This question is similar to another one you’ve heard before, about leaders. Is there a clear answer? Yes. Good managers, like leaders, are made; not born. This is really good news because anyone who wishes to become one, is willing to put in what it takes, can become a good leader or manager. That does [...]

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Are good managers born or made?

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This question is similar to another one you’ve heard before, about leaders. Is there a clear answer? Yes. Good managers, like leaders, are made; not born.

This is really good news because anyone who wishes to become one, is willing to put in what it takes, can become a good leader or manager. That does not mean that people do not have natural talent; what it means is that you can become good at a lot of things including leadership and management if you try. You may not end up becoming the smartest, most popular or the most charismatic person, but you can become a pretty good manager and that is something enviable too. How this can be done at the business level is what we will look at in this article.

I am not saying this because I am a management trainer. When I became one, I knew management skills could be taught. Indeed, I had been taught many. However, I did not know that it is possible to improve our level of intelligence through training and learning. I also did not know that we could change our personalities if we try. But now I know better, thanks to a lot of research that has gone into not just brain science (neuroscience) but also into developmental and social psychology and learning.

Mindset matters more than intelligence

Whether you believe managers are born or made depends on your mindset, says Carol Dweck, one of the world’s leading researchers in the fields of personality, social psychology and developmental psychology. In her book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, she explains that your mindset is a mental attitude that determines how you will interpret and respond to various situations. As a result, your mindset can affect a lot of things including your destiny and success.

According to Dweck, we could have one of two mindsets. Those who believe in inborn talent have a fixed mindset. They believe people are born with a certain level of intelligence (IQ) and that it cannot be developed further. Those with a growth mindset believe people can improve their intelligence with effort and grow.

Our mindset determines how we look at and face effort, learning, failure, criticism and challenges.

For a large part, what we think about the human potential and what we know about the human brain lies at the bottom of our beliefs. For a long time it was believed that people were born with a certain level of intelligence. Even methods, such as IQ, were developed to measure it. Today IQ is not the most important thing, thankfully, having been replaced by EQ, or emotional intelligence and other more relevant metrics.

Genetic lottery vs our versatileand growing brain 

It was believed that we could do nothing to improve our intelligence if we did not win the genetic lottery at birth. But in the past 30 years a whole lot has been discovered about the human brain and how it grows and develops over a lifetime. The concept of neuroplasticity explains how our brain can adapt to varying circumstances and even recover developing new capacity after brain injury. It is the versatility of the human brain and our advanced understanding of how learning takes place that changed and challenged the idea that we are limited by what we were born with.
Today we know that our brain, like our muscles, grow and develop the more we use it. Just as you can strengthen your muscles and develop them—think of body builders and weight lifters—we can strengthen our brain capacity in various ways and improve its function. We can improve memory, cognitive capacity, learn new skills and change our characteristics. In each case our brain too changes accordingly. Many things we do on a daily basis helps improve our brains, including exercise, walking, playing with a kid, writing poetry, doing a jigsaw or a cross word puzzle. Writing this article is changing my brain as I type on my keyboard. A view inside my brain would show exactly which parts of the brain are being used.

Modern technology which allows scientists to take a look at what goes on inside our brains as we do things helps further our understanding of this amazing organ we carry around inside our head. If you appreciate the versatility of the dynamic human brain, you cannot but appreciate the fact that investing energy, time and effort in developing it can increase our intelligence and our brain’s potential.

How mindset affects the workplace

A growth mindset is an asset in the workplace; a fixed mindset a hindrance, both for individuals and for the organisation overall.
When an individual is new on the job, a growth mindset helps them navigate the challenges confronted by all new employees. Talking to strangers; forming relationships; working with people from various backgrounds and different generations; learning both technical and interpersonal skills; and understanding the nuances and undercurrents of a typical workplace. A growth mindset helps confront failure and learn from it. It helps them take criticism in a positive light and improve. They can find inspiration in the rising stars in their field or workplace and strive to be like them.

