Leadership and the Growth Mindset

Leaders come from different walks of life. Some rise through the ranks of corporate America. Some start as entrepreneurs, and then some as good followers who become great leaders — in the case of military personnel. But a common trait of great leaders is the ability to develop new leaders within their organizations. Research shows that leaders who manage with a growth mindset are the most effective because they engender trust, inspire confidence and allow the members to rise to challenges.

What is a growth mindset?

The term growth mindset entered modern lexicon when Carol Dweck, a psychology professor at Stanford University conducted research in motivation and human development. She focused on the academic achievements of students, particularly between two areas: those who believed that their intelligence can be improved — and those who believed that intelligence was fixed. She then applied her research to a broader population that includes leaders from various areas of life such as business and the academe. The Japanese culture has a similar word for this, it is called “kaizen” which means continuous change, large or small. This concept has been applied by many organizations and usually results in better product development and greater profits (Dalton, 2017).

The growth mindset principle fosters better learning, and understanding of the world at large and Dweck underscores this: while it is beneficial for someone who is keen on changing one’s approach for self-improvement, one must also be aware of our fixed-mindset tendencies. Ignoring these tendencies may prove counterproductive to a process of improvement (Dweck, 2016). Dweck believes that embarking on a growth mindset journey begins with baseline tendencies for learning. Without acknowledging our fixed-mindset markers, we may not be able to embark on a true path for self-improvement.

Trust and leadership

Simon Sinek, a management theorist, offers us a few examples of how leaders with a growth mindset can engender trust and cooperation even in times of economic turbulence and uncertainty. In his TED talk on leadership, he posits that leaders who make us feel safe draw the best of people in the organization. Sinek sheds light on companies like Southwest Airlines where line employees, those who face customers daily, can make instant decisions on the welfare of passengers without consulting with management. These employees are given opportunities to try and fail without fear or consequence. Their decisions enable them to grow in the organization where a sense of ownership is instilled by growth-minded leadership.

Another example of a growth mindset leadership is Bob Chapman who runs Barry-Wehmiller, a manufacturing firm. Facing mounting losses during the 2008 recession, Chapman was forced into cutbacks to the company’s headcount. While conventional business practice would be to terminate the employment of his staff in the form of layoffs, he instead implemented a system of furloughs that allowed people to take a break in service for up to four weeks and then return to work. The company saved the payroll expense without losing goodwill and the safety and trust of his employees. This is not only forward thinking for an executive but an example of having a growth mindset-based leadership (Sinek, 2014). Furthermore, the company has established the Barry Wehmilller University where employees are educated in human leadership culture.

The empathic leader

Satya Nadella is only the third CEO of Microsoft in its 43 years of existence, taking over from Steve Ballmer in 2014. Prior to Ballmer, Bill Gates ran the technology giant as a visionary leader who willed success through the relentless pursuit of business domination in different segments of the tech industry. Steve Ballmer was an exuberant personality whose business acumen was focused on market share and topline sales figures. Both inspired confidence among the employees by letting them develop products and services that were the best in the business. Nadella, while a more thoughtful and empathic manager does not lack confidence as well. He believes that with a new crop of young Microsoft employees the company is poised to become an emerging force in technology. He inspires confidence by allowing the new technologists to learn and fail at groundbreaking initiatives that will bear great financial results in the future.

Born in Hyderabad, India, his early dreams included being a professional cricket player for India’s national team. With some prodding from his father, however, Nadella pursued an engineering degree which led him to advanced studies in the United States. His career path took him from Sun Microsystems and then to Microsoft where he has spent the last 24 years. Even as a young software developer, Nadella always felt that graduate school fell into his plans. He would commute between Redmond, WA and Chicago to take on part-time coursework towards his MBA. Through sheer persistence, he obtained his degree. Even today, having reached the pinnacle of success and leadership in business, he maintains a need to learn about topics that interest him. He admits to buying more books and enrolling in online courses than he has time for. Nadella believes that he needs to propagate a “learning and living culture” within Microsoft as a competitive advantage. He advises his employees to become lifelong learners as a means of establishing a great company culture. As a young manager climbing the leadership ladder at Microsoft, Satya and his wife welcomed a child into this world. But Zain, as the son was named, was born with an extreme case of cerebral palsy after suffering from asphyxiation in the womb. As a demonstration of his growth mindset, even with personal adversity, Satya and his wife Anu immediately researched about the debilitating condition of cerebral palsy often sacrificing family time together for the sake of their child. A growth mindset is not exclusive to learning for learning’s sake. It affords those who pursue this principle, the inner confidence to adapt to changing conditions — in life and in business (Nadella, 2017). In the case of Satya Nadella, the father, an acceptance of a challenging life caring for a disabled child. And in the case of Satya Nadella the global CEO, espousing a growth mindset allows him to lead Microsoft in new technologies and markets with a clear vision of the company’s future while building its capabilities.

