Using a Growth Mindset to Build Trust and Accountability on Teams | Jim Fielding

Your team says they want to grow—but do they avoid disagreement, fear mistakes, or shut down feedback? A real growth mindset isn’t optimism—it’s how a team handles tension, learning, and risk.

In this episode, Desiree is joined by leadership expert Jim Fielding to unpack what a true growth mindset looks like inside teams—not just in individuals.

They explore how growth mindset shows up in observable behaviors, including teams that welcome dissent without defensiveness, leaders who create psychological safety without lowering standards, and cultures that reward smart risks and clean recoveries—not just wins.

Jim shares practical leadership strategies for fostering growth, from how leaders run meetings and ask better questions to why curiosity matters more than control. They also discuss the difference between being nice and being kind, why fear shuts learning down, and how both leaders and individual contributors can influence team culture—even without the title.

If you want a team that speaks up sooner, learns faster, and grows stronger through challenge instead of avoiding it, this episode is a must listen.

Links Mentioned & Referenced in Episode:

● Jim Fielding on LinkedIn
● Dare to Lead — Brené Brown
● Start With Why — Simon Sinek
● The Five Dysfunctions of a Team — Patrick Lencioni

 Other Episodes You’ll Enjoy:

● The Best Way to Overcome Dysfunction and Build Cohesive Teams | Lessons from The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
● How to Handle a Negative Employee Without Losing Your Best People
● The Strategy That Stops New Hires From Checking Out Early

Taking Intentional Action: How to Choose the Life You Lead

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Transcript

Desiree (00:03.279)
All right, we are here with Jim and I'm so excited because I ran across an article, Jim, that you did on a growth mindset within Teams. And I immediately reached out and was like, I have to have you come on and talk to us about this. So first off, does your team have a growth mindset? That was the question you posed in your article. Share with us kind of the difference of the possibility of answers to that question.

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (00:15.118)
You

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (00:28.448)
Yeah, I mean, I love well, first off, thank you for having me on your show. There is a wide range of answers to that question because there could be individuals on your team that have a growth mindset, but the team in general doesn't have a growth mindset. I think you understand what I mean by that. And so first off, I probably should define in my mind growth mindset and the simplest, the simplest definition of it. There's people that have done a lot more research on this than I have.

Desiree (00:46.018)
Absolutely.

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (00:58.018)
is to me, it's about an attitude and an energy and an orientation. I often say about failing forward or making mistakes and going forward, right? But that it's not optimism. I think that's really important Desiree, right? It's not you're an optimist or you're a pessimist, right? I think it's that you have a goal and you're oriented to growth. And more importantly,

you are open as an individual, I'm talking about individual growth mindset first, you're open to feedback and you're willing to say, I want to learn and I want to move forward. Like I feel like it's a motion thing. I'm even doing motion with my body. I think the skills to a growth mindset that are so critical is to be a lifelong learner and to stay constantly curious. And so I think that's for an individual.

The article that I wrote about that you found me about is I think you can see it in teams as well. And because most of my career, my corporate career and a lot of the coaching work I do is in, I would say creative industries. So retail, media, entertainment, licensing, it's constantly changing and evolving. Those are industries that are constantly changing and evolving. And there's always new competition and there's always new technology and there's always new

ways of doing things. And so you want a team that feels open to the possibilities. You want a team, a culture that feels not afraid of change, but actually looks at change as an opportunity. So that to me is a, is a growth mindset. And I think it's completely teachable. I think it's completely coachable and trainable. And I believe in human beings ability to learn and grow.

Desiree (02:53.697)
Yeah. And when I was reading through the article again, before we started talking, I actually had to look up the word descent because despite all the work that I do at Teams, I've never used that word in a sentence. Because you said the indicators that you are close to having a growth mindset is that people volunteer descent without bracing. In other words, they're willing to disagree with people in the room.

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (02:57.292)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (03:10.946)
Yes.

They're willing to disagree that you've created, love that you, God does, right? Thank you for reading. I think to me, a leader's job is creating a physically and psychologically safe space for people to work in. And a huge part of that is creating an environment where people are allowed to say, do not agree. But in a professional way, right? I think a lot of what I've been talking about lately is about professional civility.

Desiree (03:18.414)
Bye.

