If a company wants to become the “Global Standard”, the “reference, or “best in class” in its field of business it will need to develop and instil a champion mindset.
A champion mindset is one that looks for new ways to think about adversity, and most importantly, looks for fresh ways to look at problems and roadblocks. Champions look at life with a sense of urgency and respond to the challenges of the changing face of business with innovation and curiosity.
Research into champions, be they in sports, the arts or business, highlight the following characteristics:
- They have a strong belief in themselves (Confidence)
- They do not give up, they are committed to success (Commitment)
- They learn to take control of and manage all aspects of their activity (Control)
- When they experience failures or setbacks, it motivates them (Challenge)
Not only that, but all champions have a powerful team supporting them.
Mental Toughness is defined as “a narrow, plastic personality trait which helps to explain how individuals respond to stress, pressure, opportunity and challenge, irrespective of circumstance”.
Mental Toughness provides champions with the emotional competence to manage their behavioural response when under stress and their ability to be effective.
Mental Toughness ensures champions have the engagement to see commitments through to a successful conclusion.
Mental Toughness enables champions to step outside their comfort zone, take on challenges and learn from the outcomes.
Mental Toughness gives champions the self-confidence to stand up to detractors and maintain dialogue under difficult conditions.
Developing a mentally tough organisation starts with developing mentally tough individuals; individuals who have the self-confidence to take up a challenge and the self-control to stay committed to achieve success.
The language, messages, and feedback senior leaders convey to their staff, both explicitly and implicitly can have a profound impact on the enhancement of how people embrace and develop key mental skills; hence, this individual development needs to start at the peak of the organisation.
Once people are aware of the importance of Mental Toughness to individual performance and wellbeing; development can be implemented “collectively” – the strength of a team’s mindset will impact the quality of their performance.
On an organisational level, research has shown that Mental Toughness contributes to creating a distinct performance environment that enables the organisation to adapt, innovate, and ultimately win and sustain competitive advantage.
Deploying Mental Toughness throughout an organisation will require the embedding of “mental skills” within the organisation’s values.
Do you have what it takes to become a champion?
If you would like to discuss installing a champion mindset in your organisation, contact me at boblarcher@boblarcher.com
I help people to develop their interpersonal skills, usually within a leadership or teamwork context. If you are looking to develop your leadership, I might be able to help. I’ve been doing this for almost 40 years; roughly four thousand days of seminars, workshops, conferences, coaching, offsites, webinars, etc. – put back-to-back that makes almost ten “full” years.