Leadership And The Outward Mindset

“How much larger your life would be if your self could become smaller in it.” –GK Chesterton

An outward mindset completely embodies the above quote. An Outward mindset focuses on other people’s needs, their challenges and their objectives. We see others as individuals like us, with ambitions, objectives, desires, and challenges that matter to us while we have an outward mindset .

This is based on a book written by The Arbinger institute, called “ The Outward Mindset”

This Outward mindset is an extremely crucial aspect of a powerful executive presence. In contrast, when we have an inward mindset our focus is on our own needs, our own challenges and objectives , we see others as mere people in the crowd whose importance is determined by how much we believe they will work for us in achieving our own goals and objectives. This can be detrimental to not only ourselves but for the general well-being of the organisation.

An inward mindset is one that is indifferent to others, or doesn’t take into consideration what they want, and how to achieve common goals!

In today’s corporate world we are usually in a competitive frame of mind and hence its obvious to carry an inward mind set by default . As that helps us to survive. The inwards mindset is reflected in our choice of words, tone, body language! This reflects through in our negotiations with our clients where our *personal centric* approach can be harmful for our own selves! This reduces our capability to influence people, build powerful and sustainable relationships, and they’re no more inspired to be supportive towards the goal of the organisation.

For Examples , if we are negotiating on a project deadline with a customer, and if we carry an outward mindset then the focus will be on the customer’s needs , their challenges and their objectives along with your own needs , objectives and challenges.

With Outward mindset its far easier to communicate with the customer and negotiate the desired deadline.

It’s important to consciously build an outwards mindset and that does not mean not being conscious of one’s own objectives, challenges. It means that basically we are aware and mindful of other people’s needs, desires and people with an outward mindset are far more successful as they tend to influence others easily and build long-term sustainable relationships. Other people connect with us better because we see them as part of our own team

People with an outward mindset have a powerful executive presence ,it is easy to nurture an outward mindset if we work with an executive coach. As we become more conscious of our language and mindset when we are working with a coach.

An outward mindset of a leader dramatically improves the personal effectiveness of the leader and enhances the overall productivity of their teams. Such leaders grow up to CXO positions much faster compared to leaders who carry an inward mindset.

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