Motivational Management: Inspiring Your People for Maximum Performance

3. Victimized vs. In Charge

This kind of negative talk is about whether we feel victimized or whether we feel in charge of the events in our lives. Psychologists talk about these attitudes in terms of ''locus of control,'' which is a fancy way of saying that, depending on your attitude, you may feel that control over your life is located within your reach or beyond it. When people talk about how bad things happen to them and they can't do anything about it, that negative talk tends to spread the attitude that we are not in charge and are unable to change situations. In the workplace such negative talk encourages employees to feel like things are happening to them and they are just hapless victims. And that is a debilitating attitude that saps ...