The Bold & Courageous Leader Podcast: Episode 12
Rhonda: Welcome to the Bold & Courageous Leader Podcast from rhondapeterson.com. This is Rhonda Peterson, your Bold & Courageous Leader coach, along with my co-host Andee Marks.
Andee: Mindset is not an uncommon term and most of us probably know what it means. Rhonda, you’re using this word very specifically today. What is mindset in the context of today’s podcast?
Rhonda: Carol Dweck, a psychologist and researcher on achievement and success has found that your mindset, your beliefs about your basic qualities, makes all the difference in your life. There are two mindsets. There’s the fixed mindset, which says that your traits are just givens. You have a certain amount of intelligence and talent that’s unchanging throughout your life. You better excel at whatever you do naturally and you have to constantly prove your abilities. That’s mindset number one.
Mindset number two is the growth mindset. The growth mindset says that your traits and qualities are just the starting point. Through work and dedication, you can develop your traits and qualities to even higher levels. You start out with one level of intelligence, but can develop to even higher levels.
Andee: What does this look like in the marketplace?
Rhonda: If we have a fixed mindset in the marketplace, we have to win. We’re hired for our talent and we must be a start, the one who already knows how to do it all. If you are in a fixed mindset organization, it’s not safe to admit and correct your deficiencies. You have to hide your failures or anytime you might want to say, “I don’t know.” You can’t take a remedial course, because that means you don’t already know it. If you’re in the leadership of an organization, you can’t admit to investors or to others on your team that you’re wrong, because that would be admitting weakness. When you do that, there’s blood in the water and the sharks are going to come get you. You’re going to be destroyed.
It leads to situations like Enron, back in the late 90s. This is a leader perspective that some people are superior and some are inferior. People with fixed mindsets don’t really believe in teams. They just need little helpers to help them carry out their brilliant ideas. The key weapons of a fixed mindset are blame, excuses, and stifling of critics and rivals. The attitudes of the fixed mindset marketplace leader are that they are invulnerable, invincible, and entitled.
Andee: I once worked for someone whose father had told him, “Never let them see your fear.” Consequently, this man was a tyrant. He was congenial and most people liked him and considered him a great leader, but he was a micromanager, none of his employees felt that it was ever safe to fail. We never felt affirmed for just being who we were or for our potential. The only affirmation we got was when we did things the way he thought they should be done. This man was not a leader, he was a boss. He was one who always had to be right, always had to be in control. Because of that, he almost destroyed the organization. I’m not a fan of fixed mindset. Talk to us about the growth mindset.
Rhonda: When you’re in an organization that focuses on the growth mindset, you start with the belief in human potential and development, both for yourself and for others. If this is a Christian organization, or the person who is hiring is a Christian, you would look at this from the standpoint of everyone is created in the image of God. You talk about the journey, you don’t think of people as the royalty in the organization. That journey is inclusive, learning-filled, and rollicking. Personally, I can’t think of a better organization to be part of, than one that is inclusive, learning-filled, and rollicking. That is some place that I’m completely drawn to.
The culture is one of growth and teamwork. The attitudes of the growth mindset marketplace leader are growth, passion, and gratitude towards their workers. They recognize where that success is coming from. It’s not just them, it’s the fact that the sum of the parts is greater than the whole.
Andee: I like that better. I noticed that you didn’t mention weapons for the growth mindset. It’s obvious that none are needed. Collaboration, rather than competition is the name of the game for the leader with a growth mindset. It’s really easy to see why these concepts are critical to good leadership.
Rhonda: That’s true. It matters in so many ways. In order to become the person God created us to be, we have to be willing to be created anew, transformed. Let go of what is to become what God created us that is currently hidden. A person with fixed mind set struggles with this. I’m already all I’ll ever be. If I let go of my current identity, what will I become? I have to protect what I have now. I can’t let you see me struggle.
Andee: This reminds me of what one of my co-workers calls the scarcity mindset, that need to protect what we have. We both can’t win, there’s only so much to go around. This in comparison to the abundance mindset, which indicates that there’s enough for everyone.
Rhonda: Absolutely, and sometimes that means that we have to step out of our comfort zone. As a Bold & Courageous Leader, we are definitely going to have to step out of our comfort zone. We’re not going to do it perfectly the first time, that is not going to happen. We have to learn, and that means we have to struggle in the process. When we trust God and step out anyway into what He’s called us to do, we develop our abilities, our traits, our talents, our qualities and strengths to even higher levels. That means we become more of who he created us. We develop further into our “why” and connect more deeply with others who benefit from the thoughts, abilities, and talents God put in to us. Our masterpiece work that we get to contribute. Not that we have to contribute, but we get to contribute to others.
