Written by Diane Laschet, Executive Coach at Performant by SCOA
Diane brings decades of international executive experience and a deep commitment to coaching high-performing teams. As part of Quanta U.S.’s new strategic alliance with Performant by SCOA—a premier Italian executive coaching firm—Diane’s insights reflect our shared mission to support Italian companies thriving in the U.S. market through integrated recruiting and leadership development solutions.
What if your belief about yourself, not your skills or circumstances, was the most powerful predictor of your growth?
This is the central insight of Carol Dweck’s Self-Theories, a foundational body of research that reshaped how we understand motivation, learning, and achievement. In my coaching work with leaders navigating transformation, Dweck’s concepts are not abstract theory—they’re everyday reality. How a person thinks about their abilities quietly shapes how they lead, how they respond to failure, and how far they believe they can go.
Fixed vs. Growth: The Story We Tell Ourselves
Dweck describes two dominant “self-theories”: the fixed mindset and the growth mindset.
A fixed mindset assumes that intelligence, character, and ability are static—that you either have it or you don’t. For people operating from this story, failure is threatening. It doesn’t mean “I tried something and learned.” It means “I’m not good enough.” One failed meeting or one piece of negative feedback can feel like an identity collapse.
In contrast, a growth mindset is rooted in the belief that our basic qualities can be cultivated through effort, learning, and experience. From this perspective, failure is feedback—not identity. It’s a signal that something didn’t work, not that you are broken.
As a coach, I’ve seen the deep emotional difference between these mindsets. Fixed mindset leaders tend to avoid risk, mask their vulnerabilities, and struggle with impostor feelings. Growth mindset leaders stay curious, ask for feedback, and recover faster when things go wrong. The mindset becomes a multiplier—or a limiter—on everything else they do.
Praise the process, not the person
Dweck’s research also carries a critical reminder for how we give feedback—to ourselves and others. Praise that focuses on inherent talent (“You’re so smart”, “You’re a natural”) often reinforces a fixed identity. It may feel good at the moment, but it subtly sends the message: “Don’t fail, or you’ll lose this label.”
Coaching helps shift the spotlight: from outcome to process, from talent to tenacity. I encourage clients to praise effort, strategy, persistence, and learning. Not because effort is everything—but because it’s the part they can control. And when leaders model this mindset with their teams, they create cultures of learning rather than perfection.
Changing your Self-Theory is possible
The most hopeful aspect of Dweck’s work? Self-theories are not fixed. They can evolve. And in coaching, they often do.
The first step is awareness: noticing how you talk to yourself after a mistake, how you interpret setbacks, and what you believe is “just the way you are.” Once those internal messages are made visible, we can begin to challenge and reframe them. We can ask: What if failure is not a verdict, but a clue? What would I try if I believed I could grow into it?
These shifts are not instant. They require reflection, support, and repetition. But the change is profound. A leader who used to retreat from tough conversations might begin to view them as opportunities to expand his/her range. A manager who feared delegating might learn that leadership isn’t about proving worth—it’s about building others up.
What belief will you upgrade today?
Every day, we reinforce or reshape the story we tell ourselves. Self-theories are built through experience, language, and reflection. Coaching helps bring all three into alignment.
So I invite you to ask yourself:
What belief about myself is holding me back?