We heard your feedback + growth

We heard your feedback + growth

[Today’s Tuesday Reading is by Dr. David Sweetman, MOR Associates Leadership Coach and Consultant.  David may be reached at [email protected].]

How our world has changed in the past three months!  We at MOR, like the rest of the world, have been working diligently and thinking strategically in adapting to our new realities.  Many of our existing plans were put on hold and gave way to focusing on our new realities of the pandemic.  We are starting to return to some of those non-pandemic areas of focus.  One of those is the topic of today’s reading.  

THANK YOU to everyone who took that opportunity to provide feedback on Tuesday Readings shortly before the pandemic began.  While this is the first time we are addressing this feedback directly, we have been incorporating it into our practices.  For example, we saw a strong preference for a diversity of author perspectives on timely topics, which is reflected in our past few months.  From the gift of all the feedback we received on Tuesday Readings, we have distilled and synthesized a detailed analysis and set of specific actions we plan to take.

As we reviewed this feedback, there was a broad theme that stood out.  It provides a foundation for our continued evolution as leaders: approaching our individual leadership journeys with a growth mindset.  Mindset is a topic we’ve touched upon in many Tuesday Readings given its central role to our continued development as leaders.  As a quick refresher, a growth mindset is the belief that who you are is relatively fluid, adaptable, and can be changed.   We see our successes being the result of our hard work, and things that could have gone better as opportunities to learn and grow.  Having a growth mindset means being a continuous learner.  In contrast, a fixed mindset, is the belief that who we are is relatively static, unchangeable, and cannot be developed.¹

Whatever our mindset has been, the past few months have perhaps propelled all of us toward a greater growth mindset.  We have likely become more flexible and adaptable in ways we did not anticipate.  We may have figured out how to do things we thought were not possible previously, whether that be through strategic, cultural, and/or political lenses.  However, with so much novelty and need to adapt in our lives, let me suggest there are also stabilizing dynamics, where we’ve not stretched or challenged, but have fallen back to rely on the certainty of what we know.  For example, perhaps we have become less intentional and have gone into “auto-pilot” on some dimensions of our relationships, planning, self-care practices, or propensity to simply “get things done.”  This can be a strength when those stabilizing dynamics are effective habits and practices, but can also be a limitation if we are not applying these habits and practices to intentionally be the leader we need to be.  As we reflect on what we know now and what we need to do going forward, we also need to ask whether our practices as leaders are serving us well?  Where might we need to continue to grow and evolve our practices?

In these difficult times for our world, and for higher education especially, we have hope through the life-long pursuit of becoming better leaders.  How will you leverage the Tuesday Readings for your continued growth and development as a leader?  We continue our commitment to you to pursue compelling content from a variety of voices written in a format that enables you to skim for main ideas or go deep on those ideas most important to you.  While we commit that to you, what commitment do you make to yourself to invest in your continued growth as a leader through Tuesday Readings and other resources?  We are here to support you on that life-long journey.

As we come off of the Memorial Day weekend, we extend our deepest gratitude to those veterans and active duty military among us for your service and commitment. We remember in a special way those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom.  

With special honor to members of the Armed Forces for their sacrifices, please make your day a leaderful one for you and your team,

David

Reference

1. Dweck, Carol S., and David S. Yeager. “Mindsets: A View From Two Eras.” Perspectives on Psychological Science 14, no. 3 (May 2019).