In today’s world, everything is changing at a tremendous speed. Standard management tools have ceased to yield the desired results. Therefore, there was a need for leadership principles that work in uncertain conditions. Learning from the past, future leaders need to see more than others to be successful. And they should be as flexible as possible. And that means changing, revising the situation, and changing again.
A person with growth mindset focuses on transformation over simply accumulating knowledge.
vishen lakhiani
What is Growth Mindset?
The concept of a “growth mindset,” was studied and introduced in psychology by Dr. Carol Dweck, a psychologist and professor at Stanford University. She emphasizes the belief that intelligence and abilities can be developed through dedication, effort, and learning. Individuals with a growth mindset embrace challenges, persist in the face of setbacks, and see failures as opportunities for growth. They view feedback as constructive rather than discouraging and are inspired by the success of others.
In contrast, a “fixed mindset” assumes that intelligence and talents are innate traits that cannot be changed. Dr. Dweck’s research has shown that cultivating a growth mindset leads to greater resilience, motivation, and ultimately, achievement.
Importance of Growth Mindset for Future Leaders
One of the first and most important changes on the path to true leadership is the transition from artist to performer. You can be a successful person but not a successful leader. The orchestra is not subordinate to the soloist. Only the conductor works to ensure that everyone in the orchestra plays his part as best as possible. Accordingly, the leader should focus on how to help each member of his team. This focus of the leader energizes all team members, and this, in turn, energizes the leader.
Careful Selection of a Path
Leaders, by nature, are action-oriented. It is in their DNA to want to move quickly and decisively. Their natural inclination is to run ahead quickly and climb to the top as high as possible. But to be a true leader, you need to go along with your team. The leader makes a conscious decision to slow down and carefully chooses a path to help the team move with him.
At the same time, leadership, unlike management, is characterized by dynamism, which means that you must be:
- In front of your people, but not too far away to see them;
- Next to your people to hear them and talk to them about your path;
- Behind your people, encouraging them to move forward.
Recognize the need of people
- Often aspiring leaders believe that they are the key to the success of their subordinates. But when they begin to focus on helping others, they realize how much they themselves need their people. A team can succeed only if its members work together and help each other.
- By realizing this, leaders create an atmosphere in which people work together, enhancing each other’s strengths and compensating for weaknesses. She encourages people to make each other better. People are happy to work there.
Enhance the potential of team members
In a reliable and confident leader, people clearly show their abilities. Such leaders do everything to ensure that subordinates are in a winning position. They look every day for an opportunity to let people grow.
To do this, there are simple but requiring constancy and purposefulness ways:
- See opportunities in all people;
- honor them in front of others;
- Help people achieve the organization’s vision;
- Pay attention to what was done well and praise people;
- Give thanks so they know they are appreciated.
Change of Focus
Good leaders shift the focus from themselves to their people. To do this, you need to perform five steps:
- Focus daily on increasing the value of others.
- Add value to people as much and as often as possible.
- Add value at the earliest opportunity.
- Giving without expectation of return so that motives remain disinterested.
- Rejoice in every return as an unexpected blessing.
External to Internal growth
- It is important to find intrinsic motivation to change the approach to personal development. Achieving digitized goals at some point ceases to motivate and bring satisfaction. At the same time, internal growth yields its results in the form of external achievements.
- It is important to determine in which main areas you want to develop first of all because it is impossible to grow in all directions at once.
Embrace the Spirit of Learning
Development begins with the desire to learn every day and thinking about how to apply what you have learned. Make development should be the priority of a future leader. A day can be considered good only if there is development in it. A leader should look for opportunities to learn in every situation.
Seven Drivers of Change for a Leader
- Constantly learn, unlearn and relearn. The leaders of the upcoming time have to be willing to discard the methods that worked yesterday and learn new ways to see, act, and lead.
- Appreciate the past but live in the present. Yesterday’s victories do not guarantee success today. Appreciating the past is important and necessary, but the present moment may require very different actions from us in order to succeed.
- Be fast, but be able to wait for the moment. The ability to choose the right moment for action is a critical quality of a leader. To do this, as a future leader, you need to be able to see and understand all the details of the situation around you.
- See the big picture, constantly expanding it. Each time we learn something new and combine it with what we already know about the topic, the knowledge becomes deeper; we begin to see the big picture.
- Live in the present, but think about tomorrow. Leaders, by nature, are action-oriented. But how long they will be successful depends on their way of thinking and vision of the future. What we focus on comes into our life. Mindfulness allows us to get the resources and people we need in the future.
- Boldly move towards uncertainty. Life provides opportunities depending on our courage. Fear in leadership is usually associated with uncertainty about the future. But this uncertainty will never disappear. It is because of this uncertainty that there will always be a need for leaders who can cast aside fear and step into the unknown.
- Realize that the methods that are successful today will not help you cope with tomorrow’s challenges. The goal is to feel satisfied at the end of each day with the fact that you did the maximum today. But the morning of each day must begin with dissatisfaction in order to make everything even better.
If a leader wants to move through change more easily, he needs to learn new things, does things differently, find better options, sees the bigger picture, and follow leadership principles. Everything can improve, and everything can be improved; there are opportunities for this every day. Our future leaders need to develop enthusiasm. Creativity takes time, perseverance, trial and error, imagination, questioning, and change. All these things require a lot of energy, which can only be obtained by working passionately.
