How Growth Mindset Transforms Leaders & Produces Effective Teams
Did you know that teams with leaders lacking strategic thinking experience a decline in innovation by 23%?
When measuring team performance, engagement, and commitment to the company goal, leaders define the success of their teams.
However, if your team’s work performance is uninspiring, it could result from undefined standards, unclear objectives, or bleeding morale.
As a leader, adapting to changing circumstances and continually developing your skills is crucial to your team’s performance.
Adopting a growth mindset is about remaining open to learning and improvement, which will, in turn, benefit your team and organization.
You can skyrocket your team's performance by improving your leadership skills and ability to inspire, motivate, and support your team to achieve a shared goal.
Growth Mindset and Why Leaders Should Care
As a company or small team leader, you set the standards of performance, culture, and communication.
And it’s not the team’s fault for not caring about the company mission. The leader’s responsibility is to inspire the team to perform at their best, communicate their needs, or collaborate to improve efficiency.
If you want to revitalize your team, it starts with developing your leadership skills worth following.
Carol Dweck defines a growth mindset as the belief that talents can be developed through hard work, good strategies, and input from others instead of a more fixed mindset or the idea that talents are innate gifts.
When companies embody a growth mindset, their employees feel far more empowered and committed and receive organizational support for collaboration and innovation.
Numerous studies have shown that adopting a growth mindset can significantly impact your team's performance, engagement, and innovation.
The concept isn't about following a trend but adopting a perspective that values learning, development, and adaptation.
So how can you develop your leadership skills and improve your team’s performance?
Analyze Sub-Par Team Performance
Before you can integrate solutions to improve your team’s performance, you must figure out why the performance declined in the first place.
Typically, poor team performance can be isolated to three areas:
Poorly communicated standards and expectations
Ambiguous goals, objectives, and priorities
Lack of accountability systems and poor morale
As a leader, your role is to manage, inspire, and enable your team.
While individuals should be accountable for their tasks, the team's overall performance reflects your leadership ability.
By setting clear expectations, providing necessary resources, and fostering a supportive environment, you enable your team to perform at their best.
Clear Standards and Expectations
As the visionary of your company or team, it is your responsibility to define and communicate the standards and expectations of performance.
Even if your employees know what to do or how to do it, they may not be clear about your expectations or success measures.
Communicating your standards and expectations can be as detailed as having an SOP outline of how to complete a specific project or task.
Or as simple as an answer to the following questions:
What is the expected timeline?
What are the benchmarks of a successfully completed project, and who evaluates it?
What level of autonomy does the team member have, and how often should progress be reported?
For example, you can create a detailed SOP rather than giving your team a vague directive. Your SOP can outline the expected timeline, describe the project features, specify the project design style, and list key performance indicators.
This provides a framework for your team to understand your expectations and how best to meet or exceed them.
There may still be a disconnect even if you believe you are communicating clearly.
It's always worth revisiting your communication style, ensuring your team understands your expectations, goals, and vision.
Remember that communication is not just about speaking; it also involves listening to your team's feedback and ensuring there's a two-way dialogue.
Now that you’ve clearly communicated your standards and expectations, you can define the goals, objectives, and priorities so your team understands how their project aligns with the company mission.
Clear Goals, Objectives, and Priorities
Research shows that most work conflict is a result of misaligned goals.
Communicating team or company goals allows employees to choose their best actions versus reacting out of fear, uncertainty, or frustration.
Goals should clearly define what the team wants to achieve and describe a successful endpoint. This allows employees to understand their roles, responsibilities, and authorities and collectively focus on pursuing the company’s most important goals.
Let’s say your team has fallen short of meeting their targets for two consecutive quarters, and you realize they lack clear objectives.
You can break down the annual goals into achievable monthly targets, communicate the importance of these targets in the company's overall business strategy, and provide guidelines on how to prioritize their projects.
Each team member knows what's expected of them, making it easier to plan their work and contribute effectively to the team's goals.
Clear communication and setting distinct objectives are fundamental to improving your team's performance.
However, to drive progress and innovation, another factor to consider is fostering a culture of accountability and high morale.
Accountability Systems and Morale
Lack of accountability results from an underlying issue, such as unclear roles and responsibilities, limited resources, a poor strategy, or unrealistic goals.
To create an effective high-performance team, there must be mutual accountability and a clear understanding of members' responsibilities to the team and individual obligations.
Let’s say your team struggles with problem-solving efficiently due to a lack of accountability and poor morale due to unclear procedures and limited recognition.
You can implement regular training sessions to improve skills, create a detailed flowchart for handling problems, and establish a system for tracking and rewarding good performance.
By implementing these measures, you clarify what's expected from each team member and create an environment that motivates them to excel.
Incorporating Growth Mindset into Company Culture
Fostering a growth mindset in leadership isn't merely an optional extra - it's a vital component of any successful team or organization.
Leaders who embody a growth mindset can inspire their teams, improve performance, and contribute to a culture of learning and development by setting clear expectations, goals, and standards while fostering a sense of accountability and high morale.
But remember, the process is ongoing - continue learning, adapting, and growing.
As a leader, you are not just responsible for setting the direction; you are also the chief learner, constantly setting an example of adaptability and curiosity.
Don't let your team's potential stagnate due to a lack of strategic leadership. Embrace a growth mindset, clearly communicate your vision, and watch as your team transforms and achieves new levels of innovation and success.
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