How to upgrade to leadership mindset

[inlinetweet]]“Any deep crisis is an opportunity to make your life extraordinary in some way.” – Martha Beck[[/inlinetweet]

In uncertain and challenging situations, change often disrupts expectations of the future and our sense of control. Keeping yourself or your team motivated seems a constant challenge especially in challenging working conditions.

Stressful situations make it difficult for you to prepare and direct yourself and others to perform to full potential both individually and collectively as a team in pursuit of your goals.

As the work places are changing all over the world because of the new normal, as individuals and as leaders, one must demonstrate a spirit of purpose and optimism. This is where mindset plays an important role in how one approaches to influence and lead people through crisis situations.

When it comes to demonstrating leadership at personal or professional level, more than our skills and talents, it is our mindset that guides us.

Leading is all about managing your mindset.

Mindset is the mental attitude or inclination and determines our behaviour, decisions and actions which produce specific results. The mindset you embrace determines how you lead, the ways in which you interpret behaviours, deal with expectations and how you communicate with others in personal or professional situations.

It also determines the way we help people in how they navigate through problems or failures. By adapting a leadership mindset, you can ensure that to the best of your ability and intention, you can impact others in a positive way when they face problems, failure or challenges.

Developing a leadership mindset is crucial as it not only influences how you think and interpret situations but also your emotional reactions, decisions and actions. It sets you up to be empathetic and compassionate during adversity and deal with the challenging situations with transparency and decisiveness.

Also, it helps you to hold space for yourself and your team to lead and grow despite uncertainty and uncomfortableness. To achieve balance between being supportive and encouraging others amid crisis requires leadership mindset to create sustainable behavioural change to move forward.

What is leadership mindset?

Leadership mindset is not born out of behaviours you engage in but it is mostly about how you see and interpret the situations you find yourself in. For instance, How do you deal with disagreements with colleagues when you have to make decision that involves risk -something to avoid or necessary to communicate ? How do you see challenges and failures- as a threat or to learn and grow?Mindset we adopt to acts as the filter and what gets through is what ends up guiding our thinking, learning and perspectives. For instance, two different people might encounter the same situation and process or respond to it differently.

There are different mindsets from which we all tend to operate out of and the mindset we choose, feed and nurture is the one that directs the way we lead, think, learn and act. More positive the mindset, more effective is the way, you can deal with challenging or stressful situations you encounter on a daily basis.

How to develop your leadership mindset?

The radical change of these times demands that one develops leadership mindset to demonstrate a spirit of purpose and optimism to make your teams more productive in times of high stress and changing priorities amidst new normal. Developing leadership mindset begins at the individual level by leading yourself first. Here are some ways to upgrade to leadership mindset .

Have a rational perception of situation

Develop a rational approach towards the situation and how you perceive others to get in touch with their true potential as to set them up for growth and success. At the same time, understand the perceptions of people you lead to engage with compassion during adversity, and meet the moment with enthusiasm, transparency, and decisiveness. Rational perception of a situation puts you into proper perspective of focusing on facts rather than focusing on negative emotions. Hold space for yourself and your team to lead and grow despite the level of uncertainty or risks uncomfortableness. Being supportive encourages them to step up to achieve their objectives.

Ask yourself, What are the perceptions of the people I lead? Would my perceptions give them reason to be optimistic? What changes do I need to make in my perceptions that would make me more empathetic and compassionate? What should I need to start, stop or continue doing to help others to achieve goals?

Challenge your existing mindset

Your present mindset reflects the beliefs you hold right now about yourself and others. Being aware of your thinking, intentions and actions can tell you a lot about your existing mindset. Have an up-to-date view of your current situation and developing scenarios to explore possibilities. Check your assumptions and biases to help yourself and others to learn and adapt to new challenges and outcomes. Avoid seeing things entirely as black and white or right or wrong. Be open to other’s perspectives and focus on facts to get the accurate measure of the problem you or your team is facing. Accept if your thinking needs to adapt to evolving situations and people’s needs by reviewing your expectations, standards or strengths.

