Making Good Decisions
Overview
Some managers seem to make consistently good decisions, even in the face of uncertainty. Have you wondered why? The secret might be simpler than you think.
Did you know that according to a Harvard Business Review study, employees in organizations that support growth mindsets are 65% more likely to take risk that leads to innovation? That’s huge!
The secret is hidden as you might have already assumed in a growth mindset. A growth mindset—the belief that abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—isn’t just for personal development; it’s a powerful framework for making better business decisions!
Throughout my career of coaching high-achieving professionals, I’ve observed that the way you think about challenges directly impacts the quality of your decisions.
As of now in this article, I’ll share practical strategies for developing a growth mindset that will help you make better decisions, navigate uncertainty, and lead your team to greater success.
Key Takeaways
- A growth mindset transforms how managers approach decision-making by embracing challenges as opportunities
- Leaders with growth mindsets make 34% more innovative decisions than those with fixed mindsets
- Risk-taking becomes strategic rather than scary when viewed through a growth mindset lens
- Decision-making improves when failures are treated as valuable feedback rather than permanent setbacks
- Developing resilience through a growth mindset helps managers navigate uncertainty and adapt to changing circumstances
- Growth-oriented leaders create psychological safety that improves team decision-making processes
- Overview
- Key Takeaways
- Understanding the Growth Mindset for Better Decision-Making
- The Neuroscience Behind Growth Mindset and Decision-Making
- Embracing Failure as Feedback: The Growth Mindset Approach
- Taking Calculated Risks: Growth Mindset and Strategic Risk-Taking
- Developing Decision Resilience Through Growth Mindset
- Fostering a Team Culture of Growth-Oriented Decision-Making
- Conclusion
- What To Do Next?
- Frequently Asked Questions
Understanding the Growth Mindset for Better Decision-Making
I still remember the first major decision I had to make as a new nurse team leader. We needed to revamp our patient handover process completely, and everyone had strong opinions about it. I was terrified of making the wrong choice and having the entire team blame me!
Looking back, I was stuck in what psychologist Carol Dweck calls a “fixed mindset” – believing that my decision-making ability was limited and couldn’t improve.
The difference between fixed and growth mindsets is night and day when it comes to making good decisions. Those with fixed mindsets believe their abilities are static traits – you’re either a good decision-maker or you’re not.
In contrast, managers with growth mindsets see decision-making as a skill that can be developed through effort and learning. This fundamental difference affects everything from how you approach problems to how you recover from mistakes.
Brain science backs this up! Neuroplasticity research shows our brains physically change and develop new neural pathways throughout life. This means your decision-making abilities aren’t set in stone – they can literally grow stronger with practice and the right mindset. When I started viewing my leadership decisions through this lens, everything changed.
Fixed mindset thinking creates common decision traps that plague many managers.
These include:
- avoiding challenging decisions for fear of failure
- seeking only information that confirms existing beliefs
- taking criticism of decisions personally rather than constructively
What’s fascinating is how quickly your decision quality improves once you embrace a growth mindset. You become more likely to consider diverse perspectives, more willing to gather contradictory information, and more capable of adapting when new data emerges. In my experience, it’s like suddenly having access to decision-making superpowers you didn’t know you had!
Pro Tip: Pay attention to your language when making decisions. Phrases like “I’m just not good at financial decisions” indicate a fixed mindset. Try replacing them with growth-oriented alternatives like “I’m still developing my skills in financial decision-making.” This small shift can dramatically change your approach.
Fixed vs. Growth: How Your Mindset Affects Your Choices
Have you ever experienced yourself freezing up when faced with a high-stakes decision? That’s often a fixed mindset trigger in action.
This is how to recognize it:
I’ve seen this play out in real organizations with real consequences. Two technology managers faced similar market shifts requiring significant strategy changes. The fixed mindset manager doubled down on the existing approach despite mounting evidence it wasn’t working, while the growth-oriented manager viewed the challenge as an opportunity to develop new capabilities. Six months later, the difference in outcomes was striking – adaptation versus stagnation.
What’s particularly interesting is that everyone shifts between mindsets situationally. You might have a growth mindset about technical decisions but a fixed mindset about interpersonal ones. Becoming aware of these patterns is the first step toward more consistent growth-oriented decision-making across all domains.
