Applying Growth Mindset to School Leadership

Applying Carol Dweck’s Growth Mindset to School Leadership

I finally got around to reading Carol Dweck’s Mindset: Changing The Way You Think To Fulfil Your Potential this summer. I didn’t realise it had a section on leadership. The growth mindset philosophy teaches that intelligence and abilities can be developed through effort, good strategies, and help from others. A growth mindset not only influences how students learn but also affects how effective schools and leaders can be. Applying growth mindset principles to school leadership can transform school culture and student outcomes.

Develop an Open, Learning Orientation

As a school leader, adopt a growth mindset towards your own ability as a principal. See challenges and setbacks as opportunities for you and your staff to learn and improve. Focus on growing and developing, not proving yourself. Communicate this growth mindset to your staff and students. Promote an atmosphere of learning, creativity and risk-taking. Listen openly to new ideas from teachers, students and parents.

Grow and Develop Your Staff

Provide professional development, mentoring and coaching to help teachers improve their practice. Recognise that teaching skills can be honed through effort and persistence, not just innate talent. Focus evaluations on growth, not just results. Reward collaborative efforts that foster development. She suggests removing teachers who create a fixed mindset culture through harsh criticism.

Serve Students’ Learning Needs

Create Individualised growth plans for students that build on strengths while targeting struggle areas. Work with teachers to identify and remove obstacles to student progress. Provide timely interventions and adjustments to instruction that help all students advance. Celebrate effort and the strategies students use to master challenges.

Build a Collaborative Team

Foster teamwork and collaboration among teachers and staff to leverage the collective strengths and expertise. Reward performance based more on school results than individual departments. Ensure open communication where dissenting opinions are heard and considered. Promote a “we can do it” attitude that improvement is possible through focused effort.

What Does Carol Dweck Say about Growth Mindset in Leadership?

Here is a summary of the key points from Carol Dweck’s book – Mindset that relate to school leadership:

• Fixed-mindset leaders tend to focus on validating themselves and proving their superiority rather than growing and developing. They worry more about how decisions will make them look good rather than serve the long-term goals or vision of the company (or school for the purposes of this post).
• Growth-mindset leaders believe in human potential and development. They focus on fostering growth for themselves, employees, and the company. They view leadership as a journey of growth and passion rather than a quest to prove their brilliance.
• Jack Welch, Lou Gerstner, and Anne Mulcahy are examples of growth-mindset leaders who transformed their companies by rooting out the fixed mindset and creating a culture of growth. They focused on teamwork, development of people, and serving customers.
• Fixed-mindset leaders tend to treat subordinates harshly to boost their own ego. They often punish dissent and create an atmosphere of groupthink instead of open discussion. We cannot tolerate this in education we need kind compassionate staff and need to retain those passionate about education.
• Having a growth mindset when making important decisions can help relieve people of illusions of fixed ability, leading to more open discussion and better decisions.
• The article suggests leaders develop a growth mindset by being open to new ideas regardless of source, focusing on inner hunger rather than credentials, and being willing to learn from mistakes. Rewarding teamwork and removing brutal bosses can also help foster a growth culture.

The key takeaway for school leaders would be to develop a growth mindset and foster growth mindset values in your organization. This involves open communication, developing people, serving students’ needs, rewarding teamwork, and removing authoritarian behaviours that stifle growth and learning. An atmosphere of growth and passion for learning can then permeate the entire school culture.

A growth mindset orientation as a school leader can permeate the school culture with a passion for learning, improvement and development. When students, teachers and staff – the whole school community, see problems and challenges as opportunities and embrace challenges, remarkable school improvement should become possible. You may also find our post on three must read books for school leaders useful.

Carol Dweck Mindset Quotes For School Leaders

The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it’s not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset. This is the mindset that allows people to thrive during some of the most challenging times in their lives.”
― Carol S. Dweck

“no matter what your ability is, effort is what ignites that ability and turns it into accomplishment.”
― Carol S. Dweck

“We like to think of our champions and idols as superheroes who were born different from us. We don’t like to think of them as relatively ordinary people who made themselves extraordinary.”
― Carol Dweck