A growth mindset frees us to become more than we are currently. Our talents and strengths are starting points for what God invites us to become. Practice and learning lead to more fully developed understanding and capability. Then there’s that old nature/nurture discussion that’s been going on for years and year. The growth mindset isn’t nature or nurture, and it’s not genes or the environment, which is the discussion of today. Instead, it’s a both/and. It’s not one or the other, but both together. Gilbert Gottlieb, who’s a neuroscientist, says, “Not only do genes and environment cooperate as we develop, but genes require input from the environment to work properly.”
As I read this quote, what came to mind were two different situations where potentially people could not have the environment and genes working together. For instance, there are examples of orphanages… there are times when we would hear about orphanages in Romania, back in the late 90s, early 2000s, where many children were placed in these orphanages and they were neglected. They suffered from failure to thrive, because they might have had genes that would have supported them becoming what they were created to be, but the environment stripped them of that ability because they didn’t have the nurture in the environment. They had the nature, but the nurture wasn’t there, so it couldn’t work together.
An example that’s in today’s news a lot is, victims of human-trafficking struggle with the rest of development because they don’t have the opportunity for the environmental experiences that would trigger growth in their gene-driven physical and neurological makeup. Because of the fact that they’re being trafficked, they’re not nurtured, they don’t have the environmental support to become who God’s created them.
Andee: Those are helpful illustrations, thank you. How do we benefit from a growth mindset?
Rhonda: A growth mindset allows us the freedom to be wrong and still eventually succeed. Failure is not the end, but the source of new information. Okay, this didn’t work, what can we try now? It also provides the freedom to become. Life experiences shape our identity. Our current identity, our self is not necessarily the one we need to move forward in life. Marshall Goldsmith, who is a very well-known executive coach wrote a book called, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There. He says that we must build on what you have, to add something new, which would be learning, to get to that next level. If you’re somebody who has a fixed mindset, you’re never going to be able to allow yourself to have the space to build on what you have. You really are stuck in a very destructive way, in that fixed mindset.
The growth mindset provides motivation to keep moving forward because you know that there’s the opportunity to become even more. It provides a readiness to grow, it’s the mindset of your true self, the confidence that you can become. There’s a quote from Jack Welch in the book called Mindset that Carol Dweck wrote. I really like this one because actually, I have always thought of Jack Welch as being a really demanding leader, actually would have predicted that he was a fixed mindset person, but it turns out he wasn’t. He was definitely much more of a growth mindset person. This quote from him says, “The courage to be open, to welcome change, and new ideas regardless of their source, that’s what confidence is.”
I have a friend who shared a quote from a sermon she heard recently. This was really very related to what the growth mindset is. It says, “Our imperfections are the cracks that allow God to enter.” With the growth mindset, we can embrace the fact that we have imperfections because those cracks are the places where God can enter in and build us into something more. That’s that transformation opportunity. Also, the growth mindset considers the insights of everyone on the team, and I mean everyone. The CEO, the director, the manager, to the person on the shop floor. Everyone has a stake and they have a voice in the process. Sometimes it’s the person on the shop floor actually doing the work. If you give them the freedom to contribute in a safe environment that can actually shed light on the problems and constraints that need to be overcome in order to move the company forward. With that growth mindset of everybody has something to contribute, your organization can become even more of what it needs to be.
Finally, and very importantly, we turn our team into a place of opportunity, of potential for everyone with a growth mindset. It’s not just about the leader becoming more and more but of everyone on the team becoming. It provides a zest for teaching and learning, and it’s really important that you know that it’s both. It’s not that you’re always teaching and other people are always learning, but that as both the leader and the followers are teaching and learning each other. There’s an openness for giving and receiving feedback and there’s an ability to confront and surmount obstacles together that brings you to new places you could have never reached alone.
Andee: Once again, collaboration versus competition. Collaboration is just a much, much healthier environment and I was thinking about what you said about the zest for teaching and learning. In an organization that values and promotes growth mindset, as somebody is learning something new, they are encouraged to share that information with the rest of the team, so that everybody can own the same knowledge. Everybody grows together, instead of one person holding knowledge that puts them in a position of superiority for lack of a better way of putting it. It ups them a notch over everybody else and begins to create that fixed mindset.
Rhonda: Absolutely, and that is one of the definitions of a fixed mindset is that there are people in the organization who are superior and there are people who are inferior. That’s how the leader views the people in the organization if they are a person of a fixed mindset. They really are not tapping all the resources of the organization if they are looking at things from this standpoint.
Now I have to be honest with you here. As I was looking at this and I’ve been exposed to this concept of the growth mindset versus fixed mindset for probably a couple of years now. There are places in my life where I have recognized, okay, there were a lot of places in my life where I recognized I had a fixed mindset. Generally speaking, most of us are going to find we have maybe a fixed mindset in one part of our life but not in another. You can’t kind of take your life and just throw open the doors, you can’t. It would be difficult to throw open the doors to every area of your life for the growth mindset at one time. Generally, the door is going to come open for the growth mindset in one area first and then it’s going to flow into other areas of your life.
