Growth Mindset | Emerging Leader Program 2025 | Session 3

Leading with a Growth Mindset

• The program is for Emerging Leaders in 2025, Session 3
• Today's agenda includes defining a growth mindset, debunking misconceptions, exploring benefits & strategies for fostering a growth mindset, and closing with tools and resources.
• The workshop aims to understand expectations for the session.

What is a Growth Mindset?

• Individuals who believe their talents can be developed through hard work, strategies, and input from others have a growth mindset.
• They tend to achieve more than those with a fixed mindset, who believe their talents are innate gifts.

Contrast with Fixed Mindset

• A fixed mindset believes that intelligence and talents are static and cannot be improved.
• Individuals with a fixed mindset tend to avoid challenges, give up easily, and view effort as a weakness.

Debunking Common Misconceptions

• People often confuse a growth mindset with being flexible, open-minded, or having a positive outlook.
• A growth mindset is not just praising or rewarding effort, rather outcomes matter.
• Merely stating 'growth mindset' isn't enough, meaningful policies like encouraging risk-taking, rewarding lessons learned, and supporting collaboration are critical.

Expectations for Today's Workshop

• Be present
• Participate and share your perspective

The Reality of Growth Mindset

• Everyone is a mixture of fixed and growth mindsets that evolves over time.

The Reality of Growth Mindset - How to work with the mixture

• To benefit from a growth mindset, acknowledge the presence of both fixed and growth traits within individuals.

Overcoming Fixed Mindset Triggers

• When faced with challenges, criticism, or comparisons, a person may become defensive, adopting a fixed mindset response.

Continuous Development

• Developing a growth mindset is an ongoing process, a dynamic state, and not a static one.

Growth Mindset is About Praising Effort

• Praising effort alone is insufficient for developing a growth mindset.
• Unproductive effort shouldn't be rewarded. In organizations, outcomes matter. 

Adopting a Growth Mindset is Challenging

• Facing challenges
• Receiving criticism
• Fixed-mindset work environment

Practicing a Growth Mindset

• Identify fixed mindset triggers
• Recognize fixed mindset persona
• Challenge fixed mindset thoughts
• Embrace the growth process

Defining Growth Mindset

• Intelligence and talents are not fixed; they can be developed continuously.
• Effort, strategy, and input from others are critical for continuous improvement.
• Growth mindset embraces challenges and setbacks as opportunities for learning and growth.

Benefits of a Growth Mindset

• Embrace Challenges, viewing them as opportunities for learning & improvement, rather than threats to self-esteem.
• View effort as the path to mastery, understanding hard work & persistence are essential for developing abilities and achieving goals.
• Learn from feedback, viewing it as valuable information to help grow and improve.
• Achieve outstanding results, embracing challenges, putting in effort, learning from feedback, leading to exceptional outcomes and reaching new levels of success.

Core Principles of a Growth Mindset

• Embracing challenges as opportunities for growth and learning, rather than avoiding them
• Persisting in the face of setbacks, maintaining determination and resilience to use obstacles as stepping stones to success
• Learning from feedback, actively seeking and embracing candid feedback to identify areas of personal development.
• Seeing effort as the path to mastery, believing dedication and consistent effort improve skills and abilities, rather than relying solely on natural talent.

Mindset & Leadership

• Cultivate a Growth Mindset: Leaders foster a growth mindset in teams to influence performance and development.
• Embrace Challenges: Encourage team members to view challenges as opportunities, not risks.
• Provide Consistent Feedback: Give focused feedback on both process and effort to support team skill improvement.
• Celebrate Effort and Progress: Acknowledge and reward hard work and small victories to boost team commitment to growth.
• Model a Growth Mindset: Demonstrate a willingness to take risks, learn from mistakes, and strive for continual improvements to inspire the team to do the same. 

Microsoft: Growth Mindset for New Leaders

• Microsoft actively fosters a growth mindset where talents are developed.
• High-risk, high-learning projects encourage taking risks and embracing the learning process.
• Talented staff is identified via Microsoft's annual Talent Talks program, offering chances for development and promotion.

Strategies for Fostering a Growth Mindset

• Praise effort and process, not just outcomes.
• Provide opportunities for learning and growth.
• Encourage a culture of feedback and collaboration.
• Model a growth mindset.

Developing a Growth Mindset

• Embrace challenges as opportunities to learn and improve.
• Persist through setbacks, learn from mistakes, and move forward.
• Learn from feedback, actively seeking constructive feedback and areas for development.
• Find inspiration in others, observing and learning from those with growth mindsets.

Modeling a Growth Mindset

• Seek Feedback
• Embrace Challenges
• Persevere Through Setbacks
• Continuously Learn & Grow

Fostering a Collaborative Culture

• Encourage Open Communication
• Celebrate Failures as Learning Opportunities
• Promote Knowledge Sharing
• Foster a Psychologically Safe Environment

Things to Remember

• No specific information provided in this section.

Tools & Resources Board

• A QR code was presented indicating the accessibility of related tools and resources.