Written by: Anila Bashllari, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
I have been talking about the importance of mindset since the very beginning of my engagement in personal development, almost a decade and half ago. Talking then seemed that no one would pay attention to that topic. It sounded to most like woo-woo stuff. Past few years, things have changed for good. In fact, a lot… Now it’s becoming a trend to talk about personal development, lifestyle, mindset, etc. Finally, I feel understood…And it’s a relief as it makes my writing on this topic easier.
Your playing small does not serve the world – Marianne Williamson
I must confess that I love going deep on the topics of my interest. That’s why from the very beginning, I was putting a lot of attention on brain function and its impact on human behavior, the difference between the brain and mind considering the fact that we use exchangeable these two words, the mindset and its role in daily personal and professional performance at every level.
It took me years to get into these subjects and understand them deeply and it still does…
Talking about mindset, I was astonished when I came through a study by McKinsey & Company on the role of mindset in CEOs performance. I must admit that it brought me joy reading what I was talking about for years. That mindset is the key element that distinguishes the best performers from the rest. And not only… Including CEOs as well.
The study has taken into consideration that each CEO/leader has a unique leadership style and performing tasks. But it came as a common denominator that the best CEOs lead through six core responsibilities with a particular mindset on each of them:
The six responsibilities of the CEO
The methodology used in the study pooled over 2400 public company chief executives, distilling down to 67 in-depth, multi-hour interviews with CEOs of Excellence as Ajay Banga (Mastercard); Mary Barra (General Motors); Peter Brabeck-Letmathe (Nestle); Herbert Hainer (Adidas); Reed Hastings (Netflix) to mention few of them.
According to the study, each and any of the six core responsibilities has 3 sub-elements. The best CEOs keep all six plates spinning at all times, regardless of the external or internal factors that dictate some of the plates to be spun faster or slower than others.
Source: Graph by McKinsey & Company
This graphic gives you a clear picture on the challenging CEOs’ role and the difficulty and wisdom to get it right, making a tremendous effort in creating a game-changing vision for their organization by identifying where various aspects of their business intersect with the markets; building up a vision and attitude around the purpose rather than just bottom line profits; finding about best practices that proven results and expand on them towards new opportunities and fostering a broad group of leading, following up an intersected top-down and bottom-up approach towards goals, objectives and implementation.
Naturally, a question might come to your mind: Will the mindset and best practices of today best CEO/leaders will produce the same impact and results in the future as it did in the past?
Something I know for sure:” The same mindset that brought you to this level of success might stop you from moving further.” What does that mean?
It means that we are dynamic human beings and we need to be aware of what is going on and adapt and adjust constantly ourselves, including our mindset.
Let's see what is going to happen with the “profile” of Future Leaders, but the trends of latest developments on awareness and consciousness show that the leaders of the future will be constantly looking for Their True North.
Leading by model through self-awareness, self-discovery, resiliency and ethically accountable;
Leading through all levels by creating a culture of high performance based on values and respecting diversity
Building up an effective and highly accountable support team, being aware that their role as CEOs will be more demanding, frustrating, and exhausting. The saying that if they want to go far, their team is the foundation of moving ahead and will be the prerequisite not anymore to thrive but to survive.
Building up a life-work integrating model, making the job more fulfilling and impactful.
“There is a thread that you follow. It goes among things that change. But it doesn’t change… While you hold it you can’t get lost… You don’t ever let go of the thread”. – William Stafford “The Way It is”
That thread is Your True North as a Leader of the Future. Keep looking for it!
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Anila Bashllari, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Anila Bashllari is an Executive and Business Coach on mindset enhancement, mental fitness and high performance. She coaches business leaders worldwide on Conscious Leader Framework, supporting them to live a holistic life, grows their business, become real manifestos of their dreams and vision, reconciles the conditioning patterns with true deep inside values through Inner and Outer Game. She has developed strategies how to enhance the mindset for creative thinking and achievement, feel resourceful, manage the inner energy to achieve a meaningful life and purposeful business and thrive during adversity times. Her mission is to create future leaders.