In midcareer, when additional skills are needed to supplement already honed technical skills, when they are asked to supervise and manage others going beyond their areas of technical expertise, a growth mindset serves them well to keep going without feeling inundated. A growth mindset leader or manager is an organisational asset.

A growth mindset proves immensely useful when career transitions are necessary, when one must change workplaces or even careers or even strike out on their own.

In all of these instances, a fixed mindset can become a hindrance. It can make people scared of and resistant to change, making them shy away from challenges and risks, and limit their growth potential. They will flourish if they find a good fit. But, in the dynamic modern workplace when learning new skills and adapting are ongoing processes, they are likely to feel stressed and troubled, feeling out of depth. Moving out of one’s comfort zone is difficult for fixed minded people because they hate to lose, and see everything as a competition. They have the need to look good from the start.

I was going to write a lot more about this in relation to training, but then I saw that Carol Dweck had addressed the same issue, providing an answer to a very pertinent question in Mindset:

Millions (of dollars) spent on training is ineffective

The answer it appears is due to a mindset. And coming from Dweck, a Professor of Psychology at Stanford University and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, I am bound to take it very seriously. Among all her credentials is also the fact that she once had a fixed mindset herself.

“Millions of dollars and thousands of hours are spent each year trying to teach leaders and managers how to coach their employees and give them effective feedback. Yet much of this training is ineffective, and many leaders and managers remain poor coaches.”

“Is that because this can’t be trained?” she then asks, and provides her own answer: “No, that’s not the reason.” According to her, a lot of research sheds light on why corporate training often fails. It is because “many managers do not believe in personal change”.

Managers who don’t believe a person can change

If you have had any experience with a fixed-mindset manager yourself, especially in the role of underling, brace yourself, because you are going to understand something you never did before.

“These fixed-mindset managers simply look for existing talent—they judge employees as competent or incompetent at the start and that’s that,” says Dweck. “They do relatively little developmental coaching and when employees do improve, they may fail to notice, remaining stuck in their initial impression. What’s more… they are far less likely to seek or accept critical feedback from their employees. Why bother to coach employees if they can’t change and why get feedback from them if you can’t change?”

Seems familiar? Now do you see why some of your bright and promising talent leaves for no good reason? Why managers sometimes rate very good employees as lackluster? Why despite so much of training some managers simply fail to develop their underlings?

Growth mindset managers learn and help others learn

I’ve been immensely lucky that I’ve always had great growth mindset people and bosses around me. They are not afraid to admit things they do not know. In fact they invite you to be a learning partner in new discoveries. “Tell me when you find the answer,” they’d say, boosting your confidence that they trust you to do so on your own. They guide you when you need them and allow you to stretch your limits when the opportunity is offered. They give and ask for feedback and take it seriously. They downplay your mistakes and focus on the future. They don’t shy away from constructive criticism. They are great learners themselves.

More than anything, they do not view talented people as their competition. The best managers would be more than willing to hand over their job to you, provided you have proven your ability. And they notice all your improvements and share the joy in your accomplishments.
Mindsets fall into a continuum

Some believe that people are able to develop their abilities but are not likely to change their personality or characteristics. Others may believe that people can change neither their abilities nor their characteristics—tigers cannot change their stripes; can’t teach old dogs new tricks and so on… So people fall within a continuum with strong growth mindset at one end and a strong fixed mindset at the other.

But the good news is that we can change it all. Of course, no one wants to change growth to fixed unless they are having some nefarious agenda in mind. These days, in this complicated world, you cannot always rule that out either. Just listen to news if you don’t believe me.

Yes, your managers can change!

If you have growth-mindset managers, of course they can. And they will; given the opportunity, or even otherwise. Fixed-mindsets can be turned into growth mindsets too. But that will take some effort on your part.

Remember, organisational change does not come overnight. People who’ve embraced a fixed mindset will not change overnight either. But they can. Researchers like Dweck have shown that even a few sentences spoken in a language that encourages a growth mindset can soften a fixed mindset; and vice versa.