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (03:42.894)
and treating each other with respect. So you're allowed, it's not about group think. Like that's the thing, when people work with me, it's not like everybody has to be a gym cheerleader and I want a bunch of synchophants who are a bunch saying yes to whatever I say. I often say hire people smarter than yourself, hire people that scare you. I've said that so many times Desiree, but scare you in a good way, meaning they bring something to the table that you don't bring.

And then I feel it's like the leader's job to create the environment and then kind of get out of the way, right? And let people, and as long as it's not angry dissent and arguing and borderline conflict bullying, which I think the leader has to monitor, I think a lot of amazing work comes out of that creative tension, right? Comes out of that.

yin yang for lack of a better word. Yeah, I love that you read that part.

Desiree (04:45.967)
Well, I want to just bring in a scenario here for you. My mom passed away in 2022. And one of the things that kept getting brought up was that she was under a lot of stress and questioning if that had something to do with her stroke. And so people's then immediate thought was, well, it wasn't her workplace that caused her this stress. And my mom often told me she would hire people that were not as smart or as competent as they probably should have been for that role.

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (04:48.917)
Sure.

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (04:53.102)
my gosh.

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (04:58.478)
Hmm.

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (05:05.038)
Yeah, of course, right?

Desiree (05:15.693)
because she had seen so many people over the course of her work there get fired for seemingly no reason or replaced for seemingly no reason. And so she had this idea based on the culture that people were replaceable and they are, they have to be, right? that I, what I hear you saying it is the leader's responsibility to create a culture that allows for people to be really smart and intelligent and competent

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (05:19.388)
Hmm.

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (05:22.776)
Mmm. Mmm.

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (05:30.54)
Hmm. They are. They are, guys.

Desiree (05:45.283)
but also test things without fear.

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (05:49.524)
Mm hmm. Yeah, I mean, and by the way, it's very hard to change company and corporate cultures. Again, I don't know the industry your mom worked in or like the history of the company. Listen, I worked at Disney, I worked at DreamWorks. Like there is cultures there that exist when you get there. What you can control as a leader is the culture of your team, right? Or your division or your

work group. I can't change the entire culture of Disney. I can't change the entire culture of DreamWorks. But corporate and company cultures evolve over time. so you do as a leader have to kind of go in and do some active listening and feel it out about like, what are the expectations of my boss? What are the expectations of this culture? But

Again, I was primarily working in creative industries where we were like making product or making movies or making television or making. And so by nature of that beast, there's creative tension involved, right? Because not everybody agrees on the script. Not everybody agrees on the marketing. Not everybody agrees on pretty much anything. But you have to learn how to manage that tension.

Desiree (07:10.573)
Yeah. Well, and I think piece of it too was not even that people were, and just going back to this example, people weren't necessarily getting let go for no reason. That was just the perception because the next piece of this article that you said is what we learned shows up in agendas and docs and retros. And what I took from that was when something goes wrong and someone gets reprimanded or let go, the more that we can't clear everything, there's confidentiality, but the more that we can clear,

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (07:17.463)
Yeah.

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (07:21.421)
Yes.

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (07:27.746)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (07:35.616)
huh.

Of course.

Desiree (07:39.491)
the more that we can be open about why things are happening, the more we can learn from those scenarios and we don't place fear as a part of the culture. Like you said, you can't change everything.

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (07:42.328)
Mm hmm. Yeah.

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (07:50.166)
Now, yeah, mean Desiree, this is so important because, and I told this story, I did a group training for like a group of 15 executives about two months ago. And I told this story, which is so relevant to what you're talking about. I was in the Denver airport making a connection and.

I saw this man make a beeline towards me and I vaguely recognized him and I thought, oh my God, what is happening? Like is he gonna come and hit me? Like it just, he was like on a mission, right? And he came up to me and he said, you don't remember me, do you? And I said, no, I'm sorry. go, you two look familiar. And he said, I worked for you at Disney Store in 2010. This was in 2025, this just happened last year. And you laid me off.

