Unlock Your Potential: The Role of Mindsets in Effective Leadership

Welcome to Equipped for Purpose. I'm your host, Vincent Reign, and this is the podcast

where discipleship meets impactful leadership. Whether you're new to faith or a seasoned

follower of Christ, this podcast is designed to help you deepen your relationship with

Jesus, grow as a leader, and make a difference in every area of your life. Together we'll

explore practical tools, biblical insights, and real-life strategies to equip you for

the purpose God has called you to. Let's dive in.

Welcome back to another episode of Equipped for Purpose. Today we are going to be talking

about mindsets. Before we get there though, I want to recap what we've talked about already

in discovering distinctiveness. We talked last time, well, last two times when we're

focusing on leadership about leader identity. In part one of that, we looked at the critical

question of who or what defines a leader's identity, emphasizing the importance of

identifying the source of your identity. We highlighted faith, personal values, and

internal convictions as primary internal sources and contrasting them with external

influences like societal norms or others' opinions, which can lead you as a leader astray if not

evaluated carefully. We stressed the significance of aligning one's identity with a higher purpose.

Rooted in scripture and prayer to ensure authentic and purposeful leadership while

addressing hindrances such as perfectionism and imposter syndrome that can obstruct this process.

Then in part two, the discussion advanced to defining leader identity through four foundational

components, and those being character, integrity, vision, and mission. In that,

we elaborated on how character encompasses moral qualities like accountability and empathy,

integrity, ensuring ethical consistency, vision providing a clear future direction,

and mission aligning actions with purpose. We also distinguished between temporary roles and

enduring identity, illustrating how a well-defined identity shapes a leader's actions,

behaviors, and choices, fostering ethical, trustworthy, and impactful leadership in

practical areas like communication and team building. There were two key takeaways from

this discussion on leader identity that I want to highlight. The first one is understanding your

leader identity is crucial for effective, consistent, and authentic leadership. Two,

alignment with a higher purpose and core principles is essential for a strong leader identity.

That's just a quick recap of leader identity. Today, like I said, we're going to be focusing

on mindsets, but we're going to look at how mindsets shape leadership and influence both you,

the leader, and your team. We are going to get more into shaping and influencing those you're

leading in a future episode as it relates to mindsets. The first thing is understanding

mindsets and leadership. What is a mindset? You could define that as a leadership mindset

is a set of attitudes, beliefs, and assumptions that guide how a leader perceives,

interprets, and responds to situations, challenges, and opportunities.

It shapes decision-making, team interactions, and the overall approach to achieving goals,

influencing both personal effectiveness and the culture of the people you lead and

the organization which you lead in. Your mindset is the lens through which you view the world.

It's shaped by your beliefs and assumptions, and it determines how you approach challenges,

make decisions, and interact with your team. Mindsets matter because your mindset as a leader

drives your actions and really sets the tone for the culture of the team that you lead

and their future success. Why I have this listed under discovering distinctiveness is because

your mindset as a leader, it really reflects and enhances your unique identity.

So we need to remember your mindset isn't just how you think, it's how you lead. So that's

understanding mindsets and leadership. Next, you have to have some self-awareness,

knowing your own mindset. This matters because you have to understand your current mindset

and you need to know that that is the first step to growth. Your self-awareness is going to help

you identify how your thoughts shape your actions and the interactions that you have with the people

you lead. So one of the big questions that would come right after that is how do you build

self-awareness? Well, the first thing you can do is reflect on reactions and challenges or feedback.

Think about those things. What was being told to you in that feedback? How can you

look at that and evaluate it for your own growth? What challenges have you faced where you can

say, how did I overcome that? What was my attitude going into that? How can I grow

from this experience? What did I learn? And the second is seeking input from trusted colleagues

or mentors. Go to the people around you, those that you work with, not those you work for or

not to those that work for you. Talk to them. See what feedback they have for you.

You can also go to a mentor and talk to them. Really focus in on building self-awareness,

listening to what they're saying and applying what is relevant. So that's two just quick ways

that you can start to build self-awareness, but it requires you to really listen to others and take

in what it is that they're saying to you and be willing to think critically about what it is they're

telling you. And if it hurts, allow it to hurt, but then move on from that. Take what it is that

they're giving you and find the value in it and then apply what it is that you can.

Self-awareness, it reveals your unique strengths and areas for growth and it's going to help you

lead authentically because you're not going to find this is all negative feedback. You're

going to find both the positive and the negative. So you're going to see your unique strengths

in the areas where you have opportunity to grow. So that's self-awareness.

