Stagnant Leaders Don't Last — Here's How to Grow Intentionally, With Your Team

There's an old truth that shows up in Scripture long before it showed up in any leadership textbook: nothing that's alive stays the same size forever. In John 15, Jesus tells His disciples that every branch connected to the vine that bears fruit gets pruned so it can bear more fruit. Growth, in other words, isn't a one-time event — it's a continuous, sometimes uncomfortable process of being shaped so you can produce more of what actually matters.

Centuries later, the International Coaching Federation (ICF) built an entire professional standard around a strikingly similar idea. To keep an ICF credential, coaches are required to keep learning — through Continuing Coach Education — for as long as they hold the certification. The message is the same one found in the vineyard: competence isn't a destination. It's a discipline.

If that's true for coaches, it's true for leaders. And it's true for the teams leaders are responsible for. Stagnant leaders don't just stop growing themselves — they cap the growth of everyone around them. This post is about three research-backed principles that help leaders and their teams grow intentionally, continuously, and together.

A Quick Word on My Own Practice

I'll be honest about where this comes from: I'm a continuous learner, and I've had to be intentional about making room for it. My leadership demands don't pause long enough for me to sit down with a stack of books every week, so I've built learning into the pockets of time I already have. I listen to audiobooks and podcasts regularly — often while driving, and often while exercising. It lets me stay current on leadership thinking without carving out separate hours I don't have, and honestly, I've come to enjoy it. It's turned commute time and workout time into some of my most valuable development time.

I share that not because it's the "right" way to grow, but because it's my way. The principle underneath it applies to everyone, even if the practice looks different: find the method that fits your life and your rhythms, and protect it. The same goes for your team — what works for you may not work for them, and part of your job as a leader is helping each person find their own version of that vine-and-branch discipline.

With that in mind, here are three principles, grounded in research, that leaders can use to build a culture of intentional growth.

Principle 1: Adopt — and Model — a Growth Mindset

Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck's decades of research draws a sharp line between two ways people relate to their own abilities. A fixed mindset treats talent and intelligence as static traits you either have or don't. A growth mindset treats them as capacities that develop through effort, strategy, and feedback. The distinction sounds simple, but its downstream effects are significant.

Research building on Dweck's work has found that leaders with a growth mindset tend to have more engaged teams, believe more strongly in their people's potential, and are more willing to coach and develop employees rather than simply label them as talented or not. One study of 600 managers found that growth-mindset leaders consistently produced higher team engagement scores than their fixed-mindset counterparts — and that fixed-mindset leaders, once they'd mentally categorized someone as "not that talented," rarely updated that judgment even when the person's performance improved. That's a sobering finding for any leader: the story you tell yourself about someone's potential can quietly cap what they're allowed to become in your eyes.

A modern example worth studying: Microsoft's cultural turnaround under CEO Satya Nadella is one of the most-cited business cases of growth mindset in action. Nadella has spoken publicly about wanting to shift the company from a "know-it-all" culture to a "learn-it-all" culture — a shift that coincided with a period of renewed innovation and market growth for the company. The lesson isn't that one phrase changed a corporation. It's that when leadership visibly reframes mistakes and gaps as information rather than identity, teams take more risks, ask more questions, and improve faster.

The scriptural echo: Philippians 1:6 reminds believers that the One who began a good work will carry it on to completion — growth is a process, not a verdict. A growth-mindset leader extends that same patience to their team: people are unfinished, not unfixable.

Practical starting point: In your next one-on-one, replace "Why didn't this work?" with "What did we learn, and what will we try next?" It's a small language shift that signals a big belief.

Principle 2: Make Learning a Daily Habit, Not an Annual Event

The second principle is about frequency. Most organizations still treat development as an occasional event — a conference, an annual training day, a certification renewed once every few years. But the research increasingly points in a different direction: learning that's small, frequent, and built into the flow of work outperforms learning that's occasional and front-loaded.

LinkedIn's Workplace Learning Report found that the vast majority of learning and development professionals now consider continuous learning more important than ever for career success, and organizations that build robust, ongoing career development programs see measurably higher rates of engaged learners and internal promotions. Separately, Gallup's research on workplace development found that companies investing strategically in employee growth report notably higher profitability compared to those that don't. And a growing body of industry data on "microlearning" — short, frequent learning bursts rather than long, infrequent sessions — points to significant gains in engagement and productivity when learning is delivered in small, digestible pieces rather than as an annual event.

There's also a retention story here that leaders can't ignore. Survey after survey shows that a large majority of employees say they would stay with a company longer if it invested visibly in their development, and that lack of growth opportunity remains one of the top reasons people voluntarily leave a job. In other words: continuous learning isn't just a performance lever. It's a retention strategy.

A modern example worth studying: Companies that have moved learning "into the flow of work" — think short, role-specific learning modules delivered through Slack, mobile apps, or even AI-assisted tools embedded directly into daily workflows — are seeing employees engage with development content far more consistently than when the same content was locked inside a once-a-year training portal. The format changed, and so did the habit.

The scriptural echo: 2 Peter 3:18 calls believers to grow in grace and knowledge — a present, ongoing verb, not a past-tense achievement. Growth was never meant to be seasonal.

Practical starting point: Instead of budgeting for one big annual training, budget time. Give your team permission — explicitly, in writing, in team meetings — to spend 20–30 minutes a few times a week on learning that's relevant to their role. Model it yourself, out loud, the way you'd model any other priority you wanted your team to take seriously.

