Most leaders believe that developing talent is good for the individual, team and company. And 80% of employees report that learning adds purpose to their work (LinkedIn Workplace Learning Report 2024). Unfortunately, over half of employees are unhappy with the career support they receive at work (Gartner, 2023).
Closing this gap requires more than training, micro-learning, or an active LMS system. Instead, companies need to help their leaders develop a growth mindset and skills and practices to empower and develop employees.
If development is important to you as a leader or as a company, start here!
Companies that develop leader, sales, technical, and other capabilities have greater revenue growth and higher ROI and ROA than other companies. Studies show that companies that develop talent improve operational performance measures such as customer service and productivity, which then drives revenue and profit growth. Individuals that feel they are developing are more motivated and committed to their organizations.
What enables this development? Research shows that individuals with a growth mindset learn and perform better when approaching a new task. They also learn and perform better when their manager gives them autonomy, delegates work to them, and provides coaching and feedback. At a company level, building a growth mindset culture leads to greater learning, trust, innovation, risk taking, and collaboration.
Take Microsoft as an example. For years, employees were expected to have answers to any question senior leaders asked in a meeting. Leaders that paid attention to minute details and had answers to all questions were viewed positively while not being on top of everything could be seen as a fatal flaw. The culture was competitive, which led to limited innovation.
When Satya Nadella took the CEO role in 2014, he told employees that they needed to move from a ‘know-it-all’ to a ‘learn-it-all’ culture. He emphasized the importance of building a growth mindset to experiment, learn from mistakes, and try new approaches to problems. Over time, this reduced Microsoft’s ‘performance’ culture and increased collaboration, innovation and risk-taking. Some leaders even started looking at learning-on-investment when they evaluated employee projects instead of only evaluating ROI. This focus on learning also led to changes in how software was sold and released and led to the availability of Microsoft software on all platforms. Ultimately, Microsoft stock grew 10x since Satya started his transformation.
The Develop and Empower Talent capability is a combination of a person’s preferred Style (traits, mindsets) and their learned Strategies (skills and practices).
The Style for Develop and Empower Talent is Growth Mindset. This reflects a person’s attributions of success and failure. Those with an Incremental mindset believe individuals can incrementally develop themselves, while those with an Unlimited mindset believe people can change their long-term potential.
The complementary Strategy is Develop Others, which reflects a person’s development practices. Individual contributors leverage practices to develop their peers. Managers need a broader set of practices to give autonomy to and empower their team members while also developing the team through practices such as coaching, giving feedback, and identifying future capabilities needed on the team. Senior leaders need additional practices to develop talent across and down into the organization.
.webp)
Growth Mindset can impact how leaders focus on development. One leader in a development program was recently assessed as having a low growth mindset. He believed that his people either had talent or not. Because of this, he encouraged his team to focus on their strengths and he did not invest much time in developing their capabilities. He did not empower them, provide routine coaching, development, or delegate new responsibilities.
Ultimately, this hurt the team. Because the leader did not delegate difficult new tasks, he was burning out from overwork. The team was not stretched and did not want to innovate for fear of failing. The leader had to break through his limited mindset to encourage experimentation, delegate to the team, and take time to coach team members to build new skills.
To start, consider identifying your current practice gaps versus your peers in other companies by using the Growth Leader Assessment:
If you would like to start working on your growth mindset, take these first steps:
If you want to know more capabilities for growth, sign up for one of our learning events.
If you want to know more about the Growth Leader Assessment, email us at [email protected].
James D. Eyring PhD.
Dr. James Eyring is CEO of Organisation Solutions and Lead Science Advisor for Produgie. James has over 30 years of experience assessing, coaching, and developing executives and their teams. With a PhD in Industrial / Organizational Psychology, James is actively involved in research on leadership, growth capabilities, and potential. He has taught Undergraduate and Graduate level courses and published in academic and practitioner publications. Most recently he authored book chapters on Strategic Workforce Planning and Innovations in Assessment in SIOP’s Professional Practice Series.
About Organisation Solutions
Since 2000, Organisation Solutions has helped leaders, teams, and companies build the mindsets and capabilities required for sustained performance and growth. With a network of more than 300+ consultants and coaches, the company delivers innovative and science-based assessment, coaching, development, and team services to rapidly growing and transforming businesses. Organization Solutions clients span the globe and include leading multinationals such as BHP, J&J, DuPont, Microsoft, Prudential, and Schneider Electric and Asia-based multinationals including SMBC, Gojek, and GIC.
