AN AMAZINGLY PRACTICAL APPROACH TO PRACTICING A GROWTH MINDSET

Without exception, growth is a lifelong process for all successful leaders.

You may be mature in a few areas of leadership, but we’re all infants in many.

Community:

Growth requires community. We stagnate and die in isolation. Everyone needs seclusion to refresh and reflect. But growth requires connection.

1. Who knowingly participates in your growth?
2. Whose growth are you actively encouraging?
3. Who knows your growth goals? Whose goals do you know?
4. How might you establish and nurture growth-connections between team members?

Confrontation:

Growth is a myth in environments that tolerate deceit, backstabbing, malevolence, and hypocrisy. Leaders who tolerate offenses against community – in the name of delivering results – destroy growth and limit results.

1. Never tolerate a high performer who destroys community.
2. Eliminate hypocrisy by practicing transparency regarding strengths, weaknesses, and development. Teams can’t pull for each other if they don’t know each other’s growth-goals.
3. Remove people who work to undermine others.

Building an environment of growth is one of leadership’s greatest challenges and opportunities.

Learning:

Learn to grow, not to know.

The assimilation of head-knowledge results in arrogance. Practice and application keep us humble.

1. How are you putting new leadership principles into practice?
2. How are you learning from failure?

Motivation:

An environment of growth emerges from seeking the best interest of others.

1. How are you encouraging growth?
2. How are you forgiving failure?
3. How are you providing timely feedback?
4. How are you expressing commitment to each other’s growth?

Purposeful practice:

You don’t get better at playing golf by playing golf. You get better by purposefully practicing various elements of the game.

We don’t grow as leaders by playing at leadership. We grow when we purposefully practice one component of leadership. You might develop your skill at delivering timely feedback, leading meetings, or stretching people, for example.

What kills a growth mindset?

How might leaders practice a growth mindset?

Resource: “Mindset,” by Carol Dweck