers and heart disease is well known by many people. For some people, this information has been enough to persuade them to change their attitudes.

Providing models is a very effective method to shape others attitude. As senior personals in the laboratory, you may help others to shape their attitudes. Easy way of doing this is that you always set a good example for your staff. Therefore your staff also may behave in the same manner.

Providing experiences is also an effective method. As senior personals you can share your experiences and inspire your staff to cultivate positive attitudes.

 

As senior medical Laboratory Technologists, do you wish to measure your attitude your selves?

If so, read the statements cycle the number where you feel you belong.

                                                                                                Agree                          Disagree

I seek responsibility                                                               5          4          3          2          1

Becoming a respected supervisor is important to me                       5          4          3          2            1

I enjoy helping others do a good job                                      5          4          3          2          1

I want to know about human behavior                                   5          4          3          2          1

I want to climb the management ladder                                5          4          3          2          1

I am anxious to learn and master supervisory skills             5          4          3          2          1

I like leadership situations                                                     5          4          3          2          1

Problems in working station would be an interesting                       5          4          3          2            1         

challenge

I intend to devote time to learn motivational skill                5          4          3          2          1           

I am excited about the opportunity to become a supervisor 5          4          3          2          1

If you scored above 40, you have an excellent attitude toward becoming a supervisor. If you rated yourself between 25- 40, it would appear you have a few reservation. A rating under 25 indicates you probably should not pursue becoming a supervisor.