Wednesday, July 14, 2010

How important is attitude in hiring?

“Your attitude is the only difference between an ordeal and an adventure.”
Adam Byrant interviewed Dan Rosenswig about leadership


One is attitude. Some people spend a lot of time focusing on how difficult things are. You don’t get jobs like these unless the situations are difficult. So I like to hear people talk about how they love to approach a challenge, and that’s the thing that gets them excited.

I’m also looking for people who appreciate the fact that the definition of success is the company and not an individual. I’m looking for people who can communicate. I mean, quite frankly, most of the things that break down when you are running a business are transparency and communication. If you have people who are reluctant to share information with their peers, particularly in a very small company, it’s not a healthy dynamic.

And I look for people who generally, as I said earlier, think big, want to achieve big, aren’t afraid. They have that level of humility to know it’s entirely possible we may not succeed, but, man, it’s worth trying.