As a young professional or emerging leader, you’re expected to guide your team while sharpening your skills — and that’s not easy. Leadership calls for a commitment to learning, pushing your limits and seeking new opportunities for growth. If you want to succeed in managing your team and accelerating your professional development, you must embrace a growth mindset.
The key to effective leadership isn’t telling your team what to do — it’s demonstrating what it means to learn, adapt and overcome obstacles continuously. When you lead by example, your team follows. This kind of leadership sharpens your abilities and sets the foundation for a leadership pipeline: A culture of development that ensures team members grow into confident, capable leaders.
These strategies can help you model a growth mindset and unleash leadership potential in your team:
1. Embrace challenges
As a leader, you may feel the need to always have the answers. However, a benefit of a growth mindset is that it encourages continuous learning — even in leadership. If you show you’re open to challenges and willing to learn from them, you create a culture of trust and curiosity.
For instance, rather than tackling challenging projects alone, I encourage open dialogue with my team, asking thoughtful questions and seeking input from everyone. This promotes a solutions-driven culture where we collaborate, learn and achieve results together. It also strengthens our culture of positivity and trust and highlights how a growth vs. fixed mindset can shift our approach to problems.
2. Assign ownership
Developing leadership in your team requires giving ownership over projects. By doing so, you allow people to experience the responsibility and problem-solving that come with leadership roles, fostering growth. It’s a subtle way to implement a leadership pipeline that builds confidence in their abilities.
In one case, I had a team member who showed promise but lacked confidence. I gave her opportunities to take full ownership of her work while establishing guardrails to prevent setbacks and create a safe learning environment. This approach built her confidence and laid the foundation for her to take on more projects independently. Offering project ownership empowers people, giving them real-world leadership experience without throwing them into the deep end too soon.
3. Set stretch goals
Stretch goals are ideal for nurturing ambition and a growth mindset. These are goals that push individuals slightly beyond their capabilities, offering opportunities for growth without overwhelming them.
When I introduced stretch goals to my team, I noticed an immediate shift. These goals encouraged creativity and problem-solving, which led to individual and team breakthroughs. By setting stretch goals, you create an environment where employees aren’t afraid of failing but instead see it as a stepping stone to success. This cultivates a future leadership pipeline where people can rise to challenges without fear.
4. Involve your team in decisions
When you make decisions that affect your entire team, involving them is essential. This people-first approach shows that leadership isn’t about having all the answers but about collaboration and learning from different perspectives. It can also develop leaders in the workplace, as it gives team members the confidence to voice their opinions and contribute to the broader mission.
I started this practice by bringing my team into decision-making meetings about long-term project strategies. This collaborative approach empowered my team to think like leaders and encouraged ownership over organization objectives rather than merely following commands from the top.
5. Support external learning
A key part of modeling a growth mindset is encouraging your team to learn from resources beyond their immediate role. Whether it’s professional development courses, certifications, or industry conferences, external learning can be a game changer in creating a leadership pipeline.
I’ve had team members return from seminars or online courses brimming with new ideas, eager to implement fresh strategies. These opportunities provide new knowledge and energize your team with a sense of ambition and possibility.
By modeling a growth mindset, you begin strategically developing yourself while fostering an environment where your team is eager to tackle challenges, learn and grow. This process of cultivating leaders at every level is crucial in building a strong leadership pipeline that drives sustained success and innovation. So, lead with curiosity, share your learning journey and watch your team rise with you.
Opinions expressed by SmartBrief contributors are their own.
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