But to change someone in a significant way, you need to give them the opportunity. And that opportunity must begin with the realisation of the versatility of the human brain. Without appreciating that the fixed intelligence theory they subscribed all this time to is wrong, no change is going to come about. Intensive discussion and knowledge about this must be the first step in any serious effort at changing a fixed mindset to a growth one.

At a recent workshop I got my participants—all company directors—to assess their own mindsets. All of them turned out to be growth mindset people; but some had stronger growth mindsets than others. Thinking back, it was clear that I could have spotted the two groups had I been really paying attention.

Adopting a growth mindset culture

Another key to change is adopting a learning and growth culture in the workplace. You know how some workplaces send their employees to training and then… nothing? The training then becomes a cost, not an investment. Others actually require employees to report what they learnt and how they can use that learning in the workplace. The best kind actually let employees make changes according to what they learnt and follow up to see whether the changes actually benefited the workplace, the individual and other employees.

If you want a growth-mindset workplace, begin with the CEO, the Board (depending on the size of organisation), division heads and the Head of HR. Without high level growth minded support there is going to be little change achieved regardless of how many millions you spend on training.

Use feed-forward, not feedback

Feed-forward is simply giving an assessment of work done, or achieved but doing so with a forward looking attitude. Finding out ‘what went wrong?’ and ‘how did it happen?’ is important, but what is more important is asking ‘how can we avoid this mistake or similar ones in the future?’ Lay off the blame and focus on growth potential. Feed-forward allows for growth mindsets to flourish because it assumes people can change and avoid the same mistakes in the future.

Language makes a difference

To encourage a growth mindset, within yourself, or in others, it is necessary to use growth oriented language. Recently I took an online MOOC (massive online open course) with Coursera.org on Character Growth and Creating Positive Class Rooms. While the course was focusing on kids, I learnt a lot of things that are applicable to my own self and for my training work with adults.

Among other things it discussed was the 24 character strengths found in Positive Psychology and showed how character-growth language (encouraging both character strengths and growth mindset) can be built into any class room activities regardless of subject.

If an employee says “Boss I got through the exam, got a B and … ”, what will you say? If you are a growth mindset manager, you’d say, “I know you studied hard, so well done. Try harder, I am sure you can do better next time…” Your focus would be on effort and the potential for growth.
Same works with someone who has achieved a difficult sales target. “Good chap, you are talented,” is not growth mindset language as it focuses neither on effort or growth. It may make the employee feel good and superior to others, but may not encourage more effort… Why should he, he’s good and talented, and the boss said so. If you say to others, “Look at Saman. When he joined he was not so confident. Today he has outdone everyone. Even I’d find it hard to meet this target the way he did. Hard work, commitment and not giving up are his secrets. He learnt them on the job. So can you.” This encourages not just one employee, but inspires others too to strive towards their targets and to learn on the job.
Words and language matter. So does the tone of voice and the level of enthusiasm. So do the way we respond, whether we do so constructively or destructively; and whether we do so passively or actively, with enthusiasm. Small changes in our managerial style can bring about big changes.
Companies who cannot afford to
recruit the cream of the crop
Human talent is the cutting edge competitive tool in the ever changing world of business. Great talent is something that any company can develop for itself, if only they believe it can be done. If you are a small or medium business, and cannot afford to pay top salaries to recruit ‘top talent’, now you have another option. Grow your own talent.
Intelligence is overrated. What matters is mindset and commitment to effort; and wanting to achieve mastery in whatever endeavour. Recruit those with a growth mindset. And develop them and those within the business already. You will discover that your employees can do wonders given a growth mindset workplace and an average level of intelligence. Now it’s up to you.
(The writer is a Chartered Management Accountant by profession with an MBA from the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. She is a freelance trainer with nearly two decades of experience. Nilooka can be contacted at
sbimagazine@yahoo.co.uk)

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