Is A Leadership Mindset Born or Made?
As a business owner, you’re not just an employee in your own business — you also need to be a leader. But what does that mean, especially in today’s business environment?
The Alternatives Board® (TAB) regularly surveys small business owners in order to understand the trends of business today. Our most recent Business Pulse Survey was just released. In it, we take a look at what it means to be a business leaders in 2017.
We interviewed entrepreneurs from a wide range of industries. Their businesses and backgrounds may all be unique, but our respondents had one very important thing in common: a positive mindset.
We found that 95 percent of the business owners had a positive outlook on their businesses for the next year, while 85 percent had a positive outlook on the economy overall. This is reflected in their hiring expectations: 62 percent expected to increase their number of employees over the next year.
When we take a look at some of the other questions on the survey, this level of positivity isn’t surprising. In fact, when we asked business owners about the top qualities of a good leader, positivity tops the list. It’s followed by being ethical, confident, passionate, and personable.
Growing a positive mindset
If positivity is so important to business leadership, it begs the question:
Does a positive mindset come naturally? Or is it something you can cultivate if you want to become a better leader yourself?
There are two camps when it comes to personality. In the first, people say who you are is fixed. You’re a bad dancer, or you’re forgetful, and that’s just the way things are.
The other camp says that these traits are malleable. You forget things because you don’t have a system in place to remember them. You don’t dance well because you haven’t put in hours of practice.
The second way of thinking is best summed up by Carol Dweck, who wrote a book called Mindset. In it, she examines the research about learning and mindset to theorize that we can either have a fixed mindset where we are defined by our abilities (bad at math, a terrible artist), or we can have a growth mindset where we believe that everything — including character traits — can be learned.
Take these steps:
It’s clear from our survey that having a positive mindset is incredibly important as a business leader. And it’s clear from Carol Dweck’s work that it’s possible to change your mindset.
Ready to start thinking more positively and experience its effects on your business?
- Seek out positive influences: Read the works of positive thinkers and influencers rather than listening to fear mongers.
- Surround yourself with positive people: Your employees, business mentors, friends, and partners all shaped how you view the world. Choose them carefully.
- Look for open doors: We’ve all heard the saying, “When one door closes another one opens.” Put that into practice whenever you experience a disappointment.
- View failure as lessons: as Thomas Edison said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10000 ways that won’t work.”
When you develop a positive mindset, you will see changes in your business. This has nothing to do with “magical thinking,” and everything to do with the unconscious ways that you act when you’re planning for success rather than for failure, with the types of people you attract into your life when you speak in more positive ways, and with the kinds of opportunities you spot when you are looking for open doors instead of raging at closed ones.
What do you think? Is a positive mindset important to business owners? Have you seen a positive impact on your business because of your own mindset? Let us know in the comments.
