Mindset Not Skill Set

Abstract

The Problem New ways of thinking about leadership as emergent, relational, and collective are becoming evident in leadership theory and practice. This is causing orientations to leadership development to shift from approaches that are predominantly concerned with building skills to those that are concerned with questions of mindset. That is, leadership development is less directly concerned with developing a set of discrete skills and is increasingly concerned with participants’ underlying assumptions and how these shape possibilities for the future. Historically, evaluation of leadership development has tended to focus on technologies and methodologies that assess the former. This article seeks to explore evaluative practices that would be attuned to mindset in leadership development. The Solution To do so we first outline the difference between skillset and mindset as orientations to leadership development. Relational and complexity theories are drawn on to construct our understanding of an approach to leadership development that is oriented to questions of mindset. We then turn to evaluation theory to address three primary perspectives on evaluation: evaluation for accountability, for development, and for knowledge. We argue that skillset acquisition has been predominantly associated with an evaluation for accountability perspective. In this article we foreground evaluation for development and evaluation for knowledge arguing that these perspectives offer important alternatives for leadership development that is oriented to issues of mindset. We propose that working dynamically with the three perspectives offers new directions in evaluation that are suitable for mindset orientated interventions. The Stakeholders This article will inform those researching and writing in the leadership development domain, those sponsoring or seeking more mindset orientated leadership development interventions, leadership development managers, champions, designers, facilitators, and associated professionals. Finally it will be of interest to practitioners looking for evaluative practices that address the multidimensional nature of change and development work in organizations.