Gardener

Elder

Maker

Leadership Practices

Growth Mindset

Embrace challenges, build resilience and turn failures into learning opportunities

Table of Contents

Introduction

Failure is an integral part of every endeavor, particularly in the context of responsible innovation. Instead of treating it as something to be avoided, it’s helpful to look at failure as an opportunity to uncover insights, challenge assumptions, and strengthen solutions. The ability to learn from failure and build resilience is a particularly valuable leadership practice when experimentation, pivoting, and iteration are central to progress.

This practice is based on the work of psychologist Carol Dweck. She coined the term ‘growth mindset,’ defined as the belief that our abilities and intelligence can be developed through dedication, hard work, and continuous learning. Adopting a growth mindset helps you focus on reframing failure as a source of learning while cultivating the emotional and operational resilience needed to adapt and move forward effectively.

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When to use this practice

Cultivating a growth mindset is essential when teams need to:

Develop resilience in the face of setbacks or unexpected challenges;
Navigate change during periods of organizational transformation or industry disruption;
Break out of established patterns and explore new ideas;
Enhance performance and accelerate learning to overcome challenges or achieve tasks.

Instead of halting progress, this practice helps teams view failure as an opportunity to gather insights, improve their solutions, and build resilience in the face of uncertainty.

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How to develop this practice

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1. Recognize your current mindset

In her 2006 book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Carol Dweck explains the growth mindset by contrasting it with a fixed mindset, which assumes that our character, intelligence, and creative ability are static givens that we can't change in any meaningful way. This mindset is often reinforced in our youth by societal signals as well education systems that instill an avoidance of failure due to reliance on grades and test scores.

As such, most of us adopt a fixed mindset when facing challenges in adulthood. The first step to adopting a growth mindset is to recognize the situations in which you are stuck in a fixed mindset. Do you avoid challenges in certain domains? Do you give up easily when things get tough? Identify the areas in which you need to step out of your fixed mindset in order to innovate more effectively.

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2. Reframe failure as feedback

Shift the narrative around failure. When faced with a difficult task, consciously reframe it as an opportunity to learn and grow rather than a test of your abilities. Instead of portraying it as something negative, demonstrate that it is a natural part of innovation. Treat failure as a feedback loop that provides valuable data for improvement.

Focus on questions like: What did we learn? What assumptions were tested? How can we adapt? Normalize sharing stories of failure and learning across teams to reinforce that failure is a shared experience and a path to growth.

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3. Foster psychological safety

Resilience can only be built in environments where people feel safe to take risks, admit mistakes, and experiment without fear of blame. As a leader, model vulnerability by sharing your own experiences of failure and what you learned. This builds trust and encourages others to do the same. Reinforce that failure is acceptable when it leads to meaningful learning, as long as accountability and reflection follow.

Learning from failure also requires emotional adaptability—the ability to maintain perspective, focus, and optimism in the face of setbacks. Separate individual self-worth from outcomes. Failure is a natural part of experimentation and growth—it does not define ability or value. Clarifying this for your team will also help build psychological safety.

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4. Start small and learn fast

Embrace purposeful failure by running small, low-risk experiments to test assumptions early and often. This prevents large-scale setbacks and allows teams to learn incrementally. Break ambitious ideas into smaller components that can be tested quickly. Ask: What’s the smallest, most cost-effective experiment we can run to test this idea? Celebrate experiments that produce valuable insights, even if they fail to achieve the intended result. Each test brings teams closer to success.

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5. Observe patterns and adapt

Regularly reflect on your experiences, both successes and failures, to extract lessons and insights. Treat failures as signals for better questions: What does this teach us about the system? What unexpected opportunities might this uncover? Add the word "yet" to statements about what you or your team can't do. For example, "We haven't found a solution yet" instead of "We can't solve this problem.” Some other examples: “I cannot do this, yet.” “I haven't figured this out yet.” “I am not where I want to be, yet.”

Continuously adapt processes, solutions, and behaviors based on what has been learned. Over time, this creates a culture of growth and resilience.

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Benefits of this practice

Developing the ability to learn from failure and build resilience enables teams to:

Improve morale: Embracing failure fosters a more positive, supportive work environment where effort is valued and mistakes are seen as part of the learning process.
Accelerate learning: Each failure reveals insights that help teams pivot and adapt more quickly, making them more flexible and open to new approaches.
Innovate boldly: Psychological safety and small-scale testing encourage teams to experiment with ambitious ideas.
Reduce risk: Learning early from small experiments prevents large-scale setbacks later.
Strengthen collaboration: Navigating challenges together builds trust, empathy, and shared purpose.

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How to take this further

To deepen your team’s ability to learn from failure and build resilience:

Share failures and learnings openly: Create a culture of transparency where teams document and share their failures, insights, and adaptations. Tools like Notion or Confluence can help formalize learning repositories.
Integrate AI for experimentation: Use AI-powered tools to accelerate testing and surface risks. Platforms such as DataRobot or Synthesia AI can simulate scenarios, validate assumptions, and minimize the cost of failure.
Build emotional awareness: Train leaders and teams to manage stress, reflect productively, and support one another. Programs that focus on mindfulness and emotional intelligence strengthen team resilience over time.

By adopting this practice, teams can turn failure into fuel for growth—learning faster, adapting more effectively, and building the resilience needed to navigate complex, systemic challenges.

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