[MUSIC] As you move up the organization, how do role requirements change? What skills and mindsets do you require to meet the new role demands? And how do you accelerate your learning of abilities? In this video, we will explore these questions. To begin with, professionals are largely recruited for their technical skills. The technical competencies are the most important when you work as an individual contributor. But expectations begin to change, as technical professionals are promoted to leadership levels. When we asked a group of senior and top leaders as to what expectations they have from frontline leaders, they said a number of things. Frontline leaders should be competent and confident, energetic and enthusiastic. They should motivate people and make sure that issues are properly addressed. If they find a problem, they should not wait passively for support. Instead, they should gather facts and go after what is needed. They should build credibility with internal and external stakeholders and effectively influence without authority. They should also be able to connect the dots, to perceive trends, anticipate changes and recognize opportunities and potential problems. In other words, apart from the main skills in the chosen field, frontline leaders are expected to develop cognitive and social skills in a number of areas. Such as seeing the big picture, influencing key stakeholders, building cooperative networks and strengthening execution. Studies of star performers show that they adapt to emerging role requirements and challenges by constantly upgrading their capabilities. They build their skills on a strong foundation of mindsets. Now, how do we distinguish between skills and mindsets. Skills are the proverbial tip of the iceberg. As we know, iceberg is a floating mountain of ice. Above the water, we just see the tip. The largest part of the iceberg that is invisible lies beneath the water's surface. In the same way, what we see are the behaviors and display of skills. What remains unseen below the surface are the mindsets and beliefs. To gain a concrete understanding of skills and mindsets, we'll look at an interesting experience shared by a leadership coach. The coach talks about a manager who was a top performer. The manager ran a successful department, but was unable to grow a successor to take over his department. So he could not be promoted, the turnover in his department was way too high. The manager's aggressive style scared the potential successors away. Nobody could stand to work for him long enough. He was never pleased with people's work, he was impatient and excessively critical. He was sent to skill training programs, but these did not help. Using the iceberg perspective, the coach discovered that the manager had a perfectionist and power-oriented mindset. He had little faith in people. He expected everyone to perform to the same unrealistically high standards that he had set for himself. Even 99% achievement was not enough. He simply had not understood that his style scared people, and was profoundly demotivating. His coach helped him shift his gears beneath the water and see the whole iceberg. When the manager became aware of his mindset and belief system, his behavior began to change. Research shows that in todays volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous business context. There are three broad categories of mindsets, the frontline leaders need to posses. These are, people-centered mindsets, performance-centered mindsets and learning centered mindsets. The people-centered mindset values aligning people around ideas. And actively engaging them to create ownership. The leaders believe that people on the team should be on the same page. Given that enlightened self interest, the leaders adopt an inclusive approach. And feel invested in the success of peer functions. They value openness and positivity, they pay attention to people. What do they care about? Why they're engaged or not engaged? They don't lose sight of who should be involved, how people should be kept informed and updated. And how they can be helped to achieve and win. Performance-oriented mindset, believes in the J.R.D TATA's dictum. Nothing worthwhile is ever achieved without deep thought and hard work. You need clear intentions and focused efforts. You should have a deep understanding of the context. For instance, you may visit and network with customers or presales team to understand why the unit wins or losses? You'll explore, where the improvement opportunities exist. How the team develops new approaches, energy and efforts are focused on carefully worked out goals and priorities. Finally, learning-oriented mindset is aimed at building capabilities for the future. In learning or growth mindset, a key belief is that abilities are like muscles, they are built with practice. So for learning and growth we need to take up challenges. All stretch assignments, that lie beyond our comfort zone. German adventure pedagogue Tom Senninger defines three zones. Comfort zone, learning zone, and panic zone. In the comfort zone, things are familiar to us. And so we feel safe, secure, and stable. Outside our secure environment, in the learning zone, the challenges test our current abilities and limits. They will stretch, but the activities are engaging and enjoyable. And we feel alive and excited. If the challenges make us tense and anxious, fearful, and frantic. Then we have moved beyond the learning zone into the panic zone. In panic zone there is no learning, for learning you need both challenge and psychological security. Setting the points out that the three zones are different for different situations, and different for each person. For an individual who has largely operated in a stable context. Even a modest stretch assignment may be far out of their comfort zone. A leader, therefore, has to be sensitive to the different risk appetites of different team members. Some require more support than the others. With the right confidence boosting support, even seemingly risk averse individuals will expand their comfort zone. Slowly and steadily, and quite impressively in the end. To help people assess how well their doing and meeting the challenges. A leader also develops appropriate feedback mechanisms from different stake holders. Thus learning-oriented mindset, values taking up stretch challenges. Remaining open to feedback, and ensuring support to keep ourselves in the learning zone. By consciously building people-oriented, performance-oriented and learning-oriented mindsets. Leaders prepare themselves to be future ready.
