How do you promote a growth mindset and a continuous learning culture in your team and yourself?
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— The LinkedIn Team
A growth mindset is the belief that you can develop your abilities through effort, feedback, and learning. A continuous learning culture is the environment that supports and encourages this mindset in yourself and your team. These are essential for effective leadership, as they enable you to adapt to changing situations, overcome challenges, and achieve your goals. In this article, you will learn how to promote a growth mindset and a continuous learning culture in your team and yourself.
Set clear and challenging goals
One way to foster a growth mindset and a continuous learning culture is to set clear and challenging goals for yourself and your team. Goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) can help you focus your efforts, track your progress, and celebrate your achievements. Goals that are challenging but not impossible can motivate you to stretch your skills, seek feedback, and learn from mistakes. By setting and sharing your goals, you can also inspire your team to do the same and support each other along the way.
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Demonstrating your own goals and the plan to accomplish them, along with encouraging your team to do the same, creates an environment where it’s more than ok to have goals. Lead by example. Encourage your people to set smart goals and, just as importantly, the plan to accomplish the goals. Ask open-ended questions to help them plan their success.
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An often overlooked yet highly effective approach to fostering a growth mindset is the celebration of effort, not just outcomes. While setting clear and challenging goals is essential, acknowledging the process and effort it takes to reach those goals is equally important. This can be as simple as praising the hard work, creativity, or resilience a team member demonstrated in a project, regardless of the outcome. This practice encourages a focus on learning and growth rather than fearing failure. By recognizing effort, we create a safe space for taking risks, which ultimately leads to innovation and continuous improvement. This culture, where effort is celebrated, will naturally instill a growth mindset in the team.
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Embrace feedback and learning opportunities
Another way to promote a growth mindset and a continuous learning culture is to embrace feedback and learning opportunities. Feedback is a valuable source of information that can help you improve your performance, identify your strengths and weaknesses, and adjust your strategies. Learning opportunities are any situations that can help you acquire new knowledge, skills, or perspectives, such as training courses, mentoring programs, or online resources. By seeking and giving feedback regularly, and by taking advantage of learning opportunities, you can demonstrate your commitment to growth and encourage your team to follow your example.
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One of the most overlooked learning opportunities is a psychometric self assessment profile tool. Learning to expand your self awareness is critical to developing a growth mindset. The more we learn about our individual thinking and behavioral attributes the better equipped we are to be an effective member of a team. Self awareness is an area most conversations omit when we talk about feedback in the workplace. Knowing yourself, your strengths and your triggers, sets you up for a successful personal growth journey. Without expanding your self awareness first, you’re walking blind into every situation.
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Giving good feedback is a fine art. It takes practice, and is at first a bit awkward to do. To give good feedback you need to be timely with it. Positive or negative feedback is best given as close to the action as possible. Good feedback is genuine, and unforced. Don’t give fake praise, and never give unwarranted negative feedback. Structure feedback to be specific and actionable. “Your presentation didn’t explain enough.” is bad feedback. “Your presentation sometimes lacked details. For example you didn’t explain X in enough depth and it left people with unanswered questions. Next time consider your audience and their needs and seek some feedback in advance. Im always happy to help if you’d like me to.” Is much better.
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Celebrate effort and progress
A third way to promote a growth mindset and a continuous learning culture is to celebrate effort and progress. Effort and progress are indicators of learning and improvement, and they deserve recognition and appreciation. By celebrating effort and progress, you can reinforce the idea that success is not a fixed trait, but a result of hard work, perseverance, and learning. You can also create a positive and supportive atmosphere in your team, where everyone feels valued and motivated to keep growing.
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Reward effort, not just results. Celebrate small victories and incremental improvements. Remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day. It’s about appreciating the journey as much as the destination and realizing that every step forward, no matter how small, is progress.
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In the real world, rewards and recognition are the primary drivers of success and deadline adherence. But how can you inspire yourself? My opinion is that your primary drive comes from acknowledging your good work, impressive growth, and achieved goals. Any new stride you take or progress you make in your job should be celebrated since it gives you energy for future challenges. This also offers you more energy, which makes it easier for you to tackle challenging circumstances optimistically and pushes you to your boundaries. Don't be too hard on yourself, and give her time to appreciate any simple successes—continuous small successes are preferable to a single significant one.
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Model curiosity and openness
A fourth way to promote a growth mindset and a continuous learning culture is to model curiosity and openness. Curiosity and openness are attitudes that drive you to explore new ideas, challenge assumptions, and seek different perspectives. By modeling curiosity and openness, you can show your team that you are willing to learn from anyone and anything, and that you are not afraid to admit your gaps or change your mind. You can also stimulate your team's creativity and innovation, by encouraging them to ask questions, share insights, and experiment with new solutions.
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🔍 Model curiosity and openness to foster a growth mindset! 🌱 Embrace a sense of wonder and actively seek new knowledge and experiences. 🤔 Encourage your team to ask questions, challenge assumptions, and explore alternative perspectives. 🔄 Embrace a growth-oriented mindset by being open to feedback, admitting mistakes, and embracing change. 💡 Create a safe and supportive environment where diverse ideas are valued and encouraged. 🚀 Inspire your team to think creatively, experiment, and innovate. Together, let's embrace curiosity and openness for continuous learning and growth!
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In my experience, the biggest red flag in an organisation is when one hears “but we’ve always done it that way” which is the embodiment of “fixed mindset” - Sharing this video from Carole Dweck https://youtu.be/isHM1rEd3GE as one of the key evangelist in teaching the power of growth mindset.
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Reflect and apply
A fifth way to promote a growth mindset and a continuous learning culture is to reflect and apply. Reflection and application are processes that help you consolidate your learning, evaluate your outcomes, and transfer your knowledge to new contexts. By reflecting and applying, you can ensure that you are not only learning, but also growing. You can also help your team do the same, by facilitating regular debriefs, reviews, and action plans. You can also use these processes to identify your next steps, goals, and learning opportunities.
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Learning isn't a one-time event, but a continuous cycle of reflecting and applying. Encourage your team to regularly assess what they've learned, how it's affected their work, and where they can apply it next.
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Reflecting is key to increasing our self awareness and making adjustments along the way. It’s my experience that working with a coach enables far more self awareness than we can achieve on our own. We can get in our heads and believe the thoughts our minds present. These are thoughts - not facts - challenging them helps us develop a growth mindset.
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Here’s what else to consider
This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?
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In this era of tremendous technological advancement, organisational leaders will not only need superior change leadership competency, but they will also need to strongly promote growth-mindset thinking and a culture of continuous learning. Typical traits of growth mindset employees are: • Embrace disruption and change to improve organisational performance. • New technology is seen as an opportunity to improve. • Life is all about 'Continuous Never-Ending Change and Improvement' (CNECI). The challenge is fixed mindset leaders, who will quickly contaminate an organisation by killing growth and creativity, as well as promoting incompetence based on their likeness. This cycle will be replicated unless shareholders intervene ruthlessly.
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I believe that the # 1 thing a leader can do is show people how adopting a growth and abundance-based mindset can change one's life. Here are just some of the ways: 1) An growth mindset makes you happier — there’s less resentment when you realize there’s enough for everyone. 2) An abundance mindset lets you be you — reminds you that you are enough. 3) A growth mindset tempers self-doubt — you can believe you can do it. 4) An abundance mindset frames your aspirations — you can dream big when the boundaries are limitless. 5) A growth mindset drives enthusiastic and continuous learning — when your world feels boundless, you want to learn more. 6) An abundance mindset takes the pressure off — you don’t have to “win” everything, every time.
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