Growth Mindset Leadership Training Course

Duration 5 days 10 modules · 33 contact hours
Level Intermediate Certificate on completion
Who attends Department Managers, Team Leaders and others
Fee from USD 1,100 KSh 95,000 for Kenyan organisations
Where 52 cities + online See dates by city
Next start 7 Nov 2026 Course code SD-LD-163

Before you join: Participants should have at least one year of experience leading people, projects, workstreams or cross-functional activity.

Dates & prices

Two start dates a month in every city, and live online on weekdays or weekends. Fees are per participant; classroom fees include tuition, materials, lunch and refreshments, and the certificate.

Suggest a date or city

Showing the next six months. Later dates, other cities and private deliveries for your team are available on request.

Course overview

Leaders are expected to deliver results while helping people adapt, speak up and improve. Under pressure, however, many revert to fixed responses: protecting expertise, avoiding difficult feedback, treating errors as personal failures or rewarding certainty over inquiry. These habits reduce early reporting of risks, weaken development conversations and make teams less able to adjust when priorities, technology or customer needs change. Growth mindset leadership addresses this tension without lowering standards. It gives leaders practical ways to treat capability as developable, test assumptions, learn from evidence and maintain accountability for progress.

This five-day course examines the leadership behaviours, team conditions and management routines that support learning and performance. Participants apply Carol Dweck's mindset concepts with the ABC model, SBI feedback, GROW coaching, the Ladder of Inference, psychological safety practices, PDCA cycles and After-Action Reviews. They learn to recognise defensive patterns, reframe setbacks, conduct productive feedback conversations, coach people through challenge and build team norms that make questions, dissent and risk reporting more likely.

Teaching combines short instructor briefings, realistic leadership cases, facilitated group work, feedback simulations and structured reflection. Cases can be adapted to settings such as public services, banking, multinational operations, NGOs and regulated functions. Participants leave with a personal leadership learning agenda, feedback and coaching templates, a team working agreement and a 90-day application plan. The course is suited to managers who already lead people or projects and need a disciplined approach to developing capability while meeting demanding delivery targets.

What you will be able to do

  • Apply growth mindset principles to leadership decisions, performance expectations and development conversations
  • Diagnose fixed-mindset triggers using trigger mapping and the ABC model
  • Use the Ladder of Inference to test assumptions before acting on interpretations
  • Conduct SBI feedback conversations that address behaviour, impact and future improvement
  • Coach team members using the GROW model, open questions and clear accountability
  • Create psychological safety practices that support challenge, dissent and early risk reporting
  • Run After-Action Reviews that convert outcomes and errors into specific improvements
  • Produce a 90-day growth mindset leadership application plan with behavioural measures

Benefits of attending

For you

  • Recognise and interrupt defensive reactions during demanding leadership situations
  • Give clearer feedback without relying on labels or vague praise
  • Coach employees towards learner-owned actions and measurable commitments
  • Handle mistakes and setbacks without lowering accountability standards
  • Build a 90-day plan for changing two priority leadership habits

For your organisation

  • Earlier escalation of delivery, quality, conduct and operational risks
  • More consistent manager feedback and employee development conversations
  • Reduced blame after setbacks through structured learning reviews
  • Better retention of employees who see credible development opportunities
  • Stronger team adaptation during change, restructuring and new initiatives

Course modules

10 modules over 5 days

Participants can explain growth mindset leadership and distinguish it from lowered performance expectations.

  • Carol Dweck's fixed and growth mindset constructs and evidence boundaries
  • Beliefs about ability, effort and feedback shape leadership behaviour
  • Performance goals distinguished from learning goals using workplace examples
  • Mindset language audit identifies praise, labels and deficit assumptions
  • Growth-oriented leadership means maintaining standards while supporting learning
  • Evidence limits: mindset interventions require systems, practice and accountability

Participants can identify personal fixed-mindset triggers and choose constructive responses under pressure.

  • Trigger mapping links pressure, identity threat and defensive reactions
  • Recognise fixed-mindset cues during targets, errors, challenge and comparison
  • ABC model separates activating events, beliefs and consequences
  • Name emotional signals before choosing a constructive leadership response
  • Reappraisal techniques convert threat appraisals into specific learning questions
  • Implementation intentions prepare if-then responses for recurring leadership triggers

Participants can gather behavioural feedback and test assumptions before making leadership decisions.

  • Johari Window identifies known, hidden and blind leadership patterns
  • Solicit behavioural data rather than global judgments about leadership style
  • Ladder of Inference tests assumptions before acting on interpretations
  • Separate observations, stories, emotions and requests in difficult conversations
  • Personal learning agenda prioritises two leadership habits for change
  • Peer accountability agreements define check-ins, evidence and revision points

Participants can deliver and receive feedback that improves behaviour without triggering defensiveness.

  • SBI feedback frames situation, behaviour and observable impact
  • Feedforward requests generate practical suggestions for future performance
  • Balance candour and respect when addressing repeated performance gaps
  • Receive criticism without defensiveness using clarifying and probing questions
  • Convert feedback themes into behavioural experiments and review dates
  • Document feedback commitments using a manager development log

Participants can use coaching conversations to develop judgement, ownership and follow-through.

  • GROW coaching structures goal, reality, options and way forward
  • Use open questions to surface assumptions and learner-owned solutions
  • Distinguish coaching, mentoring, directing and sponsoring in leadership conversations
  • Contract coaching conversations around purpose, confidentiality and accountability
  • Calibrate challenge and support according to competence and confidence
  • Close coaching sessions with commitments, measures and follow-up dates

Participants can create team conditions where people raise concerns, questions and dissent constructively.

