Have you noticed some areas of your life or work where you feel supremely confident? And other areas you feel like a gibbering wreck? Or is it just me?
We all have skills, abilities, things we are able to do. And we all have things that we don’t know how to do.
Mindset theory is not about what we can and can’t do. It’s about our beliefs. Whether we believe that we can change, develop and learn the things that we aren’t currently good at. Useful for us, and for our coachees too…
Coaches: Is your mindset fixed or growth?
The work on mindset comes from Professor Carol Dweck. She has spent 45 years trying to work out the answer to this question “what makes some people engage in learning and developing themselves, and others avoid it?”
It stemmed from her own youthful experience. She started to notice what happened to her and her classmates when they were labelled, evaluated and categorised. The theory has been well tested, validated and written about extensively. Essentially it is this:
- Most people have a core set of beliefs that can be categorised in one of two different ways – fixed or growth mindset
- This is not a fixed set of personality criteria, but can change according to situation and circumstances
- The theory is more about beliefs about ourselves than about fixed traits
| Fixed mindset – sometimes called entity theory | Growth mindset – sometimes called incremental theory |
| Our intelligence and other core traits are fixed We can’t influence them So effort is fruitless, failure is crushing, feedback is resisted, and giving up is frequent | Our intelligence and other core traits are fluid, adaptable and can be improved with our effort Failure is part of the learning process Feedback is welcomed and effort is at the heart of their activities |
As an example, imagine a typical morning. By 8.30 three things have gone wrong – a missed train, a spilt coffee, and a phone that ran out of charge. People who are operating from a fixed mindset are more likely to blame themselves, be harsh on themselves and catastrophise. People with a growth mindset are more likely to see these as annoyances that can be overcome.
Key point – it’s about the beliefs, and not the facts!! We know that fixed mindset beliefs aren’t true – we can improve our physical traits, our memories, our neurons…… But that doesn’t matter – if we believe that we can’t change, then that is the truth for us.
Were approaches like mindset covered in your coaching qualification training? We cover plenty of useful skills in our ILM coaching qualifications.
Mindset theory: how can it help in coaching?
Since I learnt about mindset, over a decade ago now, I have applied these principles to my own beliefs. And I have used it extensively in coaching. Here is what seems to be the most useful elements:
Mindset is useful for the coach’s self-awareness. Having a growth mindset is really useful for us, as coaches, learning and improving our professional practice. We are mostly working alone, relying on our own efforts to improve our skills. So it really helps to have growth mindset tendencies, such as:
- resilience
- tenacity
- openness to feedback
- seeing failures as works in progress
- not comparing ourselves with others
They aren’t coaching skills in themselves. They are attitudes and approaches that are likely to help us improve as coaches.
We’ve also explained more about the coaching skills every leader needs.
Useful for our coachee. Once aware of how fixed and growth mindset approaches work, we will be listening for clues from our coachees. If they are bringing a growth mindset approach to the situation, we can ask them strengths-based questions to build on this. If they are bringing a fixed mindset approach to the situation, that’s fine too. We can hear that, be understanding and also gently challenge or help raise their awareness to this.
As you get more experienced in this area, you’ll start to hear these things shining through. The things I am especially looking out for to give me clues about fixed mindsets are:
- Giving up
- Over dependence on feedback, or upset about feedback
- Needing affirmation and praise, especially from partners and managers
- Fixed beliefs about their own traits and those of others
- Setting the bar too low
- Comparing with others
These are great clues that the coachee is currently stuck in a fixed place, at least in relation to the topic in question. And then I find the time, and the question that helps raise their awareness. Often something like “do you believe these things can change?” helps. It creates some deep thought and the beginning of a realisation that things could be different.
Growth mindset for coaches: next steps
There are hundreds of theories and approaches to motivation available to us – mindset isn’t the only one. But it has been incredibly useful, and one of the main ones I have chosen to study deeply. It has helped deepen my understanding of myself, and of my coachees, significantly!
If you want to find out more, get in contact and I’ll happily share knowledge and resources. We also run a regular mindset for coaches training programme, to give coaches the opportunity to explore this more deeply.
Happy coaching