And I thought, gosh, here we go, right? Like you eliminated my role, I think is what he said. And I said, my gosh, I'm so sorry. He goes, no, no, no, no. He goes, I wanna thank you because the way you handled me in that layoff was with such respect. And honestly, I moved on and I found a job that was better for me than what I was doing at Disney Store. And to me, that was like the kind of leader that I wanna be and the kind of leader that I wanna coach, right? Because guess what?

a kind leader or an empathetic leader or, you know, leading with kindness does not mean you don't ever fire people or have to do restructures. And by the way, some people do not live up to the expectations we had at every company I worked with. had, they were called performance improvement plans, right? PIPs. And

I believed in a performance improvement plan because again, I said earlier, I believe human beings can change, but some people are just not the right fit or they don't have the technical skills to do the job they were hired for. And it's not fair to that individual and it's certainly not fair to the entire team to band-aid that for too long. And I believe in a person's ability to change. said that and I think people can be coached, but I think

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (10:01.26)
That's why it's called the performance improvement plan. And I had people that did a performance improvement plan and are still with the company that I coach them at. And I had other people that were on a performance improvement plan and had to leave because it wasn't the right role for them. I always say that's the difference between being kind and being nice. Kind is clarity and consistency and expectations. It's not nice is like nice. Like I just want everybody to get it wrong, right? I'm a nice person.

But I think you have to be a kind leader.

Desiree (10:32.142)
I'm almost laughing because I was just looking through a list of all the topics I wanted to cover in 2025 or in 2026. And one of them was the difference between being nice and being kind. So thank you. just saved me an episode.

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (10:37.932)
Hmm. Yeah.

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (10:42.976)
It's a big different. No, fine. There's so many people that talk about there is a and by the way, I learned that relatively late in my career. So I think it's good for people to learn it earlier. I often confused kind and nice. And there is a very, very big difference. I want to be a kind leader. I'm a nice person, but I want to be known as a kind leader, not necessarily a nice leader.

Desiree (11:01.903)
Yeah. And just to piggyback off of what you said, I actually did a podcast episode on how to know if it's truly someone that's willing to change or if it's someone that probably needs to be taken out. And so I'm going to link that episode in the show notes for anyone who wants to follow that train a little bit further. But I want to keep moving on. There's one more indicator that you have in this article that I really love. It's recognition includes smart risks and clean recoveries.

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (11:07.01)
Yeah.

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (11:13.218)
Yes.

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (11:17.455)
for sure!

Yeah, sure.

Desiree (11:31.521)
not just wins. Can you explain that concept to us?

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (11:34.318)
Yeah, I mean, people have to be rewarded for taking a risk, not every, every time somebody takes a risk, it doesn't always work. Right. And I used to say, it's really interesting, because my husband is a pediatric emergency room doctor. So this is a bad thing to say. But I used to say, particularly when I was at Disney Store, it's not like we're doing brain surgery, right? You know what I mean? So like, if all of a sudden, the Mickey Mouse plush in the wrong color didn't do so well,

okay, we take a mark down and we move on. But it's not like I used to honestly say nobody got sick, nobody, you know, we weren't doing brain surgery. And you have to recognize people who take smart risks, right? Who do research and are pushing themselves. That's part of the growth mindset, right? And you have to recognize those the same way that you recognize the big wins is what I'm saying, right? Like the big wins were like,

somebody, know, somebody's business was up 25%. And of course, we celebrate those people. I just said this the other day. I was on a call with a company that's doing some stuff with the Olympics. And I always I said, you know, because we have the Olympics coming up in 2026 and 2028. And I said, you know, one of the things that I always love about the Olympics is I want to celebrate everybody that just made the team, not just the gold medal winners, right? We tend to overemphasize

the gold medal winners, right? Or the gold, silver, bronze medal winners. But just to make an Olympic team in your country is a huge thing, right? Just to show up, to do the work. I said, I really want, I want to work in a culture. I want to work, you know, celebrate in a country where just making the Olympic team is the accomplishment. If you win the gold medal, that's almost like icing on the cake. But think about people just to make an Olympic team in your home country. That's huge.

huge.

Desiree (13:31.223)
Something that reminds me of is like you win the gold and you are so far out of reach from the typical human that I don't even know if I can look up to you because I'm like, there's so much room between where I am. Yes. But if you're looking at this team that's just doing extraordinary work, they're the top of their field, they are someone who hustled and was in the grind, that's someone you can aspire to. And I often say that

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (13:39.051)
Yes.

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (13:42.722)
Yeah, you're like superhuman. Yes, you're like superhuman.

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (13:53.228)
Mm-hmm.

100%.

Desiree (13:57.667)
The difference between the CEO and the humble janitor who someday aspires to leadership is that CEO might be so far removed from what it was like to be that person that they couldn't even share a growth mindset. It's been too long since they've had to work like that. So the person at the top of the hill is not always the best person to get your inspiration from, especially when it comes to this growth mindset. It's the person who...