Pro Tip: Create a “mindset check” pause before major decisions. Ask yourself: “Am I avoiding any perspectives that might prove me wrong?” This simple practice helps identify when fixed mindset thinking might be narrowing your options.
The Neuroscience Behind Growth Mindset and Decision-Making
The science behind how our brains make decisions is absolutely fascinating!
During my psychology studies, I was amazed to learn how neural pathways form and strengthen with repeated use – it’s like creating superhighways for certain thought patterns.
I’ve definitely experienced this myself – during high-pressure situations as a nurse, my thinking would narrow dramatically.
There are practical techniques to rewire your brain for better growth-oriented decisions. Some of them deliberately involve:
- feedback
- conscious choices to approach problems with curiosity rather than judgment
- reflecting on the results and
- mindfulness meditation
All these techniques have shown to strengthen the brain regions involved in self-awareness and emotional regulation, both crucial for maintaining a growth mindset during challenging decisions.
What I find most encouraging about the neuroscience is that these changes happen at any age. Your brain remains adaptable throughout life, meaning it’s never too late to shift from predominantly fixed to growth-oriented decision-making.
Some of my most dramatic client transformations have been with leaders in their 50s and 60s who embraced these principles!
Pro Tip: Develop a personalized stress-management routine that you can use before important decisions. It could be as simple as three deep breaths or a quick walk. The goal is to reduce your physiological stress response enough that your prefrontal cortex (responsible for complex thinking) can function optimally.
Embracing Failure as Feedback: The Growth Mindset Approach
Let me tell you about my biggest professional failure. Early in my coaching practice, I designed an elaborate leadership program for an advertising team that completely flopped.
Attendance dropped each week until I was basically talking to empty chairs. It was humiliating! My fixed mindset screamed, “You’re a terrible facilitator and always will be.” But my growth mindset (which fortunately won out) asked, “What can I learn from this?”
This is how it looks like to embrace failure as feedback:
1. Failure avoidance: this is a decision-making killer. When we’re terrified of making wrong choices, we either avoid decisions altogether or make extremely conservative ones that miss opportunities for innovation.
I’ve watched promising managers stagnate because their fear of failure prevented them from making the bold decisions their organizations needed. Breaking this pattern starts with reframing how we think about failure itself.
In my psychology/coaching practice, I often use the question: “What would this look like if it were feedback rather than failure?” This simple reframe helps extract valuable insights from mistakes.
That failed leadership program? It taught me crucial lessons about needs assessment, engagement techniques, and the importance of early wins – all lessons that have made subsequent programs dramatically more successful.
2. Constructive reflection: plays a huge role in transforming failures into valuable learning. But reflection alone isn’t enough–it must be structured and honest.
After my program disaster, I forced myself to list specifically what didn’t work and why, without sugar-coating or self-blame. This objective analysis revealed patterns I couldn’t see when I was emotionally tangled in the experience.
In fact, this kind of structured reflection is a key component of developing a growth mindset—a crucial skill for leaders striving to turn setbacks into opportunities. Check this article, How to Develop a Growth Mindset for Leaders – A Step-by-Step Guide, in which you’ll discover practical strategies to overcome common growth mindset obstacles and daily habits to strengthen your leadership.
3. Building a failure-friendly culture: is another factor that dramatically improves team decisions as well. The way of doing it is by asking the most senior leader to share their recent mistake and what they learned. This modeling creates psychological safety for others to bring forward problems early, share diverse perspectives, and take appropriate risks. The resulting decision quality improvement is often dramatic!
What’s interesting is that embracing failure as feedback doesn’t mean lowering standards – quite the opposite. Growth mindset leaders typically set more ambitious goals because they’re less constrained by fear of failure. They can pursue excellence while still treating inevitable setbacks as valuable data points rather than catastrophes.
Pro Tip: Create a “decision journal” where you record important choices, your reasoning, and expected outcomes. Review it regularly to see which decisions panned out and which didn’t. This practice accelerates learning and helps identify recurring patterns in your decision-making.
Creating a Learning Loop from Decisions
There are a couple of techniques you can use to create a learning loop.