And the next thing I want to talk about is negative mindsets and their impacts. And we've

talked about negative mindsets before, particularly imposter syndrome. This is

one that is going to keep coming up over and over again. It's constantly something that is

plaguing leaders, that feeling like a fraud, fearing exposure due to whatever the perceived

inadequacy is in yourself. It can make you feel weak and suspicious and your team is going to

sense that tension. Those people you lead are going to be able to feel that. And that's going

to lead to some distrust. An example of this is just a leader that hesitates to make a decision

because they fear exposure of whatever it is, whatever the perceived inadequacy is,

they fear that being exposed. And what does that do? It stalls the progress of the team.

The next is the victim mindset. This is seeing yourself as helpless, unable to

move forward due to some circumstance, whatever that circumstance is. This

can have you projecting a fragility that isn't actually there. And this can cause your team,

those people you're leading, to stop looking to you for solutions. When you think about this,

this is a leader that blames setbacks on other people. And that causes the team to lose some

confidence because they don't know what the next thing there is to be blamed for, what it is that

they're going to be blamed for next. And this victim mindset is then transferred onto other people.

And these are just two negative mindsets and some of the impacts that they have.

And these mindsets, they don't just hold you back. They ripple out and affect everyone you lead.

This is something you as a leader have to be aware of. What negative mindsets are you carrying and

how is that impacting the people around you? How is it impacting those that you lead?

So how do you overcome negative mindsets? Well, one way to overcome that is through

strengthening your emotional intelligence, that ability to recognize and manage emotions in

yourself. And in so doing, you're going to be projecting leadership that allows others to

manage their own emotions. When you build up your emotional intelligence, this fosters a self

compassion and it's going to reduce your anxiety, which immediately is going to put down the imposter

mindset, that imposter mindset that says, I feel like a fraud. I feel being exposed for whatever

the thing is. Building your emotional intelligence is also going to help you avoid reactive

behaviors and respond with empathy, which is going to come against that victim mindset

where you see yourself as helpless, unable to move forward due to whatever the circumstance is.

One of the great ways to practice emotional intelligence and start to build that is through

active listening. And this is to understand your team's needs. You're not listening to respond,

you're listening to understand, to take information in that's going to help you then take actions

later. It's more listening and less talking when you're doing this. One of the other ways to do

this is to pause and reflect before reacting to any challenge. Anything that comes up as an obstacle,

we want to pause and reflect on that before reacting. Any kind of setback, this is a good

practice to take. This is going to help your team be more confident in bringing the good, the bad,

and the ugly to you, whatever it is. They're going to be able to bring it to you and know

that you aren't going to lash out. You're going to be thinking things through and reflecting before

any type of reaction comes out. Emotional intelligence turns negative emotions into

opportunities for growth. So we talked about challenges and setbacks and putting emotional

intelligence into practice in the face of those, but what happens when those come up? What happens

when those cause setbacks, when there is a need for you to bounce back from something? Well,

this is where you're going to be exercising some resilience. And that's just the ability to recover

from adversity and maintain a positive outlook. It really matters for leaders to be resilient

because this also counters the victim mindset because it fosters strength and adaptability.

You can start to build resilience by reframing setbacks as learning opportunities.

And I talked about the concept of failing forward in episode 83. And this is where

we come up against a failure, but we don't see it as something that moves us two steps back.

We see failure as small steps forward because we have an opportunity to learn a great deal in our

failures. There is an understanding of what went wrong, but we can really look at that and find

things that we can pull out and extract from a failure to say, okay, I can grow in this. I see

opportunity here to continue to move forward and grow. So we need to reframe setbacks as learning

opportunities. Think of it as failing forward. If you fail and you don't learn anything, then you've

not done this. You aren't being resilient. One of the other things you can do to be resilient

is just the simple act of practicing some self-care. Rest, exercise. Yeah, those are

two opposite things, but both can be part of your self-care routine, what it is that you are doing to

reset your own mind. I mean, we are talking about mindsets here. And when you think about mindsets,

you've got to think about where is it that I'm setting my mind? This is a great way to

think about this, particularly in resilience. When a setback has occurred and I've run up

against something and I'm trying to figure out how to get over, around, under, through this

obstacle, whatever it is, I want to continue to move forward. I need to exercise some resilience

here. In that, there's a lot of different reactions that can happen. Where I choose to set my mind

and consider this obstacle is very significant. So yeah, it's called a mindset, but I always like

to think of it, where is it that you're setting your mind? If I am taking care of my body through

rest and exercise, where I set my mind, I can be a little bit more intentional about,

because I don't have distractions of health or tiredness weighing me down. All right,

enough about that. One last thing that can help you build resilience is just celebrating small

wins. Celebrating small wins each and every day, those gratitude practices that you hear,

those are celebrations of wins. No matter how big, no matter how small the win is that you have,

celebrate it. This allows you to gain and maintain some momentum. This is a good practice to do with

those that you lead as well. Find the things that they're doing, highlight those. Again,

doesn't matter how big, doesn't matter how small, celebrate the wins of the people you lead as well.

