3 Ways a Growth Mindset Helps You Become an Effective Mentor

Research shows that people have different learning styles. While some people love learning, others do not – they avoid challenging tasks or new learning opportunities. Standford University’s Dr. Carol Dweck founded the theory of Growth Mindset vs Fixed Mindset. When people have a fixed mindset, they believe that an individual’s abilities are unchanged and predetermined at birth. Meanwhile, people with a growth mindset believe that an individual can learn new skills and qualities along the way. 

For people looking to advance their careers or seek out a mentor, it’s incredibly important to have a growth mindset. Similarly, as a mentor, it’s equally important to have a growth mindset so you can support your mentee. 

If you’re a mentoring program admin, this article will also help you to understand how to set your mentors up for success…

As a mentor, do you have more of a fixed or growth mindset? How does having a growth mindset help improve mentoring outcomes? How does a growth mindset help organisations? In this article, we’ll answer these questions for you.

Growth Mindset vs Fixed Mindset: What's the Difference?

How do you respond to setbacks? Do you tend to complain and try to avoid them as much as you can? Or do you embrace these challenges as a way to learn new things and adapt to them? Use the chart below to determine whether you have more of a fixed vs. growth mindset.

In her book, "Mindset," Dweck, described a growth mindset as: 

“In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point. This creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment.”

Meanwhile, a person with a fixed mindset believes that one's abilities are innate. These people usually need to be more interested in learning new things.

How a Growth Mindset Improves Mentoring Outcomes

So how does a Growth Mindset help improve your mentoring outcomes? Having a growth mindset improves the experience for your mentees as well as helping you to develop your mentoring skills. As a mentor, you are a role model to your mentee, so it is important to have a growth mindset to encourage life-long learning.  Here's how this mindset helps improve mentoring:

It Encourages Feedback

When you model the growth mindset to your mentees, you are teaching and reinforcing to them that abilities and skills can be developed and are not fixed. You are encouraging them to learn, be creative, try new things and see feedback as a gift. Mentees are more likely to ask for feedback and take action based on their mentor’s feedback when they have a growth mindset and when they create a safe space. 

As a mentor, you can also ask for feedback on your own mentoring style. Mentoring is a two-way process and feedback should be given and received throughout the relationship.

It Encourages Continuous Learning

While your mentees are learning, you get to see how they change their thought patterns, behaviour and habits. 

A Growth Mindset teaches you to embrace your mistakes along with your mentees. Having a growth mindset means that people are comfortable with failing or making mistakes as that is a part of the learning process. As a mentor, it is your responsibility to create a safe space where mentees feel they can be vulnerable to any pitfalls or mistakes, and have an open conversation about what they have learnt. 

To promote a growth mindset, as a mentor you can share an example of a recent mistake you’ve made. This helps to reduce the power imbalance that often occurs in mentoring and encourages your mentee to be candid with you about their mistakes and learning too.

It Encourages Growth

Growth comes from leaning into feedback, continuous learning, and effort (rather than the mentee thinking their efforts aren’t useful). Mentors should also want to continuously grow and develop mentoring skills through reflection, training, and many more. Having a growth mindset encourages personal and professional growth.

Why Do Organisations Need to Embrace a Growth Mindset? 

Dr. Dweck best explained the importance of organisations embracing a growth mindset: 

“When entire companies embrace a growth mindset, their employees report feeling far more empowered and committed; they also receive far greater organisational support for collaboration and innovation. In contrast, people at primarily fixed-mindset companies report more of only one thing: cheating and deception among employees, presumably to gain an advantage in the talent race.”

In one study, organisations that adopt the Growth Mindset generate 17% revenue annually compared to their counterparts who use the fixed mindset. This draws out the importance of having a growth mindset, which isn’t just a simple switch that you either have or don’t. Instead, having a growth mindset needs ongoing practice, especially for managers or people in a position of power. With mentoring now on the fourth spot of learning and development strategies being considered by L&D teams, the importance of a mentoring program cannot be denied. 

The most successful mentoring programs are training both mentees and mentors on growth mindset and how they can bring that to their mentoring relationship. Brancher’s has bite-sized e-learning for mentees and mentors to ensure all participants have the right mindset to make the most of their mentorship opportunity.

Conclusion

Having a Growth Mindset helps you to be an effective mentor. Knowing the difference between a growth mindset vs a fixed mindset is the first step to improving your growth mindset. You can build your growth mindset through training, reflection and mentoring discussions. As a mentor, having a growth mindset allows you to seek out feedback and focus on your mentee’s growth and learning as well as your own. 

Use Brancher’s mentoring software to create a culture of mentoring and a growth mindset at your organisation. Use Brancher’s science-based AI matching algorithm to pair staff across your organisation for growth and employee retention. You can book a demo to see our tool in action or reach out for further information today.

Resources:

1. AL-Roomy, Muhammad A. (2023). The Relationship Among Students’ Learning Styles, Health Sciences Colleges, and Grade Point Average (GPA). Department of English, King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences, King Abdullah International Medical Research Center (KAIMRC), Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9999718/#:~:text=The%20results%20indicated%20that%20the%20students%20demonstrated%20a%20range%20of%20learning%20style%20preferences.

2. Statistica Research Department. (2012, November 30). Lifestyle statement: Importance of learning new things throughout life in the UK 2012. https://www.statista.com/statistics/319518/importance-of-learning-new-things-throughout-life-uk/

3. Dweck, Carol. (2014, December). The power of believing that you can improve. TED talk.  https://www.ted.com/speakers/carol_dweck?ref=betaglyph.com

4. Dweck, Carol. (2016, January 13). What Having a "Growth Mindset" Actually Means. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2016/01/what-having-a-growth-mindset-actually-means 

5. Mollie. (2022, August 4). How a growth mindset leads to higher profits. https://www.mollie.com/papers/growth-trends-whitepaper-mindset

6. Taylor, Donald H. (2022, February 8). L&D GLOBAL SENTIMENT SURVEY 2022: THE LONG SHADOW OF COVID-19. DonaldHTaylor.co.uk.  https://donaldhtaylor.co.uk/insight/gss2022-results-01-general/