Seeing Outward
- Dr. Cindy Petersen

- 4 hours ago
- 2 min read
“With an outward mindset, people are able to consider and behave in way that further the collective results that they are committed to achieve.” The Outward Mindset, The Arbinger Institute
For a long time, I thought empowerment leadership was mostly about what leaders do: delegate tasks, create autonomy, share decision-making. And yet I often noticed a quiet gap in that people complied, but ownership and energy didn’t always follow.
Reading The Outward Mindset by The Arbinger Institute helped me see why Arbinger distinguishes between an inward mindset, where we see others as objects and an outward mindset, where we genuinely see people as whole individuals with their own goals, pressures, and needs. The insight is simple but profound: leadership is less about what we do and more about how we see others.
This resonates strongly with decades of research on empowerment leadership. Psychological empowerment theory (Spreitzer, 1995) identifies four dimensions (meaning, competence, self-determination, and impact) that influence whether employees feel empowered. You can create structures to support these dimensions, but if leaders unconsciously view employees as resources to manage rather than as partners, empowerment is unlikely to take root. Leader–member exchange research (Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995) shows employees sense even subtle cues of trust or distrust. An inward mindset quietly undermines autonomy, initiative, and engagement.
I began noticing it in my own work. I would delegate projects, but secretly hope things went “my way.” I would ask for input, but internally filter it through my expectations. On paper, I was empowering. In practice, I was still holding on too tightly.

The outward mindset changes that. By focusing on others’ needs and challenges, empowerment stops being a set of behaviors and becomes relational. It aligns with self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000): autonomy, competence, and relatedness flourish when leaders genuinely see and support others. Accountability doesn’t disappear, it becomes collaborative rather than controlling, and performance conversations shift from compliance to growth.
As a leader, when I pause to consider: “What is this person carrying? What do they need to succeed?” meetings change, ideas flourish, and energy spreads. Empowerment grows not necessarily because I give more authority, but because I trust more deeply and others can feel it.
The lesson is clear: true empowerment begins with how we see people. Structures, delegation, and autonomy are important, but they are amplified or diminished by mindset. Leadership isn’t just about what we do. It’s about where we’re looking.
And that shift from inward to outward may be one of the simplest, yet most profound, ways to transform not just teams, but the leaders we are becoming.

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