  • Psychological safety enables speaking up, questions and early risk reporting
  • Leader framing clarifies uncertainty, fallibility and the need for input
  • Respond productively to bad news, dissent and reported mistakes
  • Structured turn-taking reduces status effects during problem-solving discussions
  • Team working agreements specify challenge, escalation and decision protocols
  • Differentiate psychological safety from comfort, consensus and low accountability

Participants can turn development needs into measurable learning goals and small leadership experiments.

  • Learning goals define capabilities, practice conditions and evidence of progress
  • Deliberate practice isolates subskills, seeks feedback and increases difficulty
  • Behavioural experiments test leadership assumptions through small, measurable changes
  • PDCA cycles connect planning, action, evidence and adjustment
  • Pre-mortem analysis identifies likely barriers before implementation begins
  • Learning metrics track behaviour frequency, quality and stakeholder impact

Participants can lead structured reviews that turn setbacks into accountable improvement actions.

  • After-Action Reviews examine intent, results, causes and next actions
  • Blameless review principles separate system conditions from individual accountability
  • Failure narratives distinguish preventable errors, experiments and external shocks
  • Root-cause questioning uses Five Whys without premature blame
  • Escalation thresholds define when lessons require process or policy changes
  • Communicate lessons learned without reputational damage or defensive framing

Participants can align everyday people practices with learning, performance and fair accountability.

  • Growth mindset practices enter hiring, onboarding, performance and succession
  • Competency-based assessments focus on observable behaviour and developmental evidence
  • Calibration meetings challenge labels and test talent assumptions with data
  • Reward learning behaviours alongside delivery, quality and risk outcomes
  • Manager routines create recurring feedback, reflection and development opportunities
  • Identify policies that unintentionally punish reporting, questions or experimentation

Participants can produce a practical 90-day plan for applying growth mindset leadership at work.

  • Stakeholder mapping identifies sponsors, critics and affected team members
  • Select one leadership challenge suitable for a 90-day learning plan
  • Define behavioural indicators, baseline evidence and weekly review routines
  • Anticipate resistance using force-field analysis and response actions
  • Secure sponsor support through explicit expectations and progress reporting
  • Application plan schedules experiments, feedback conversations and After-Action Reviews

Exercises and examples are adapted to each cohort's sectors and roles.

What you take back to work

  1. Growth mindset leadership self-assessment
  2. Personal trigger mapping template
  3. SBI feedback conversation planner
  4. GROW coaching question bank
  5. Team psychological safety working agreement
  6. 90-day leadership learning plan

Who should attend

  • Department Managers — need to improve performance without discouraging candour or learning
  • Team Leaders — need practical methods for feedback, coaching and daily development
  • Project Managers — need teams to surface risks, adapt plans and learn from delivery issues
  • Senior Managers — need to shape management routines and talent practices that reward learning
  • HR Business Partners — need to support managers with evidence-based development approaches
  • Programme and Change Leads — need constructive responses to uncertainty, setbacks and resistance

Skills and tools covered

Mindset-based leadershipConstructive feedbackDevelopmental coachingPsychological safetyLearning from failureBehaviour change planning

Tools and standards

Carol Dweck's Growth Mindset Theory, GROW Model, SBI Feedback Model, Ladder of Inference

How the course runs

Training methodology

The course uses short instructor briefings to introduce research, frameworks and leadership techniques, followed by cases based on performance pressure, delivery failures, difficult feedback and change. Participants analyse leadership language, practise coaching and feedback conversations, and work through simulations involving dissent, errors and competing priorities. Facilitated peer review helps participants test assumptions and compare approaches. Each participant builds an application plan linked to a current leadership challenge, with behavioural indicators, feedback sources and review dates.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have at least one year of experience leading people, projects, workstreams or cross-functional activity. They should be familiar with setting objectives, reviewing performance and handling routine workplace conversations. The course assumes a willingness to examine personal leadership habits and receive peer feedback. No psychology qualification, formal coaching credential or prior study of Carol Dweck's work is required. Participants do not need responsibility for organisation-wide culture programmes, although those with such responsibilities will be able to apply the methods at a wider scale.

A typical training day

08:30 – 10:30First session
10:30 – 10:45Refreshment break
10:45 – 12:30Second session
12:30 – 13:30Lunch and networking
13:30 – 15:00Third session
15:00 – 15:15Refreshment break
15:15 – 16:30Workshop and daily review

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in East Africa Time, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

  • Instruction by a practitioner facilitator
  • Full course workbook and materials
  • Exercise files, templates and case studies
  • Refreshments and lunch on classroom deliveries
  • Certificate of completion
  • Post-course application plan

Frequently asked questions

You should have experience leading people, projects, workstreams or cross-functional activity. No coaching qualification, psychology background or prior study of growth mindset theory is required.

Bring a current leadership challenge involving performance, feedback, change, team relationships or development. You may also bring anonymised examples of team objectives, recurring issues or feedback themes.

It is designed for managers, team leaders, project managers, senior managers, HR business partners and change leads. It is most useful for people who need to improve results while building team capability.

General leadership courses often cover a broad range of management topics, while coaching courses focus mainly on one-to-one conversations. This course concentrates on the beliefs, language, routines and team conditions that determine how leaders respond to challenge, feedback and setbacks.

You can use the feedback planner, coaching questions, trigger map and team working agreement in your next management conversations. The 90-day plan identifies a specific workplace challenge, behavioural measures and review dates.

Each training day runs from 08:30 to 16:30 and provides approximately 6.5 contact hours. The five days combine instructor input, case analysis, group work, simulations, peer feedback and application planning across ten modules.

Questions about this course?

Ask about dates, fees, group bookings or running it for your team. Our training team replies by email.

Ask on WhatsApp info@skillsetdevelopment.com

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