Episode 221 - The Leader's Mindset - Part One - Introduction

Summary 

We each have mindsets that we bring to our leadership. In this first of a five part series, we introduce The Leader’s Mindset and how it will help you to lead more effectively in all areas of your life. This is part one of a five part series.

 

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 221 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. This week we are commencing a five part series on The Leader’s Mindset.

As we start our series on The Leader’s Mindset, it’s important to step back and remind ourselves about what leadership is and isn’t. Importantly, leadership isn’t a role. Someone doesn’t demonstrate leadership just because they have the title of leader. And people who don’t have a team reporting into them can absolutely demonstrate leadership. I think it’s more helpful to think of leadership as how you approach your work and life. Great leadership is about achieving sustainable results through people and, with a little effort and practice, we can all do that.

There are four domains of leadership: 

1. Behaviour – what we say and do, the actions we take

2. Thoughts – conscious ideas, perspectives and opinions

3. Emotions – physical state reactions and responses

4. Context – the environment in which we are operating

Each of these influences the others. For example, our thoughts shape our behaviour and how we feel. Likewise, how we feel influences our thoughts and behaviour. And our behaviour shapes our thoughts and emotions. All of this happens in a context which can impact our behaviour, thoughts and emotions. 

The Leader’s Mindset focuses primarily on our thoughts - the mindset we bring to our leadership. Some important points about mindset:

• A mindset is how we think about the world in which we live

• Our mindsets influence our feelings and behaviour

• Mindsets change over time based on our experiences and context

• We can change our mindsets through conscious effort and attention

When we think about mindsets, the one that most frequently comes to mind is optimism. We all vary in the amount of optimism we bring to our lives. Optimism is a positive outlook about the future, and expectation that things will generally go our way. With optimism we expand positive events and minimise negative events.

An additional areas of mindset research over the past 30 years has focused on hope. In psychology as defined by Snyder, hope is “the process of thinking about one’s goals along with the motivation to move towards those goals (agency) and the ways to achieve those goals (pathways)”.

We have brought the theories of hope and optimism together to identify four elements of a leader’s mindset - Goal Orientation, Optimistic Outlook, Options Thinking and Drive for Growth.

Goal Orientation is like identifying a destination point on a map. With a Goal Orientation mindset a person is clear about what success looks like in their own terms. They have a clear vision for the future and regularly set goals towards that vision. They know where they’re headed and why that’s important to them. Without a Goal Orientation mindset, a person isn’t clear about their future direction and where they want to head. They become directionless in their lives and therefore may struggle to make progress.

Optimistic Outlook is like the perspective you bring to the journey. A person with an Optimistic Outlook thinks positively about the future, expecting thin