Leading with a growth mindset
Having a growth mindset is critical for modern leaders. The work of Stanford professor Carol Dweck on developing growth mindsets has helped individual leaders and organisations build a corporate culture around the key principles.
Leaders who believe their talents can be continually improved, whether through hard work, feedback or personal development, have a growth mindset. These leaders put more effort into learning and understanding than needing to have all the answers. They know intelligence can be developed. Leaders with a growth mindset embrace challenges and persist, even when things get tough and see feedback as a chance to learn and understand every failure is an opportunity to grow.
Leaders with a fixed mindset believe their talents are innate gifts, carved in stone. If you have a fixed mindset, you feel a need to constantly prove how intelligent you are as well as the kind of person you are and the moral character you have. It is challenging for someone with a fixed mindset to be seen as a learner; they will often ignore negative constructive feedback. A leader with a fixed mindset will see others’ success as a threat and will most likely give up early, at the first sight of a challenge.
We are all a mixture of fixed and growth mindsets, and the mix continually evolves as we gain experience as leaders.
If you are a leader who has developed your capabilities and mastery of the task at hand, and if you believe yourself to be capable and have a growth mindset, you will be confident to develop leaders of your own. When we realise our capabilities and project confidence in what we do, the people we lead will notice and be encouraged to do the same in their roles.
Is there someone you can help develop a growth mindset this week?