It is hard to find something cool about a psychologist writing another one of those books on motivation, be it a self-helper, a ‘call for action’ or simple jane’s ‘confidence builder’. Not when you are Carol Dweck and your research is being talked about as the next hot thing in developmental psychology though. In her new book titled “The handbook of competence and motivation”, Carol Dweck provides a new dimension to some widely accepted notions on what comprises a “Growth Mindset” - an attitude which believes that values need necessarily not be inherent but can be acquired over time.

In contrast to centuries of accepted wisdom that there is a set of characteristic traits that make a leader, Carol is trying to drive the notion that the most effective leaders could often be associated with a ‘Growth Mindset‘, more of a ‘rapid, prototypal, evolutionary type which believes that it is possible to grow quickly and acquire any skill sets/values, instead of worrying about why or how these qualities/skills are not inherent in the individual.

In short, it tries to reiterate some previous sentiment in psychology that successful leaders believe that such qualities can be acquired as part of their “Growth Mindset“. However, people with a “fixed mindset” tend to believe that leadership values are mostly inherent and may not be easily acquired .

In her research spanning several years and subject studies spanning entrepreneurs to race care drivers, Carol claims that people would handle notions and challenges differently, based on whether they have a Growth Mindset or not.

Here are some pointers she offers in her book:

• Growth Mindset believes that intelligence can be developed over time, ofcourse, with increasing patience, practice and perseverance.
• Growth Mindset runs towards challenges, instead of running away from them. This creates a strong potential for evolutionary improvements in the human brain.
• Growth Mindset does not try to give up when the going gets tough. This sort of strikes a bell with the famous line - “It is not the bad start but the bad stop that prevents people from reaching their goals”
• Growth Mindset believes in learning quickly from others stories’ - be it getting a dose of inspiration from successes or a lesson from mistakes. It quickly learns from criticism - be it on self or other people’s failures and tries to use that source of information to get better as a differential engine.

Carol also associates the Growth Mindset with a greater sense of free will and hints at the possibility that people may not have all the traits of a “Growth Mindset” or otherwise, always. It is not an either-or. A friend of mine who read the book admitted to thinking that he was a “Growth Mindset”, when, upon careful analysis, he subsequently found that does have certain fixed mindset aspects that were blocking his growth.

So, this may definitely not be an either-or situation for most people and it may help to look at some basic pointers that Carol offers in her book to try and understand the “Growth Mindset” side of our personality as well as the “fixed Mindset” one.