Resilient leaders, they inspire the people they lead to persevere, even in tough times,

even in the most difficult times, resilient leaders inspire those around them. Be somebody

who inspires. All right, let's look at some positive mindsets for effective leadership.

I want to briefly bring up that when I was looking at this, I ran across that mindsets

can be categorized. For example, growth versus fixed, individualistic versus collective.

Today, we'll focus on the growth mindset. That's essential for leadership development,

along with the belonging and abundance mindsets that I have talked about before.

I just wanted to note that mindsets can be categorized. The growth mindset,

this is just embracing challenges, valuing feedback, and again, seeing failure as a

learning tool. We just talked about failing forward and you can see the connection there.

You can see how this is all kind of intertwined. A growth mindset is going to help you adapt and

innovate and really unlocking a full potential. A leader with a growth mindset really sees

a project setback as a chance to improve processes while a fixed mindset leader might see it as a

personal failure. You can see in that this categorization of growth versus fixed,

what does growth do? It keeps you moving forward, no matter what you come up against,

whether it's a win that you can celebrate or whether it's something that challenges you.

There is room for improvement there in somebody who is leading through a growth mindset rather

than that fixed mindset that is going to take it very personally and then possibly start to

spiral out of control. That's going to go differently for person to person,

but if it's taken personally, there is going to be some type of setback there.

It's going to take time to get the team back together and moving forward.

The belonging mindset, this is confidence that you deserve your leadership role.

One of the problems that is countered here is imposter syndrome because

it replaces fear with power. It replaces it with creativity and acceptance. One of the things that

is significant to think about in this, in placing your mind in an area that says you belong is

you wouldn't be where you are if you didn't belong there.

Yes, I have run into situations where I feel like this leader should not belong in the position they

are because they don't lead well. They don't steward what's given to them well, but somebody

somewhere has seen potential in this person. I think you can apply that to yourself. Somebody

somewhere has seen potential in you to excel in this role and so you belong there and you need

to have confidence in that. When you really accept that and start to own it, you're going

to lead with courage and your team is going to feel your confidence and it's going to build them

up as well. The last of these positive mindsets I want to focus on is the abundance mindset.

I think it's important here to say what I am not saying when I talk about this. I am not talking

about some name it and claim it, prosperity gospel, nothing like that. This is a belief

that there is enough success, enough knowledge and praise to share, enough to go around.

This is a security in yourself, being secure in who it is that you are as a leader and not

worried about your positional security when somebody you lead is successful. When you see

those around you spotlighted for their exceptional actions, a person who is carrying the abundant

mindset celebrates that win with that person. It doesn't feel threatened because there's a

security there. There's enough success, knowledge, praise to share with everyone.

And this is going to counter a lot of different negative mindsets that could come up against you.

You're going to foster thankfulness and generosity over scarcity. There is not a limited amount of

praise. Other people's success does not make you look bad. There's a lot of leaders who are

insecure and when the people they lead have success, they will either try to take that

glory for themselves or suppress that person or suppress their hand in whatever it was that was

successful. And that's just not necessary. Your team's success is your success. Celebrate that.

You will inspire your team by celebrating their wins and sharing what you know with them.

And these three positive mindsets really amplify your unique strengths,

making you a leader others are going to want to follow.

So real quickly, cultivating positive mindsets. What are some practical steps?

So in cultivating a growth mindset, again, seek feedback. We talked about this. Embrace challenges.

Things are going to come up and try to slow you down. Well, that's a good thing because now

you've already got the mindset that this is an opportunity to grow and you're going to celebrate

your effort over perfection. I wish I could remember who said it, but perfect is the enemy

of great. We have to celebrate effort over perfection. If we're waiting for perfection,

we're always going to see something that could be improved and we're never going to be taking action.

So you can ask yourself, what can I learn from this after every challenge?

Anything that you see as challenging, ask yourself, what can I learn from this?

And then whatever that lesson is, share that with the people you lead. Let them see some

vulnerability because that's more authentic and people recognize that more so today than ever.

If you are trying to put on this perfect persona as a leader who doesn't have any problems or

challenges, well, they know you're lying. Everybody has challenges. Everybody has problems and things

they come up against. I'm not saying that you need to air all your personal issues,

but in this setting as a leader, what challenges are you facing and what can your team learn from

those challenges to help them grow? Looking at belonging, some people will say to use

affirmations like, I belong here because I bring value. Well, that's a great saying,

but what does that really do for you? You need to quantify a value. I don't want to just say

about myself that I bring value because that doesn't really help my mindset. If I'm going

to really be able to believe something and set my mind there, I need to be able to quantify that.

