Last week, we talked about how to seize opportunities and create luck. Here’s a little refresher if you missed that: CLICK HERE.
Today, let’s focus on how to cultivate a growth mindset so you are ready to face any challenges and hurdles in your role as a Middle Manager. With a growth mindset you set yourself up for greater success potential. We all have areas of our respective worlds where we have both a growth and fixed mindset, none of us escape this. The key is to identify when we are ‘stuck’ in a fixed mindset and work to turn that around so that we can benefit from the value of a growth mindset.
Middle Management is a landscape of constant change and challenges. No need to tell you that, right?!? A growth mindset, the belief that abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work, is your armour in the face of adversity. By cultivating a growth mindset, you become resilient.
According to APA (American Psychological Association), “Resilience is the process and outcome of successfully adapting to difficult or challenging life experiences, especially through mental, emotional, and behavioural flexibility and adjustment to external and internal demands.”
Fostering a growth mindset within yourself and your team can contribute significantly to overcoming challenges, adapting to change and driving continuous improvement. Here are practical steps to cultivate a growth mindset:
1. Embrace Challenges as Opportunities
- Mindset Shift: View challenges not as insurmountable obstacles but as opportunities for learning and growth.
- Action Steps: Encourage your team to tackle challenges head-on, emphasising that it’s okay to make mistakes as long as they learn from them.
2. Value Effort over Inherent Talent
- Mindset Shift: Shift the focus from innate abilities to the effort invested in achieving goals.
- Action Steps: Acknowledge and celebrate hard work and dedication, both within yourself and your team. Highlight instances where perseverance led to success.
3. Learn from Criticism
- Mindset Shift: See constructive criticism as valuable feedback for improvement, not as a personal attack.
- Action Steps: Encourage a culture where feedback is constructive and viewed as an essential part of growth. Model receiving and giving feedback with a positive and growth-oriented mindset.
Improve, engage and drive performance through effective and engaging feedback. Successful Feedback will help you navigate the world of feedback, you can check it out here.
4. Celebrate Others’ Success
- Mindset Shift: See others’ success not as a threat but as inspiration and an opportunity to learn.
- Action Steps: When a team member succeeds, celebrate their achievement. Use it as a moment to share insights and lessons learnt. Emphasise that success is not a finite resource.
5. Foster a Love for Learning
- Mindset Shift: Cultivate a passion for learning and improvement in yourself and your team.
- Action Steps: Encourage continuous learning through workshops, training programs, and skill development initiatives. Share articles, books and resources that inspire a love for learning.
Part of being a leader is encouraging your team to work on themselves so they can become confident and effective leaders, irrespective of what role they hold. The CONFIDENCE Program™: Middle Managers Mastermind can help you or your management team amplify their confidence and leadership for greater business success. Explore the program here.
Next week, I’ll share more about success focusing on ‘Building Networks: The Unseen Force Behind Success’
