Is the sky truly the limit? It depends on whether you’ve first cultivated a growth mindset. 

Growth-focused minds thrive on challenges and what could be rather than what is. They see opportunity in failure and lessons in difficult moments. Those with a fixed mindset know their feet are firmly planted on the ground and see the sky as being out of their reach. But those who cultivate a growth mindset know that things like height or gravity are mere hindrances and not the final answer.

What place does a growth mindset have in company leadership and innovation? And more importantly, how can minds be encouraged to grow?

Power (and Profits) of a Growth Mindset

Stanford psychologist Dr. Carol Dweck found that managers see far more leadership potential in employees that have or develop a growth mindset compared to those that do not. It’s a quality that should be developed in everyone, because a company full of leaders rather than order takers is better positioned to...

Employee reviews and assessments are multi-use tools. They not only provide employees with valuable feedback about their performance, but they also give company leaders a chance to dive deeper into each employee’s contributions. Together, these insights may help to reveal new career pathways within the company for the employee.

Many organizations are trading the standard annual review in favor of 360 assessments (sometimes called 360 degree feedback). The difference is that instead of relying solely on one person’s opinion or a set of metrics, company leaders gain feedback from multiple sources to craft a more accurate picture of an employees strengths and weaknesses.

However, many leaders fail to use 360 assessments to their potential. Because of their many moving parts, they get bogged down in the mechanics of how to use them. Don’t let the details undermine their value, though - let’s look at how to use 360 assessments to strengthen your top talent and...

Holistic leadership requires leaders to bring their whole selves to their role. It’s not just about their skills, processes, and approaches to their work, but also their character, values, and mindset. And, to take this idea a step further, effective holistic leaders are skilled in encouraging others to do the same.

To achieve this level of leadership often requires an investment: improving your skills, expanding your knowledge, and strengthening your weaknesses. This could mean taking a course, listening to a podcast, or joining a mastermind group, for example.

Investing in the people around you can also be considered an investment in yourself. Teams should always be greater than the sum of their parts. When you pour into your team and help them to grow, your image improves, too. People may respect you more. They’ll view you as a thinker and doer, not just a say-er. Those tangible results can lead to more effective leadership, where there are only winners.

Here’s...

When many people think of growth and development surveys, they think of learning opportunities for their employees. These are tools to help your direct reports identify their strengths, flesh out their weaknesses, and take action to improve. All of the above is true; however, managers may also find these same surveys could help them become more effective leaders. 

There’s a popular belief that people leave managers, not jobs. In translation, this means that even when an employee enjoys the work they do, they’re not likely to stay if they feel like their leadership is ineffective, stifling, or damaging. 

In the modern workplace, growth and development surveys are a two-way street. Employees have an opportunity to rate their managers in a judgment-free environment. Together, everyone wins because everyone has equal opportunities to grow. We’ve taken the opportunity of this month's theme: Career Growth, to dig deeper into the idea of feedback for managers,...

Is your workplace thriving? Or is it dragging?

Are your people excited to spend time in the office? Or are they dreading pulling their alarm? 

Is there motivation fizzing throughout your team to accomplish goals? 

Or is there tension and silence that has fallen on your team stifling performance?

We have shared a lot about "Engagement" recently because it's so important, but we would be amiss to not talk about toxic environments and how your engagement can impact more than just the monthly deadlines. As we’ve noted, your people MATTER, and so, the environment that you create and allow your people to cultivate matters all the more. 

We recommend reviewing our “7 Warning Signs Your Workplace is Toxic” Resource to help you quickly identify toxic tendencies and diminish them before they take root and run your top talent away. Meanwhile, here’s a deeper look into guiding the workplace culture to thrive. 

Take Interpersonal Inventory:

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It’s no secret that people are the core of your business. People make what you do, happen. 

What would happen if you, as the leader of your people, focused the bulk of your efforts into empowering your people? What if empowering them meant creating even more loyal employees OR what if that meant that they launched out and achieved a greater to them personal purpose! 

Empowerment, as defined for the workplace, is based on the idea that providing employees with the resources, authority, opportunity, and motivation to do their work, as well as holding them accountable for their actions, will make employees happier and more proficient in their job. 

In an article published by Forbes we found this interesting quote from Ed Evans, Four Seasons Executive Vice President and CHRO. He attributes the company’s success to its employees and culture and said  “The same level of care that we extend to our guests applies to our people. By empowering our...

Cultivating employee engagement skills involves a host of responsibilities including but not limited to creating great lines of communication, a willingness for transparency, offering training for your employees with new skills and moving employees around into appropriate roles. 

What else is impacted by better employee engagement?  Turnover. 

“High turnover usually suggests a problem with employee engagement. Engaged employees are generally happier, perform better, and stay with a company longer than disengaged employees.” WorkStride

There are many ways to shift turnover rates to the positive within your company. We’ve compiled a list of impacting factors for you to unpack. 

Onboarding – The first few days of a new hire’s employment with you makes a significant impact on their happiness. If your philosophy is “throw them in the deep end and see if they can swim” there’s a good chance they’ll bail for...

We’re taking time to highlight employee engagement this month. With that, we’d like to address a commonly overlooked practice, that when used properly, will increase retention rates and encourage a structured and informed boss to employee relationship. 

What makes a stay interview a powerful tool for employee engagement? 

1. Stay interviews are conducted by the leaders of the organizations as opposed to an HR representative. This gives personal and direct conversation opportunities between the employee and their supervisor.
2. The conversational style of a stay interview can promote unity and provides the space for employees to express their ideas and suggestions that might otherwise get stifled. 
3. A stay interview gives room for the employee to express their needs - specifically needs that refer to how they best handle communication, guidance and even recognition.
4. This interview is pressure free, it does not address the employee performance. It focuses on their...

“The wisest possible investment of your time and energy in order to operate at our highest point of contribution is by doing only what is essential.” - Forbes 

Is Essentialism a tool that you are refining as a leader? If not, we want to help you learn to leverage this tool to work in your favor, better your business and boost your success as a leader and in your personal life. We’ve gathered information from some of our resources to create a guide for you to better implement Essentialism in your business, leadership and worklife. 

In his book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less Greg McKeown writes that, in order to be an effective leader while practicing essentialism, follow this four step process “essence, explore, eliminate, and execute” Click here to learn more 

What does this process look like in your business and work life as a leader? 

In the moments that you recognize a tradeoff exists in order to be true to the core...

WHAT DOES TRAUMA INFORMED CARE  LOOK LIKE? 

At the Talent Magnet Institute we want to focus on empathy and caring well for our employees and those on our team. With a new year in view, it’s a good time to remember that the likely outcome of a crisis is trauma. If you are leading with empathy you will recognize that surviving 2020 isn’t the only traumatic thing to happen in your people’s lives, and for that reason, learning to implement practices and procedures that are developed with Trauma Informed Care principles is paramount. 

“Trauma Informed Care” is an approach that develops procedures, protocols, and practices with the assumption that every individual is more likely than not to have a history of trauma. 

You might be asking, “what kind of trauma?” This assumed history of trauma could refer to anything from mental health, sexual abuse or substance abuse, to trajedy or even mistreatment through...