What is the value that I bring? If I'm having trouble thinking about that, I should probably

go to a mentor. I should probably go to the people who put me in this position or those around me in

terms of peers and colleagues and start to look at value. What is the value that I'm bringing?

We've talked about you belonging there. There is something that was seen in you as a leader

that puts you into that position. What is that? Start to call it out and record it and then reflect

on why you were chosen for this role. This is going to help cultivate that belonging in you.

When you have those things that come up against you that say, oh, you're going to be exposed for

this or you don't know what you're doing, you should never have been here. When those thoughts

creep into your head, you can, nope, I'm going to take my mind and I'm going to set it over here

into belonging where I know that I have quantified this value. In abundance,

just practice gratitude daily. It's a simple action that's going to get you started and help

unlock your creativity so you can find other ways to celebrate. Just simply name three things that

you're grateful for. My recommendation is to do it first thing in the morning. This is a great

opportunity to get you in the right frame of mind right off the bat, to get you into a positive

mindset of gratitude rather than any kind of negativity that you might find if you flip your

phone on and start scrolling through social media right away. Then share that knowledge or

praise with your team without hesitation. The last practical step I want to talk about is

positive thinking and visualization. I know this sounds a little like a self-help book,

but I want you to be thinking about visualizing success before key meetings and before decisions.

We can't just arbitrarily visualize success and say, oh, yeah, I'm going to get it right. I'm

going to win. Well, what does that mean? What does success mean? You need to be able to define

success and say, this is what winning looks like. One, two, three, whatever it is, this is what it

is. Have that definition going in. What is the agenda for the meeting? What are the outcomes

I'm looking for? What do we need to solve when we are sitting down to have this conversation?

Where do we need to end up? Then manage expectations. You need to know that you aren't

always going to be able to hit the outcome, but we have an idea of what that looks like.

We have defined what success is. If we manage our expectations to say, we might not hit this

lofty goal that I've defined as success here, and that's okay. Maybe something came up that kept us

from reaching that, or maybe I defined success too big and it's outside the scope of what's

possible for us. We've managed those expectations, but we're going to be realistic about success and

we are going to give it a definition because if we don't, you could end up anywhere. That's

what success looks like by default because we didn't sit down and be intentional about defining

it. We just need to make sure that we, like I said, contrast expectations with outcomes. We may not

reach what it is that we defined as success in the end, but that's okay. We have defined success

and that's taking a first step and getting us there. The last thing under positive thinking

and visualization is just, again, reframe negative thoughts. If the thought is this is too hard,

reframe it as this is a chance to grow. I cannot stress this enough, and that's why you've heard

it over and over and over again throughout this episode, is reframing how you look at

something. The words that you put behind your thinking really matter. They are significant

because it's setting your mind in a certain place and that is the direction that you are going to

continue down. If where you set your mind is this is too hard, then that's the road you're going to

travel down and you're going to keep finding it difficult at every step. Each step is going to be

a slog forward if you can even take a step. If I change initially where I set my mind and say,

this is an opportunity to grow, I'm going to be learning and I'm going to be taking a step

after step after step and seeing what is it I'm learning? How can I change it in the future?

How can I get better? How can I grow? Sharing this with the team. They're getting better. They're

growing. Your mindset with all of these is becoming contagious and when you embody growth,

belonging and abundance, your team will too. Mindsets, they shape how you

lead and how your team thrives. Negative ones like imposter and victim, they hold you back,

but the positive ones like growth, belonging and abundance really unlock your distinctiveness.

Some questions I want you to consider is, do you lean toward a growth or fixed mindset in challenges

and how does this affect your leadership? Number two, what negative mindsets do you struggle with

and how have they impacted your team? Number three, what step will you take to adopt a growth,

belonging and abundance mindset? Finally, number four, how will you share this shift

with your team? You need to remember, you are not stuck. Choose your mindset and watch how it

transforms your leadership. So I invite you to share this episode with someone who you think

would benefit and if you're feeling really bold, send me an email or a DM on social media and let

me know what your answers are to those reflection questions. I really do look forward to engaging

with you.

Thank you for tuning into equipped for purpose. I hope today's episode gave you tools and

inspiration to deepen your discipleship and strengthen your leadership. Don't forget to

subscribe so you never miss an episode and if you found value in today's content, share it with

someone who could benefit. Let's connect on social media and through my website and remember,

you are being equipped for a purpose. Go make an impact.