Great Leadership Through Growth Mindset & Psychological Safety

“Learning by failure tends to leave scars, where learning by epiphany is about stars.”

Skip Bowman is working to debunk the myths and share his model for great leadership through growth mindset and psychological safety. Understanding what drives growth and what prevents growth are both essential in developing great teams and organizations.

A growth mindset encourages individual members to continuously expand their potential while embracing challenges and learning from mistakes. Psychological safety, on the other hand, serves as a supportive platform that enables individuals to openly share ideas and take risks without fearing negative consequences. When applied together, these concepts can significantly improve team collaboration and overall performance.

During our conversation, Skip emphasizes that growth mindset and psychological safety complement each other in creating effective and successful teams. He points out that these concepts should be an integral part of an organization’s culture, allowing team members to fully explore their potential and achieve greater heights collaboratively.

In this episode, we also talk about why it is important to:

Embrace the power of growth mindset and psychological safety for remarkable teamwork dynamics
Hone your emotional intelligence to improve cross-cultural interactions in diverse workspaces
Unlock your self-awareness and obtain tailored strategies for impressive leadership performance
Capitalize on human-centric approaches to excel amid societal and tech-driven transformations

Don’t spend any more time feeling frustrated and overwhelmed by the lack of progress being made towards improved team collaboration. Take a listen to this conversation with Skip to hear more on his Safe2Great model based on psychological safety and growth mindset.

“If we don’t create that safety and create that connection, we can’t create anything great.”

Episode Highlights:

00:02:21- Skip learned the importance of creating safety in unusual circumstances while working as a diving instructor. He explains how this experience led him to study organizational psychology and focus on topics such as psychological safety and growth mindset.

00:08:16 – Psychological safety and growth mindset are linked and necessary for team success. Psychological safety creates the foundation for teamwork and collaboration, while growth mindset enables teams to reach their full potential.

00:09:44 – Don’t underestimate the importance of relational potential in creating a great team. Teams should focus on creating connections and relationships between team members, rather than just individual potential.

00:11:50 – There is both the bright and dark sides of leadership. Many organizations default to unsafe and ordinary practices.

00:15:02 – Emotional involvement is essential in high-performing teams and innovation. Without emotional involvement, communication can become very simplistic and lead to misunderstandings and miscommunications.

00:19:19 – There are challenges of communicating across cultures, particularly when it comes to language barriers and accents. Using technology, such as auto-captioning systems, and being aware of different cultural patterns and norms can help.

00:24:16 – Be aware of language and cultural differences, open to learning from each other, and the value of using technology to help bridge communication gaps.

00:25:20 – Find out who you really are as a leader, rather than who you think you are. Most leaders lack self-awareness, which makes it hard for them to receive and implement advice.

00:28:11 – There are three types of leaders: hippos, snails, and clams. The key is to figure out where you are as a leader, and then adopt the right behaviors to become a better version of yourself.

00:30:29 – Assessments can help leaders gain a better understanding of themselves, such as Myers-Briggs, Gallup, and DISC. The assessments aren’t perfect, but they can be a helpful starting point for self-improvement.

00:33:40 – Skip’s new book, Safe2Great, and the diagnostics help map mindset across organizations, teams, and individual leaders.

00:36:52 – It is important to choose how to respond to change, rather than being a victim of it. There is discomfort that comes along with change, so take a step back and think about how to adjust to new circumstances.