So, I’m doing the obligatory morning drive today, taking my son to school and whatnot. Naturally, I have the iPod going. On comes a song that I haven’t intentionally listened to in years. It’s from a Carly Simon best-of collection. It’s a fun, funky, silly song, as some of hers were. Now, this might seem like a strange beginning to a post about work and leadership, but bear with me… Anyway, some of you may know this song. Some may have danced to it in some club while wearing bell-bottoms. The song is called “Attitude Dancing,” and today it took on a whole new meaning for me, much different than the one it held thirty five years ago when my sister and I were dancing to it on the high-low pile, multi-earth tone shag carpeting in the living room. Hey, I was a child of the 70’s!

I’ll share bits of the lyrics with you….

“…cop a different pose, from the pose your in…shine a different attitude from underneath your skin…” Carly goes into the chorus repeating over and over again, “Attitude dancin…” while the background singers say, “…don’t be afraid to change your attitude…don’t be afraid of a new attitude…free up your spirit with a new attitude…” It picks up again with “It don’t really matter what steps you choose to do. There’s only one thing matters, and that’s your attitude, your attitude, your attitude…attitude dancin’…” The last verse says, “If you’re at a loss, just observe some natural dude…and turn into a mirror of his attitude…”

A song about dancing, you say. Au contraire! There’s a message here about authenticity. About taking responsibility for what you project. About realizing that who and what you are on the inside dictates the “steps you choose to do.” It’s not the steps themselves that you need to think about. It’s being intentional about your “attitude,” about the things that matter to you that you need to consider. Those things determine the steps you take and the moves you make from the inside out. And if you’re “at a loss,” find something or someone you admire to emulate until the steps become second nature to you…until they take on your own signature style. That’s when your work doesn’t feel like work. It’s simply part of your life, part of the mission you are on, another segment of the bigger picture of you as a whole and what you can bring to the world. Dance like that and you’ll never dance alone…