A lot is written about mindset and rightly so, it’s important. And yet sometimes I think that it gets over complicated. Your mindset is your way of thinking and is constructed by your beliefs and values – what you’ve grown up believing is true. Now this may have something to do with my marketing background, but when it comes to Leadership Mindset, I have 5 P’s – Presence, Purpose, People, Positivity and Positive Intent.
Presence
This is not about having a certain “aura”, this is about actually being present.
One of the things that a lot of my clients talk to me about is how busy they are and how they can’t be everywhere at the same time. And what we talk about is how present they are when they are there, when they are with their people. This is about truly being in the moment with your team so that they feel heard, seen and therefore engaged. So many of your skills – questioning, listening, curiosity – will be improved if you just practice being present.
Purpose
When you talk about vision and strategy, this is part of purpose. As the leader you need to be showing the way, you need to be very clear on your purpose, the purpose of the team, what you are working towards and then be able to communicate it clearly and hold everyone to it. This is a subject we’ll touch on again.
People
In many ways, although I’ve put this down as the third P, for me it always comes first. As leaders, we lead people not things and our focus needs to be there. We need to be human in order to lead humans and it always surprises me when leaders forget to just be human.
Possibility
Now there will always be people around you who say things like “That can’t be done”, “We’ve done it before and it didn’t work”’ “That’s just not possible”. As a leader, you need to hold on to possibility. Without it there’s no creativity or innovation. It’s about how can we, if not that then what? Hold on to the purpose and the possibility in order to get things done.
Positive intent
Last but not least is positive intent. Have positive intent for others and assume positive intent from them too. Sometimes people will do and say things that confuse you, that fly in the face of your values and your team values, that seem to make no sense or even be hurtful in some way. Your job first is to assume positive intent. As humans we are not made to intentionally hurt ourselves, so when someone says or does something that seems to get them into some sort of trouble, what is their positive intention for themselves? Are they trying to protect themselves from something? Are they trying to be seen or heard? What is it? If you get to the bottom of that you will not only understand them and show that, you’ll also be able to give them feedback that will be helpful and which could lead them to see things and experience things differently.
So let me know what you think? Which one of the P’s comes naturally to you? Which one do you need to work on? Do you have other ways to define them or other words that describe a leaders’ mindset?
Do let me know and let’s start a conversation. Come join me at SoniaGaviraCoaching Where I also hang out and answer questions. On Fridays I go live in the group answering any questions you’ve had on the topic this week and any other questions too.
Speak soon
Sx
