Center for Organizational Leadership
Empowering Effective Leaders
By Melissa Edwards and James Ferguson
Melissa Edwards and James Ferguson were members of the first cohort of the Master of Arts in organizational leadership in 2021, and they earned their degrees in 2022. The pair have been friends since 2015, when they began to work together at ArcBest Technologies. When Edwards decided to pursue the MAOL, she asked Ferguson to join her so their shared vision, support and encouragement could drive them to become better leaders together.
[A resonant relationship] embodies support, security and trust that infuses us with the energy and motivation to reflect authentically, take initiative and keep trying.
Richard E. Boyatzis
Growth mindset is defined by Dr. Carol S. Dweck as “grow[ing] through application and experience” and embracing a “passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it’s not going well.” Making this transition into a growth mindset proved vital to our shared success in the MAOL program, but the shift away from a fixed mindset wasn’t easy, and it still isn’t.
Fixed mindsets are not by default “bad” — in fact, fixed mindsets serve a significant purpose throughout our early lives. We rely heavily on what we know and how we perform to formulate our self-esteem and our pathways to acceptance from others.
As a team of two, however, we decided to grow.
We committed to taking the same courses, at the same time, in a robust lockstep approach — we became “academic ride-or-die buddies.”. With mutual backgrounds in project management, we leaned on our expertise to plan the ideal path while balancing the anticipated load with our daily lives. We agreed that our path through the program would be ambitious, as we strove to complete the program in less than one year. Although we didn’t recognize it at the time, our approach lined up perfectly with Dweck’s first step in adopting a growth mindset: make a concrete plan that you can carry out.
We were sharply reintroduced to college when courses began in August 2021: textbooks and scholarly articles, quick-paced reading and elaborative writing (goodbye bullet points!). In the whirlwind of change, we also built resonant relationships with our classmates by striking up text groups to check in and ask questions in a safe space. That willingness to set aside the “cloak of specialness,” or the refuge one builds around a fixed mindset to keep you “safe” from hard things and lean into the discomfort made all the difference. We expanded our two-person support system into a reliable group of six peers who reminded each other of due dates, clarified assignment prompts and encouraged each other to keep going. And we did! Together, we became the first people to earn our masters’ degrees in organizational leadership with the strategic practitioner focus from Harding in July 2022.
Were there tears? Yes. Frustrations? Also yes. Thoughts of giving up? Sometimes. Dweck’s steps towards adopting a fixed mindset are to recognize it, educate yourself and challenge yourself to keep going. And that’s what we did every day during the MAOL program. When one of us was overwhelmed, the other was a voice of reason.
When assignments were tough and deadlines jumbled up, we’d talk our way through the milestones we could achieve and when. We simply took daily small steps down a shared path. Mindset is usually viewed through an individualistic lens — what one person thinks, feels, does or achieves through hard work and dedication. However, our experience with growth mindset was strengthened by relationships. As Boyatzis would attest, a vision we shared with those we trust “helps to create a bigger, hope-filled image of the future. A sense of purpose replaces goals and tasks as the reason for their interactions. When two or more people create a shared vision, they resonate.”
The power of having another person committed to shared growth is a game changer. To have someone at our side to help us persist, to make clear our progress towards mastery and to inspire us by what they’re achieving themselves made all the difference for us.
If you are considering a degree or certification or difficult task of any kind, we recommend that you find someone to walk beside you. Share your vision; share your growth. So, who will you call to join you on your growth mindset journey?
For more information about the MAOL, visit: harding.edu/maol