Ask yourself, Are my existing mindsets helping me and others?Do I get defensive when someone contradicts or gives me a negative feedback? Do I admit when I don’t know something? Are my beliefs supportive of evolving people’s needs? What’s holding me back in developing a growth mindset? What fixed beliefs do I have about myself? What changes do I need to make to develop leadership mindset?

Adopt a resilient mindset through commitment

When you are stressed, you might develop pessimism bias where we overestimate the likelihood of negative things and underestimate positive thoughts especially in the middle of challenging scenarios or crisis. Adopt to a more resilient self by slowing down your reasoning process, reviewing your past successes and channelling your pessimism as motivation. The amount of unwavering commitment you bring to lead, perform and succeed sends positive message to those with whom you work. To develop leadership mindset is to constantly look to learn, grow and be open to new perspectives in evolving challenging situations.

Ask yourself, How does my attitude encourage and motivate my team or coworkers? Is my attitude worthy of emulating? Is my communication clear and concise? Am I only focusing on negatives? What am I doing on a daily basis that contributes to a resilient mindset? Which mindset helps my inner leader develop?

Be flexible in your mindset

Being attached to your ideas or strategies will only make you resort to blame or excuses in times of challenges or crisis. Instead, when we practice flexibility of mind as part of leadership mindset it becomes easy to make changes at personal level to overcome challenges. When your cherished idea or a project isn’t working, holding on to it only leads to unnecessary changes that make you go off the track. Being flexible with your own ideas you can adjust your attitude towards change and the capability to improve. To make the situation manageable, break the crisis down into workable chunks to find the effective solutions and to solve simpler things one at a time. A day-by-day approach will keep your emotions in check where you can see the situation as opportunity to learn, correct and get better.

Ask yourself, Am I being flexible in my approach towards my goals? Am I setting the realistic expectations amid crisis? Do I see failure as a means of end of as an inevitable part of growing? Am I encouraging growth and seeking the best interest of others? Am I giving and receiving timely feedback?

Prioritise people over self

People with fixed mindset are typically concerned with their reputation for personal greatness and are quick to deliver blame and excuses in times of crisis or change. Fixed mindset often leads to groupthink where leaders are seen as who never err. Thinking that you do not need great teams and not communicating with them sets you up for failure. Treating your team or workers as little helpers to carry out your big ideas can leave them discouraged and disengaged. Instead communicate to foster their development, growth and productivity.

Enable your teams to succeed by embracing trust.When you prioritise people ahead of yourself , they elevate others and foster team well-being. The decisions you make and how you communicate reflects who they are and who they aspire to be. Encourage people to discuss their choices and the feedback they get and work together to improve their decisions to rise up to the challenges. Stating their honest opinions and openly expressing disagreements can make your decision-making a learning process for everyone.

Ask yourself , How is my understanding of those whom I work with? What new resources can be deployed to motivate so that their productivity kept pace?Do I use feedback to alter my strategies m? How do I deal with disagreements? How flexible am I to people’s evolving needs?

Space for self-reflection

Do you maintain a leadership mindset when faced with adversity? Which mindsets aren’t helping you through difficult situations ?

What is your dominant mindset -is it fixed or growth?

How flexible are you in adjusting to people’s needs or expectations in times of crisis?

Do you undermine or appreciate other’s achievements?

Are you willing to take risks or do you hesitate and avoid taking risks because you may fail? How confident are you of your own inner resourcefulness?

Are you open to feedback ? Do you prioritise your team or people you work with and their individual needs?

To conclude,

It is not such a great challenge to lead in normal situations. It is when you are facing uncertainty and unknown that it becomes more important to focus on the way you lead, think and influence those around you. Cultivating a leadership mindset always begins at personal level. It takes effort and practice over time for the leadership mindset to take hold. When it does, it becomes a way of thinking. But to get to this point it takes commitment and willingness to put into practice the above mindsets and behaviours in your everyday life to make productivity sustainable. Cultivate a leadership mindset that encourages reflection, forward-thinking and decisions to build resilience in yourself and in people you lead to overcome obstacles or challenges.