Principle 3: Build a Coaching and Feedback Culture

The third principle is where the ICF connection becomes most direct. Coaching isn't just a service leaders occasionally bring in for under performers — it's a discipline, and the data on its impact is remarkably consistent. Multiple studies commissioned by the ICF, including research conducted with PricewaterhouseCoopers, have found that a strong majority of organizations using coaching report a positive return on their investment, with some studies estimating average returns of several times the cost of the coaching engagement itself. Separate research has found that coaching is closely linked to higher employee engagement, and that combining traditional training with coaching produces substantially larger productivity gains than training alone.

But coaching only works inside a culture where people feel safe enough to be coached — safe enough to admit a mistake, ask a "dumb" question, or raise a concern before it becomes a crisis. That's where Harvard researcher Amy Edmondson's work on psychological safety becomes essential. Her landmark study of work teams found that psychological safety — a shared belief that it's safe to take interpersonal risks on a team — predicts learning behavior, and that learning behavior, in turn, predicts performance.

It's not a direct line from safety to results; it runs through learning. Google's own internal research on team effectiveness, known as Project Aristotle, arrived at a strikingly similar conclusion: psychological safety was the single strongest predictor of high-performing teams, ahead of factors like individual talent or tenure.

A modern example worth studying: Intel's internal coaching program has been recognized industry-wide for the way it embedded coaching skills into managers at scale, rather than treating coaching as an outside service reserved for executives. The result wasn't just better individual performance reviews — it was a measurable shift in engagement across business units, because coaching became a daily leadership behavior rather than an occasional intervention.

The scriptural echo: Proverbs 27:17 — as iron sharpens iron, one person sharpens another. Sharpening requires contact, friction, and trust. A team that can't safely give and receive honest feedback can't sharpen anything.

Practical starting point: Ask your team, this week, one honest question: "What's something you're hesitant to bring to me?" Then listen without defending yourself. That single conversation will tell you more about your team's psychological safety than any survey.

Bringing It Together

Scripture, coaching science, and workplace research are all pointing at the same conclusion from three different directions: growth that lasts is intentional, continuous, and shared. It's not a mindset you adopt once. It's not a training you complete. It's a daily posture — for you, and for the people who follow your lead.

You don't have to overhaul your calendar to start. Pick one of the three principles above. Try it this week, in one conversation, with one person on your team. Then find your own version of the audiobook-on-the-drive habit — whatever makes learning sustainable enough that you'll actually keep doing it.

Stagnant leaders don't last. But leaders who grow intentionally — and who help their teams do the same — build something that does.

What's one habit that's helped you keep growing as a leader? I'd love to hear it in the comments.

What's one thing you can start doing differently to grow your leadership team?

Your Next Step

Are you considering a new role in the next 6-24 months? If so, how are you preparing for this next role before your leadership gaps get exposed? Register for the free Certified Coach Accelerator Workshop, where I go deeper on the ICF certification and credentialing pathway, the coaching business roadmap, and what it looks like to build a practice, or pivot in your career, around your existing leadership experience.

Register Here: https://imaginecoachingacademy.com/live-webinar

Marcel Sanchez is the founder of Imagine Coaching Academy, an ICF Level 1 Accredited Coaching Education Provider. He is an ICF Professional Certified Coach with a mission to equip faith-based business and ministry leaders with the credential, competence, and confidence to lead at their highest level.

References

Sources: ICF & PwC, 2025 Global Coaching Study · LinkedIn Learning, 2025 Workplace Learning Report · Edmondson, A. (1999), Administrative Science Quarterly · Dweck, C., Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

Growth Mindset

Dweck, C. S. Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. Overview of her research summarized in: "Growth Mindset Leaders Have More Engaged Teams," Growth Mindset Institute — https://www.growthmindsetinstitute.org/2018/02/23/growth-mindset-leaders/

"Expectations Create Outcomes: Growth Mindsets in the Workplace" — https://homepages.se.edu/cvonbergen/files/2019/05/Expectations-Create-Outcomes.pdf

Nadella, S. on Microsoft's "learn-it-all" culture shift — widely reported; see coverage via "Why a Growth Mindset Is Crucial for Leadership," McCracken Alliance — https://www.mccrackenalliance.com/blog/why-a-growth-mindset-is-crucial-for-business-leadership

Continuous Learning Habits

LinkedIn Learning, 2025 Workplace Learning Report — https://learning.linkedin.com/resources/workplace-learning-report

Gallup research on employee development and profitability, cited in "37 Employee Training Statistics and Trends for 2026," Devlin Peck — https://www.devlinpeck.com/content/employee-training-statistics

"Top Workplace Learning Trends 2026," Dynamic Pixel (microlearning engagement data) — https://dynamicpixel.co.in/blog/top-workplace-learning-trends/

"Employee Training Statistics and Trends to Know in 2026," D2L — https://www.d2l.com/blog/employee-training-statistics/

Coaching and Psychological Safety

International Coaching Federation, 2025 Global Coaching Study (commissioned with PwC) — https://coachingfederation.org/blog/coaching-as-a-strategic-advantage-what-the-2025-global-coaching-study-reveals/

International Coaching Federation, "Coaching Statistics: The ROI of Coaching in 2024" (includes Intel case reference) — https://coachingfederation.org/blog/coaching-statistics-the-roi-of-coaching-in-2024/

"ROI of Executive Coaching: What the Data Really Shows," Great People Management — https://greatpeoplemanagement.com/roi-of-executive-coaching/

Edmondson, A. C. (1999). "Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams." Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350–383. https://doi.org/10.2307/2666999

Google's Project Aristotle findings, summarized in "Psychological Safety at Work: A Comprehensive, Science-Backed Guide for Business Leaders," Leadership IQ — https://www.leadershipiq.com/blogs/leadershipiq/psychological-safety-at-work-a-comprehensive-science-backed-guide-for-business-leaders