When your team encounters challenges, obstacles or criticism, they face a choice about how to react.
At moments like these, they need you to help them adopt a mindset that leads to success.
Stanford University psychologist, Carol Dweck, uses the word “mindset” to describe how people are constantly monitoring and interpreting what’s happening to them, what it means, and what they should do. People can choose to react to challenges or criticism using a “fixed” or a “growth” mindset.
In a fixed mindset, people believe their basic qualities, like their intelligence or talent, are fixed traits. They focus on validating their intelligence and talent instead of developing them because they believe that inherent qualities alone create success—without effort. As a result, the fixed mindset concentrates on judging or being judged. Situations in which their qualities might be assessed as lacking are to be avoided.
In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point. They understand that effort gives meaning to life; effort signifies caring about achievement and a willingness to work for it. Rather than judging, a growth mindset focuses on learning and constructive action to succeed. How can I learn from this? How can I improve? People with a growth mindset pursue mastery, creating motivation and productivity.
When your team faces a choice about how to react to an obstacle, do you want them to focus on learning, growing, and moving the company forward, or to worry about how you are judging them?
Courage, initiative and innovation don’t survive long under a fixed mindset culture. When challenges and criticism confront their teams, growth mindset leaders master the mindset by encouraging experimentation and continuous improvement; they suppress fear and judgement.
What mindset drives your company’s culture?
How can you transform your business to a growth mindset?
