Reflection Point – Your mindset reset

I’ve been preparing a tender response for Government the last couple of weeks and during that process, reflecting on the clients I have worked with over the last 12 years.  I have been fortunate to work with an incredible variety of leaders across Government, small to medium sized business and corporate.  Technical leaders, engineers, operational and general managers, project managers, business owners,  executives and professionals in a variety of fields including finance, health, education, legal, infrastructure, sales, manufacturing, technology – a long list I’ve had the privilege of sitting with and having honest conversations about their leadership and their growth journey.

The reasons I’ve been engaged are even more varied – across a wide range of contexts and objectives. Each has been a conversation about growth in some form, and this nearly always raises the importance of mindset.

What has stood out to me is how leadership mindset has showed up in every single engagement – whether it was high performance or accountability coaching, coaching for confidence, wellbeing, development, leadership skills or communication, personal positioning or strategic influencing.

We can talk all day about changing behaviours, developing new skillsets or learning new tools to support how you lead.  But your mindset is the anchor that determines not what you are capable of in your toolkit or skillset – but directly influences how you are showing up every day.

The Leadership Circle talks about mindset as the leader’s operating system, that leadership effectiveness is driven by the habits of thought that run much of our behaviour. Leadership effectiveness is not primarily about what leaders do, but about the mindset they are operating from — because mindset determines whether their behaviours are reactive or creative, from a place of fear or more purpose‑driven.

One leader I have been working with carved out time early each morning after they arrived at the office, to reflect upon who they wanted to be as a leader that day, and how they needed to prepare for the meetings ahead of them that day to support that context.

They said that this preparation time—along with even a short, 2-minute reset prior to each meeting to refresh —was highly valuable.  It gave them space to reconsider their approach to the agenda, the people in the room, and what behaviours would be most supportive in that moment.

We all have the ability to choose our mindset, to be purposeful rather than protecting, to be moving towards others with intention and care rather than moving away from them to control or protect.

A simple reminder as you end your week –

What mindset are you bringing into your next conversation—and how is it shaping how you show up?

Question 1

Reflecting now on the mindset you want to have, consider creating a “context word” that supports you to anchor quickly into this mindset.  It might reflect who you want to be as a leader, or the leadership style you intend to demonstrate with others. What word would support you most in your next conversation?

Question 2

What routines can you establish (or re-start!) to support your daily or weekly leadership reflections, to regularly support your mindset?

Diarise it!  Consider sharing this with a colleague to support you and hold you accountable.