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (14:07.465)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (14:11.778)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (14:19.758)
No, and they can and that's where you come up with terms like ivory tower and echo chamber. Like there's a lot of people that get into the C suite and they forget to your point where they came from. Right. And at some point we were all a trainee. At some point we were all the assistant manager. At some point we all worked our way up and somebody along the way or some bodies believed in us and gave us a challenge and mentored us or

took a chance on us. I would not be where I am today if I didn't have bosses that took a chance on me. I wasn't always 100 % ready for every role that I was promoted into, because I think that's not reasonable. But I had bosses that believed I had the capability. And again, I think that's the growth mindset. I think that identified in me that I had a growth mindset and a work ethic that I was going to figure it out.

and I was gonna take calculated risks. And I wouldn't be where I am today if I hadn't had people like that. From my first job out of college till now, I'm completely grateful for the people who believed in me.

Desiree (15:33.945)
So we spent the first part of this episode talking indicators that you're close to a growth mindset. This is what it would look like if you've arrived. But I wanna hear from you, Jim, what are some actual practical tactical things that someone in a leadership position could encourage in the individuals on their team, within their team to actually start to make strides toward this, assuming they're not there already?

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (15:55.478)
Yeah, I mean, I think I think a lot of it is how a leader conducts meetings, Desiree, right? Like I talk a lot with my clients about ask for an answer. So in many cases, especially leaders in my generation, we thought we were paid to have all the answers and basically to walk into meetings and tell people what to do. And then they went out and execute. I don't think that that's practical these days. And so I really coach my leaders on

asking, like going into meetings and asking open-ended questions and not immediately respond with a solution when someone asks you a question. So I'll give you a practical example. Like a great question to ask a group, say a problem comes up in a group meeting, a great response to that problem is not just to say, okay, here, go do ABC, this'll fix it. It's literally to ask the group, what would you do if I wasn't here today? Like that's a great question, right?

Even after you've maybe been brainstorming for 30 minutes and you have the right answer, another great question is, what is the one question or idea that we haven't thought of yet? Like you literally asked the group that, like to get them thinking, okay, maybe there's more than one way to approach this. But I think that question of what would you do if I wasn't here? And even for me, like a

perfect real world example for all the people who listen and watch this. You know, so many times people knock on your office or come to your cubicle wherever you work or call you at home if you work hybrid and say, we have a problem, right? They're bringing you a problem. A client's unhappy, a customer's unhappy, something's broken in the supply chain. They got a complaint. Instead of just instantly going to the solution, this is what I coach my people on, I'll say to them, well, how would you solve it?

What do you think are some ideas to solve it? And it's like literally almost in my, tell some of my clients count to seven to 10 in your head before you, cause we're, literally paid as leaders to be like, okay. This has happened before, you know, Walmart's upset. Call this person, do this. It's like, no, it's say, okay, thank you for bringing this to my attention. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Do you have any ideas that

Desiree (18:17.081)
Thank you.

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (18:21.846)
on how we should approach this. That is, it becomes a teachable moment and you're actually helping someone grow, like right in front of you. You're actually helping them build a muscle.

Desiree (18:33.751)
It's funny, I've heard the advice before and it's maybe a little aggressive, but as the leader, if you take a day off or if you're just not in the office for a minute and your team calls you, don't answer. By the time they call you back or you call them, it's like they figured it out.

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (18:37.165)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Don't answer.

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (18:47.8)
Desiree, this is so great. The best boss that I ever worked for, he knows this, is a gentleman named Andy Mooney. He was my boss for 11 years at Disney, which is very rare. And he had this term called Blaze and Graze. And when he was off, like when he was there, he was blazing. And he was Action Jackson, and we were moving and shaking. When he was off, he would literally say to us, do not text, do not call me unless it's a life.

threatening situation. Like, and we knew what the definition of what that was. Was there been a catastrophe or God forbid a death or a natural disaster or something? And he would go on two week vacations. I remember he was the first bus I ever had that took two weeks in a row on vacation, which I thought was really cool. We wouldn't hear from him for like 16 or 17 days. And then he'd come back and he'd be right back into it. Right? Because he was back in blaze mode. And I think of that all the time, blaze and graze.

blaze and graze. And he said, I'm able to blaze because of my grazing time. And so I'm going to go away. And I'm going to be with my family and I'm going to be with my friends and I'm going to eat and drink and tour and do all the things you do when you're grazing and that recharges my batteries, which makes me better when I come back.

