Most Mindset Advice Is Wrong. Here’s What Leaders Actually Need.

You hear a lot about mindset these days. Scarcity vs. abundance. Closed vs. open. Fixed vs. growth. And while I agree that a growth mindset is foundational to resilience and leading through tough moments, I think we’ve oversimplified the rest.

Most of the mindsets we talk about aren’t personality traits. They’re situational tools. And leaders are at their best when they know how to choose the mindset that fits the moment. Mindsets are not values or character traits – they’re cognitive frames leaders use to interpret a situation.

That distinction matters — especially in manufacturing, where conditions change fast and leaders don’t have the luxury of operating from one “ideal” mindset all the time.

A real example: the early days of COVID‑19

When COVID hit, essential businesses had to make decisions quickly with almost no information. Leaders were juggling questions like:

• How do we make employees feel safe coming to work?

• How do we keep the supply chain intact when shipments from overseas are uncertain?

• How do we protect people inside the building so we don’t have an outbreak?

• How do we set up remote work systems overnight?

Those decisions required different mindsets, sometimes within the same day. This isn’t about reacting emotionally – it’s about intentionally choosing the mindset that best fits the moment.

A few examples:

• Fixed resources: We knew some high‑risk employees wouldn’t be coming in. If they worked on the production floor, we were running with fewer heads. That required a fixed‑resource mindset — not pessimism, just realism.

• Scarcity: We didn’t know when the next shipment from China would arrive. We had to prioritize critical customers and delay service to others. That’s scarcity thinking used appropriately.

• Protection: When safety was on the line, we weren’t thinking about opportunity or innovation. We were thinking about protecting people and stabilizing operations.

And yet, underneath all of it, there was a growth mindset: We can learn. We can adapt. We can get through this.

That belief is what allowed leaders to flex into the other mindsets as needed. Without a growth mindset, leaders can’t flex intentionally – they default to whatever mindset feels safest, not whatever mindset the situation requires.

What the research says

Research consistently shows that growth mindset is more stable and foundational than the others. It’s a core belief about whether people and organizations can learn and improve.

Mindsets like scarcity/abundance, open/closed, reactive/creative, and prevention/promotion are far more situational. They shift based on context, pressure, and risk. And they should — because different situations require different approaches. Every mindset has a productive use case; the key is matching it to the situation, not labeling any mindset as “good” or “bad.”

For example:

• Abundance mindset supports collaboration, innovation, and well‑being — and most of the time, that’s where we want to be.

• But when there’s a fire in the building, we don’t want leaders thinking about possibilities. We want them in protection mode, making fast, decisive calls.

This is where situational leadership and mindset intersect.

Leaders don’t need one mindset — they need the right mindset for the moment

That’s why we created a tool to help leaders:

1. Assess the situation they’re facing

2. Identify the mindset the moment requires

3. Compare it to their current approach

4. Close the gap intentionally

It isn’t a personality test – it’s a situational decision tool that helps leaders see the gap between how they’re approaching a situation and what the moment actually requires. When leaders can that gap clearly, they can adjust — and the organization moves faster, safer, and with more clarity.

Mindset isn’t about being one thing all the time. It’s about knowing when to shift.

If you want to explore how this applies inside your own operation, I’m happy to walk through the Leadership Mindset Heat Map and talk through what it reveals.  From there we can decide whether deeper support makes sense.