How to Utilize Pessimistic Attitude at Work

Pessimism is one of the most avoided behaviors in social environments. In the world of psychology, pessimism is defined as a person's attitude when they expect unfavorable results when facing events whose emotional impact is unknown. In short, pessimistic individuals will tend to see the positive side of everything.

The presence of pessimism in the workplace is certainly considered a negative thing because it can affect the company's work rhythm in general. Like an infectious disease, pessimism passes from one employee to another. The negative effects of this pessimism are felt when employee productivity in the workplace begins to decline.

Apart from that, this pessimism targets the mood or mood of the employees. If one of the employees in a room starts to appear to be in a bad mood, this can change and cause all the employees in that room to change too. Changes in employee mood in an unfavorable context can cause:

• Worsening communication patterns
• The emergence of stress
• Tendency to complain and be irritable
• Losing patience and also being careless.

Many company leaders believe that this pessimistic attitude will create a bad work climate and result in unhealthy company conditions. This is caused by low motivation, poor work ethics, and a distracted mind and loss of focus. The final impact is that productivity in the workplace will decrease and employees will be distracted from the main targets that should be achieved together.

Positive Benefits of a Pessimistic Attitude at Work

Based on the explanation above, it can be seen that a pessimistic attitude in the work environment only has a negative effect on productivity. It turns out, there is a surprising fact that a certain level of pessimistic attitude can be interpreted as a positive thing! Why is that? Let's look at the following explanation!

Avoid unrealistic expectations

There are often many demands to always show an optimistic attitude when doing something. This optimistic attitude makes people hope to achieve success, such as achieving targets, getting awards, or gaining recognition from other people. Then, what if the target is not achieved? Will you be disappointed, discouraged, or even just give up?

Therefore, a little pessimism will help prepare if the worst scenario occurs. Having a sense of pessimism allows you to prepare yourself if the efforts you make do not get the expected results. This will also make you mentally more prepared and braver to face failure.

Evaluate your strategy

When you are not completely sure that you will achieve your target or be successful, you will definitely think about how to get around this. You will be able to analyze what might make the plan not work well. Then, readjust your strategy to reduce the possibility of failure.

So, being pessimistic doesn't always mean you have the mentality to lose. However, be aware of your weaknesses so you can prepare a better strategy to achieve the expected results.

These are the positive things you can get from being pessimistic. Of course, this needs to be accompanied by the ability to regulate your level of optimism and pessimism to a reasonable level.

Apart from attitudes that may appear as something that arises as a personal response, organizations and companies can pay attention to assessing motivation fit and value fit to get a comprehensive view of employees.

prasmul-eli Public Assessment Center Programs provide solutions for organizations in identifying and developing talent to support organizational effectiveness. Through this program, participants will be trained to behave appropriately to create a successful company strategy.