The Mindset Effect: Your Thinking Impacts Your Leadership

Dr. Sara Reed
Feb 27
5 min read

Last fall, I had the opportunity to learn and grow from people in multiple industries. As I listened and took notes, I remembered a key concept regarding individual growth and leadership growth: mindset.

Big Idea Upfront: Your mindset will impact who you are, your beliefs about others, and how you treat them.

Question: Where might my mindset keep me from being an inspiring and effective leader?

Mindsets are not permanent and can be impacted by your circumstances, including whether you've slept recently or had a snack and the people you surround yourself with.

After watching a speaker, I pulled out my pens (yes, I carry more than one color regularly… my mom’s influence in my daily life) and started sketching the different ways that our perceptions of our environment, resources, and people can impact our success (and how we are willing to help other people be successful).

Three questions below summarize work that started in the 1950s … and help explain why mindset matters.

Question: How do you view your environment? Does it impact you or do you impact it? (Locus of control)

Question: What do you believe about resources? What/who can I rely on? (Scarcity or abundance mindset - Stephen Covey)

Question: What do you believe about people (including yourself) and what they/you can accomplish? (Fixed/Growth Mindset - Carol Dweck)

Our mindset can impact how we think about our environment, resources, and people in many ways.

Internal or External Locus of Control

If we think we can't impact our environment (locus of control), we can fall prey to a victim mindset. Having an external locus of control means we look to others or our environment as the reason things are not working for us. Having an internal locus of control means we adopt a mindset to create change or impact where we are positively.

As leaders, it can be especially dangerous to get stuck in a victim mindset about our environment. While context is essential to consider, throwing our hands up and giving up isn’t inspiring (or effective) leadership.

Beyond our environment, we can get in a scarcity trap about resources.

Scarcity or Abundance Mindset

If we think that resources are limited or scarce, we will see competition in places where it doesn't exist. We will damage relationships. We will judge others. Additionally, a scarcity mindset takes up more of your mental bandwidth. As a leader, if we are looking at resources (including the talent of people) through the lens of scarcity, we are less likely to help people find their success or seek collaborative solutions. Instead, we advocate for our piece of the pie (or the spotlight or credit), instead of doing the right thing for people or an organization.

As Rutger Bregman wrote in Utopia for Realists

People behave differently when they perceive a thing to be scarce… scarcity leads to unwise decisions.

Behind the unwise decisions, as leaders we can spread the scarcity mindset and create problems between individuals or even teams. Unfortunately, these mindset traps can lead to fixed mindset about others (or ourselves), which limits opportunities for progress.

Growth or Fixed Mindset

If we think we are born smart, talented, or insert another characteristic, we will limit the opportunities for growth and development - for ourselves and those we lead. Mary Murphy asks readers in her book

How do you think of feedback: Is it an indictment or an invitation for growth? - Mary Murphy

She continues to share with readers that her research indicates there are four mindset triggers that can create a fixed mindset:

Evaluative situations (Our work being judged or evaluated)
High-effort situations (Working hard to make something happen)
Critical feedback (We didn't do something in the way someone else thinks we should)
Success of others (Someone else's is recognized for their work.)

These four triggers can be activated regularly within leadership. The question she asked that is especially important for leaders is:

Do you want to be better or feel better? - Mary Murphy

Your mindset will impact how you act and treat people, both essential to your leadership success. Mindset can also be developed, so imagine what might be possible.

What if, instead:

What if we think we can possibly influence the environment?

We will set goals, take action, and not let setbacks get in our way. Instead of blaming our environment, we will embrace human agency to try to impact it positively.

What if we see resources through an abundance mindset?

We will work with people instead of competing against them. We won't live our lives or lead with a win-lose mindset. We will seek to expand access to resources—for others and, by extension, for ourselves.

What if we see effort and feedback as opportunities to improve instead of critiques of who we are?

We will embrace a growth mindset and open our minds to what might be possible in ourselves as leaders.

What if we saw people for their potential and possibilities instead of as fixed people who can't change or grow?

As leaders, we create relationships, teams, and organizations that can make amazing things happen. We build people around us, not seeing them as limited in capability or competition. We create teams and organizations that are rich with feedback in a way that elevates everyone.

How Do We Do Master our Mindsets?

Pause: Stop to notice. I know we are all busy—I haven't met a leader who isn't—but our mindsets will get in our way. As I'm writing this, I can think of where the scarcity mindset hit me this week—and where, if I hadn't paused to notice it, I might have made recommendations that weren't as authentic as I aspire to.

Reflect: Consider what might be triggering an unhelpful mindset. Ask yourself the questions above or develop different ones that work for you.

Choose: With intention, make a choice. Who do you want to be, and what actions will support your choice?

Act: Do something. Often, when our mindset gets in the way, we act or speak in ways that are not who we want to be. Sometimes, our action needs to start with an apology or acknowledgement of our own actions. (Painful and often true.)