In my coach training I found that I came to much more of a growth mindset in working with others. The ability to have a growth mindset in my family took a little bit longer, because those patterns were very ingrained, obviously. Today, I think my husband would say I have much more of a growth mindset and he’s very grateful for that, but it took a little bit longer to get there. The closer in, the more ingrained the pattern is for you.
Andee: That makes sense. What does this mean for a Bold & Courageous Leader?
Rhonda: As I thought about the growth mindset, it applies to a lot of the different qualities we define for a Bold & Courageous Leader. First of all, our first quality of a Bold & Courageous Leader is that they trust in God. They live in the space of “Do not be afraid, and I’ll go with you wherever you go.” Because of the fact that you’re going not fixed, this is clearly a growth mind perspective.
A Bold & Courageous Leader is self-aware and they understand the intersection of their leadership and their context. Heaven only knows that context is always changing, you have to be able to grow with your context. How do you use your strengths and your abilities in new ways and what new things do you need to incorporate to stay relevant and serve as God calls you?
Most importantly, what is God inviting you into? Where is God calling you to new levels of growth using your behavioral strengths and styles more effectively and overcoming the shadow side of those strengths and style. That is very much a growth mindset because you are continuously having to learn, which comes in later as a Bold & Courageous Leader.
The third point in being a Bold & Courageous leader is understanding followership. They know who they follow and who follows them. In the growth mindset, you think about how do you serve your followers? How can you authentically create a culture of self-examination, which is part of emotional intelligence, and one of open communication and teamwork. Then there’s the fact, of course, that the openness above in self-awareness and giving and receiving feedback is all related to having a growth mindset, because you need to be able to listen to what others are saying and receive what they are saying, and value it and determine how you incorporate that into yourself with that growth mindset.
Finally, the concept of always learning, that’s part of being a Bold & Courageous Leader, is a clear measure of the growth mindset. It’s the journey, not a fixed place. You do not become a Bold & Courageous Leader and stay in that space for the rest of your life. I’m sorry, I don’t know what to tell you. Then the ability to confront and surmount obstacles is also related to the ability to learn new things. It’s the way we effectively confront and surmount those obstacles. Obviously, as a Bold & Courageous Leader, the growth mindset is going to be the way, it’s one of the tools that you have to get you where you need to go.
Andee: Okay Rhonda, how do we go about doing that?
Rhonda: We have to be intentional. We have to make a decision that we’re going to move to a growth mindset, and we have to really want to be in a growth mindset. There are those who feel very comfortable in a fixed mindset and they’re used to it because that’s where they’ve been. You talked about the person that was the boss, who was the tyrant, and that was all he’d ever known because he was taught that by his father. That person is going to probably have a little bit bigger struggle than somebody’s who’s not had that message in their life. To be honest with you, in a lot of ways we’ve all had that message in our life in one way or another. Let me rephrase that. Those of us who are of a certain age, i.e. baby boomers, have had that message in one way or another. This is just what we grew up with. For us, it probably takes a little bit more intentionality than it does for someone who is younger. That doesn’t mean younger people don’t have fixed mindsets. It’s just that there’s more of a tendancy toward it.
You have to be able to make that decision and then give yourself permission to move into the conscious and competent state that we talked about in the conscious competent model, that was back in podcast 09, which we titled “Fear of Failure and Getting Unstuck.” When you’re done listening to this podcast, you might want to go listen to that one and kind of have a way of looking at this. When you move into this growth mindset, you’ll find that the meaning of effort and difficulty is transformed. Before, effort and difficulty could make you feel dumb and it made you feel like giving up.
After moving into the growth mindset and giving yourself permission to be in a place where you need to learn, effort and difficulyy are translated into the place where neurons are making new connections. That means you’re getting smarter. Who doesn’t want to get smarter? Of course somebody who thinks that they’re already as smart as they’re ever going to be doesn’t understand that, but if you step back and you say what is possible if I can learn more about this? You can really have a lot of freedom in the growth mindset. You recognize then that your abilities are capable of incredible growth. One of the ways you can do that, is by having a coach to walk along side you. As a leadership and executive coach, I’d be more than happy to make that journey with you.
Andee: Rhonda, how can we get in touch with you if we would like to enlist your services?
Rhonda: You could find me by going to the show notes and I’ll put contact information there or you can email me at rhonda@rhondapeterson.com. I’d be happy to have a conversation with you and see how we can work together, for you to move further into your growth mindset.
To find out more about today’s topic, get downloads of our previous podcasts or to learn how you too can become a Bold & Courageous leader, visit rhondapeterson.com. Our ever-growing community is waiting for you. If you liked today’s show, there are three things you can do. You can subscribe to the podcasts on iTunes or Stitcher. You can give us a rating or a review on iTunes. The subscriptions and ratings help others to find us more easily. And you can help us get the word out by sharing the podcast with your friends. This is Rhonda Peterson, your Bold & Courageous Leader Coach. Thank you for listening. We’ll see you for the next Bold & Courageous Leader Podcast.
