Mindsetting Pt 2 | The 5 Responsibilities of a Leader

Do you know what the mindset of your team is right now? Are those mindsets aligned? If they are aligned - are they set in the right direction? If they aren't , what are you as a leader doing to help shift those mindsets in order to transform the performance of your business?

Mindsetting is the art of changing the mindset of your organisation, and great leaders are able to build healthy mindsets in both themselves and their people. A healthy mindset - aligned on beliefs, values and habits can be the single greatest catalyst for transformation for yourself and your business.

In this article we will explore the art of mindsetting, and what you can do to help transform the mindset of your business.

A mindset is a mental model of how we choose to see the world around us.

One mind will have multiple mindsets. These mindsets vary across worldview, perspectives, principles, practices, skills, systems, behaviours and activities. In an individual, mindsets can either align or conflict (So imagine how many mindsets can align or conflict within teams and organisations!)

As humans, we typically bury the conflict until something happens that forces us to react. These reactions are driven by 'reflexes' built into the muscle of the mind. Not surprisingly, negative reflexes compound at a higher rate than positive reflexes. Negatives reflexes have a ’long tail’. 

'Mindsetting' is a verb. It is the purposeful creation of new mindsets, or the art of intentionally building a mindset for your business.

Good leaders build mindsets - in themselves and in their people. 

'Mindsetting’ is like breathing. We don’t learn to breathe, we just do it, and we don’t learn how to create mindsets… we do it involuntarily on a daily basis by osmosis, without ever intentionally thinking about it. 

The problem then is that we can build mindsets that are untrue, unhealthy and unhelpful if we are unintentional about the mindset we are building. Charlie Munger of Berkshire Hathaway talks about the lattice of facts upon which we can build ideas. It describes very well the underlying framework of how mindsets are developed.

In all leadership contexts, the very first person we lead is ourselves. Many leaders however, never graduate beyond the capacity to lead themselves. And whether you're leading yourself, leading others, leading leaders, leading leaders of leaders, it really doesn't matter. You need to step through these five things - sequentially, allowing each to build upon the previous step. Waymaker's 5 roles of a leader are:

This podcast steps through each of them to see how you can start 'mindsetting.'