3. Your Leadership Mindset
If you find yourself (or others) saying ‘that’s just the way I am’
or ‘it’s just my personality and I can’t change it’ you
(or those others) have what Stanford
University Psychologist Carol Dweck in
her book Mindset calls a
FIXED MINDSET.
Here’s what she says:
4. Your Leadership Mindset
‘A fixed mindset comes from the belief that your qualities
are carved in stone – who you are is who you are, period.
Characteristics such as intelligence, personality, and creativity
are fixed traits, rather than something that can be developed.’
‘You can’t teach an old dog new tricks’ is an expression that
springs to mind, here.
Or ‘I’ve never been any good at……..’ Talk about a self-fulfilling
prophecy!
5. Your Leadership Mindset
What inspiring leaders want to cultivate is what Dweck calls A
‘growth mindset’.
With this mindset you believe that you
can change things through effort,
practice and experience.
6. Your Leadership Mindset
So, yes,
you can have leadership presence;
you can influence your senior team;
you can have a better work-life balance;
you can run effective, engaging and purposeful meetings;
you can deliver great presentations.
You can see where I’m going with this…..
7. Your Leadership Mindset
One of the reasons that traditional training courses don’t
always result in the desired changes is because they
completely ignore mindset.
You’ve probably attended a few courses where you learn
new theories, models, and frameworks – all very interesting
and useful in many ways.
But, be honest, you’ve not really applied them back at work.
8. Your Leadership Mindset
Or you’ve sent your team members on expensive leadership
programmes which they enjoy but (frustratingly) their leadership
capability doesn’t improve one iota.
Or you’ve sent team members on assertiveness training – they learn
a few phrases, they learn about body language, they learn ‘I’m OK,
you’re OK’ but they are no more assertive than they were before.
(Ask them about their beliefs, their drivers, their values, their
biggest fears and you’ll start to get to the mindset behind the
behaviour).
9. Your Leadership Mindset
My favorite example of Focusing on the Wrong Thing is Time
Management training.
Nothing wrong with it, per se.
But I know people who can spout
every theory going about time
management but still choose to let
time manage them. Why?
10. Your Leadership Mindset
Because sometimes it’s easier to spend time doing ‘safe’
things rather than those in the ‘difficult’ box!
(So reading emails is safer than having that difficult
conversation).
I know enough now about mindset to know when I need to
Change mine, get off the fence and stop making excuses.
11. Your Leadership Mindset
And it can be very challenging.
I might procrastinate for a
while. Because sometimes the
fence can be a comfortable
place to be – but it’s
uncomfortable even painful
after a while.
12. Your Leadership Mindset
So here’s how to start cultivating a growth mindset.
Look at one belief you hold about yourself that is not serving you
well. (often starts with I should/I must/I ought…..)
Ask yourself ‘what effort, practice and experience do
I need to change that mindset?’
Because you can teach an old dog new tricks!
And new tricks means more rewards!
13. For more information on how to develop
your Leadership Mindset please contact
pat@lynnscottcoaching.co.uk
