Note: The following is an excerpt from the Scale Smarter Newsletter.

Being a founder requires agility to adapt to all the things business will throw your way.

With the amount of obstacles, fires, personnel situations, and just plain miscellaneous items that come from running a company, there’s no shortage of learning opportunities.

How you use these opportunities will oftentimes help in building a strong growth mindset.

Coined by psychologist, Carol Dweck in her 2006 book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, the term “growth mindset” is shown in individuals who believe they can develop through dedication and hard work.  Whereas, the opposite “fixed mindset” is defined by feeling that one’s talents are static and unchangeable.

As you scale your company, it’s imperative that you’re able to take the lessons learned from the things that don’t work and adjust your strategy accordingly.

Being open to change, or simply being willing to be wrong and then pivoting, can provide the necessary perspective you need to better see the path forward.

A growth mindset will level you up, not only as a founder, but also in how you lead your teams.

The founder’s perspective & team dynamics

A growth mindset isn’t just about self improvement, it’s a foundational principle that sets the stage for how you manage and grow your team.  It’s also a philosophy that enables your employees to do their best work.

When I’ve lead teams, I’ve always encouraged my employees to be open in how they approach their work, here’s a few growth mindset elements we’ve focused on:

Challenges are actually opportunities

Some days it can feel like there’s a new challenge to solve the second you wake up.  But as a leader with a growth mindset, you’ll view obstacles and barriers as opportunities to learn and evolve.

This kind of attitude shapes your own growth, while setting a tone with your team in how issues should be viewed, and subsequently dealt with.

Open feedback breeds new perspectives

As you’ve probably read before, feedback is so important to me and my teams.  I encourage any and all feedback, creating a culture for employees to share good, bad, and other with the goal of building an understanding around everyone’s perspective.

The idea is to then take this feedback to make better informed decisions.

Learning is an ongoing journey