Since Nadella assumed leadership three years ago, the stock price of MSFT has increased 120 percent. 

The rebel with a lot of causes

Sir Richard Branson is a celebrity CEO who espouses a growth mindset with a different perspective — that of rising to challenges in the face of adversity. To begin with, Branson was born with dyslexia, a learning disability that involves difficulty in reading for people with normal intelligence. When he was 19, he avoided paying taxes hoping that he would get away with the youthful indiscretion. He ended up spending one day in jail after getting bailed out by his parents. That experience gave him a unique perspective on the incarcerated population of the world — he believes that some inmates need a second chance at life’s opportunities. He has hired ex-convicts to work at many of the Virgin companies. If there was ever a model of becoming a serial entrepreneur, that is Richard Branson. He started the Virgin empire by selling records at lower than retail prices and signed up controversial talents like the Sex Pistols. The next major foray into the world of global business was Virgin Atlantic which came out of a simple problem. When a flight out of Puerto Rico to the Bahamas was canceled, he canvassed the airport terminal for passengers to share the cost of a chartered aircraft. Thus, the Virgin airline was born. Since then, Branson and Virgin have created companies in the areas of transportation, entertainment, health, and aerospace. In total, the value of the Virgin Group is estimated to be at around ￡8 billion, controlling 400 companies (Branson, 2018).

What makes Sir Richard Branson unique in the world of successful leaders? How does the growth mindset play into his successes as an entrepreneur? He remains inquisitive about the world at large and admits to having a love of learning despite being a dyslexic high school dropout. This drive to learn fuels his constant engagement with his life adventures, extending to his philanthropic and socio-economic causes. Virgin Unite was formed as a foundation to create opportunities for a better world. The causes include oceanic preservation, studies on climate change and human rights.

Branson’s early adventures earned him the tag as a cheerful daredevil — he holds multiple Guinness World Records from transcontinental ballooning to crossing the English Channel on a kiteboard. A self-promoter, his belief that everything in life is an adventure filters through his management style. He is skilled at finding the right people to work with him at all levels, from line crew positions at his transportation companies to C-suite leaders who embody his unique ideas. Developing leaders is an essential product of the growth mindset principle. In some instances, divulging the state of the business and the leader’s strength and weaknesses results in a well-rounded team. According to a case study titled “Transparency and Candor and a Growth Mindset” (Kristjansson, 2016), “building a team on a foundation of transparency and candor begins in the interview process.” 

Conclusion

These are examples of leadership in companies that employ the growth mindset principle. From companies like Barry-Wehmiller, a company that engenders trust, to Microsoft, led by a new kind of leader that inspires confidence yet remaining empathetic to its customers to the Virgin Group that allows its employees to rise to challenges and produce great financial results. Further, successful leaders set themselves up to the highest of standards (Emerson, 2016). The common thread among them is their penchant for employee empowerment, allowing the people in these organizations to fail and learn as they go about their organizational roles. 

----

References

Dalton, C (2017). Growth Mindset Game-Changer. Retrieved 2017 June 24, from https://journal.thriveglobal.com/growth-mindset-game-changer-fbae4142e081

Dweck, C. S. (2016). Mindset: the new psychology of success. New York: Random House.

Emerson, C. (2016). LinkedIn. January 12, 2018. https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/qualityleader-reflected-standards-set-themselves-colin-emerson/

Kristjansson, S. (2016). Growth vs. Fixed Mindset. People & Strategy, 39(4), 29.

Sinek, S. (2014). Leaders eat last: why some teams pull together and others don’t. New York: Penguin Group.                                                                                          

Nadella, S., Shaw, G., & Nichols, J. (2017). Hit Refresh: The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft's Soul and Imagine a Better Future for Everyone. New York, NY: Harper Collins. 

Branson, S. R. (2018). Finding My Virginity: the new autobiography. S.l.: VIRGIN BOOKS.

 Rick Saguin is a digital experience producer in the Seattle area.