Bad attitudes are a choice. However, they are a choice made by one person, that can affect an entire company. As a coach, you should always be coaching to positive attitudes, regardless if bad attitudes are present in your employees or not. Coaching employees to have positive attitudes can help prevent bad attitudes in the future. 

Here are some tips to coaching to positive attitudes:

1) Read articles

Have employees read an article, then write down or discuss what they learned, and ways to improve attitude.

2) Observation

Have an employee observe another employee who exhibits the desired attitude and have them write down what they noticed that person does to maintain a great attitude and how they can apply that to them self. 

3) Reward and Recognize 

Make sure to recognize and reward when an employee is exhibiting a desired attitude. This not only commends the employee for being exemplary, but it also sets an example for other employees. 

4) Performance Strengths

Focus on an employee's performance strengths and really leverage those to ensure a "mental door" is open to the area of improvement. Build good will by acknowledging the good things. If you only heard negative or constructive feedback, ask yourself how long would you be open to feedback?

5) Ask Questions

Rating questions and third party questions work really well when coaching attitude. For example, " On a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being really positive and 1 being not very positive at all, how would someone describe your attitude toward this situation"? This would be a good rating question to help an employee review their own attitude and recognize what they need to do to improve it. 

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