Desiree (20:03.949)
Yeah, that's awesome. I love it. Okay, so your number one practical tool was how a leader conducts meetings. Funny enough, Jim, one of the episodes I'm planning to release in January is how to lead a team meeting your team doesn't have. You're speaking my language here, but is there anything else on the top of your head?

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (20:05.646)
Yeah.

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (20:15.842)
Yeah, meeting management for sure. Yeah, that, by the way, that's, that's, there's a couple of meaty ones there. Listen, I think meeting management and then off the top of my head, it's take the recruiting and interview process really seriously because it's identifying the right candidate from that process. Even when I was president of Disney Store, CEO of Claire's,

For certain levels of hires, always made sure I wasn't the final selection, but if someone was getting hired for a certain level of role, I always made sure I spent at least 15 minutes with them before their first day so that they could start to understand the culture and I could make sure that they were just that little bit of the fit that we needed. And so then that meant...

when they came to orientation or day one and filled out their paperwork, I already had, at least I knew their name and I knew a little bit about them. Like I had started to form that personal connection. But I often say to people, not underestimate the recruiting and the interview process because it's about identifying the right candidates early. Does not mean again, people are not trainable or coachable, but you save a lot of angst if you hire the right people.

Desiree (21:32.239)
Yeah. And we have an episode on that with Tessa Campin. So I'll link that in the show notes too for any listeners who want to go in. OK, so I want to know from you, Jim, before we wrap up the conversation here, what is the number one recommendation that you would give to an individual who has a desire? They're on a team. They're not the leader. They have a desire to start to implement a growth mindset on their team. What can someone in that's not in a leadership position do to help that?

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (21:35.886)
Mmm, this is great!

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (21:56.024)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (22:00.302)
Well, first off, mean, study and really understand your job and understand your company and then so be prepared, I would say, like, you know, fact based decision making, but also look for opportunities in meetings or in one on ones with your boss or in small group meetings to stick your neck out a little bit, I guess is what I would say, take that calculated risk, right. And maybe

maybe suggest a new way of looking at something or a new way of doing something or a new product idea or a new service idea and have confidence and belief in yourself and know that it may not ever come to fruition. But that is it's like that sticking your neck out because that again, it's like a muscle memory, right? And it's like, so I guess the short answer is try some calculated risks.

Desiree (22:56.281)
Amazing. I have a feeling that you would have some good book recommendations for us. Do you have any leadership or development books that you would like?

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (23:03.672)
my gosh. mean, you know, I mean, it sounds so terrible because there sounds so cliche, but I, you know, I think Brene Brown and everybody knows Brene Brown, but I think so many of Brene Brown's books, there's so many of them. I mean, Dare to Be Great, all those. I think Brene is incredible. I think Simon Sinek, Start with Why is kind of a fundamental book. Cause I'm again, a creative, a storyteller.

Gosh, there's so many. Anything, Pat, Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Pat Lincone, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team is a great book that I've read for years. Yeah, I would say those.

Desiree (23:48.335)
Okay, for anyone who wants more on the five dysfunctions, I will link the episode that we went over that book. If you want, not read it.

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (23:54.382)
See, I know Desiree's mind, yes, but to me it's a very fundamental, very true.

Desiree (24:04.943)
I took the time to get certified in the framework. So I agree with you 100%. All right, so Jim and I are gonna sign off here shortly. But first thing I want to let you as a reader know is that we talked today about what it looks like to have this growth mindset. And I want you to recognize that even if you have it in yourself, it will take some time, just like any better communication, any better meetings.

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (24:09.122)
There you go. I love it.

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (24:29.71)
for sure.

Desiree (24:30.497)
more success that you have on a team, takes time and it's going to take a little bit of uncomfortable, you know, actions to get there. So just take your time, reach out for help. Jim is a great follow on LinkedIn. Please go to the show notes, find the link to his LinkedIn, connect with him, connect with me there if you haven't already. And just remember that leadership is a privilege, but it is also a really big responsibility and you're the boss now. So what are you going to do with it?

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (24:36.258)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (24:43.662)
You

Jim Fielding (He/Him/His) (24:53.582)
Love it.