1. The Structured Post-Decision Review: is a technique that I implement very often in my coaching. This isn’t the typical corporate postmortem that happens only after disasters – it’s a regular practice applied to decisions of all outcomes.
I remember facilitating one such review with a healthcare executive team that had made a successful technology implementation decision. Their initial reaction was, “Why analyze it? It worked!” They were amazed by how much they learned about their decision process once we dug in.
This kind of reflective practice is essential for fostering a growth mindset within teams and leadership. Check out this article, Fostering a Growth Mindset for Teams and Managers, to explore how leaders can model a growth mindset and how to create a feedback culture that fosters team growth.
2. Third-Person Perspective: separating emotion from analysis is crucial and is one of the most powerful techniques when evaluating outcomes, but it’s incredibly difficult. It is implemented by reviewing the decision as if it was made by someone else. This creates emotional distance that enables clearer analysis.
I’ve struggled with this myself – feeling defensive about decisions that didn’t work out or overly confident about lucky breaks that succeeded despite flawed thinking.
3. Documentation: this creates a powerful feedback mechanism for improving future decisions. I encourage leaders to maintain decision logs that capture not just what was decided, but why, what alternatives were considered, and what uncertainties existed at the time.
This practice prevents hindsight bias (the tendency to believe we “knew it all along” after outcomes are revealed) and helps identify recurring assumptions that may need challenging.
4. Failure Metrics: is a counterintuitive but effective approach to use. Rather than just tracking successes, consider metrics like “useful failures per quarter” or “learning opportunities identified.”
What’s particularly interesting is how learning loops create cumulative advantages. Each cycle of decision-reflection-learning makes subsequent decisions better, creating a compound effect over time.
I’ve watched this play out with leaders who commit to this practice – their decision quality improves at an accelerating rate that outpaces peers who don’t engage in structured learning.
Pro Tip: Implement “pre-mortems” before major decisions. Gather your team and ask everyone to imagine it’s one year later and the decision was a complete disaster. What went wrong? This technique uncovers potential problems that optimism might otherwise hide.
Taking Calculated Risks: Growth Mindset and Strategic Risk-Taking
There’s a fascinating relationship between growth mindset and healthy risk assessment.
Fixed mindset thinkers tend toward either excessive caution (to avoid failure) or reckless risk-taking (to prove their natural talent). Growth mindset leaders, by contrast, approach risk with balanced thinking – they gather information, consider potential outcomes, and view the decision as a learning opportunity regardless of result. This balanced approach leads to smarter risk decisions.
Distinguishing between smart and reckless risks is a skill that develops with practice. Smart risks are calculated, aligned with strategic goals, and taken with awareness of potential downsides. Reckless risks lack proper analysis or are driven by ego rather than opportunity assessment.
In my coaching practice, I see this distinction repeatedly – growth-oriented leaders can articulate exactly why a risk makes sense, while fixed mindset thinkers often rely on gut feeling alone.
Two frameworks for evaluating potential decisions under uncertainty that I have found that make miracles and I teach my clients are:
1. “Expected Value” calculation – listing possible outcomes, estimating their likelihood and value/cost, then calculating a weighted average.
2. The “Reversibility Test” – considering how easily a decision could be undone if it doesn’t work out. These structured approaches cut through emotional noise and focus on objective assessment.
Building confidence in risk-taking abilities develops through intentional practice and reflection. Start with smaller risks where consequences are limited, apply thoughtful analysis, execute, and then thoroughly review outcomes.
This creates a virtuous cycle where each risk assessment improves your abilities for future decisions. I’ve coached many leaders through this progressive approach, watching their risk intelligence grow substantially over time.
What’s remarkable is how growth mindset transforms the emotional experience of risk-taking. Many leaders, who have received coaching, report that decisions that once caused anxiety and sleepless nights now feel like engaging challenges.
By focusing on the learning rather than just the outcome, the psychological burden of risk becomes much lighter, enabling clearer thinking throughout the process.
Pro Tip: When facing a risky decision, identify your “knowledge gaps” – specific information you wish you had but don’t. Then determine how you might narrow those gaps before deciding. Sometimes a small experiment or additional research can transform a seemingly risky choice into a more informed one.
Developing Decision Resilience Through Growth Mindset
Bouncing back from poor decisions without losing confidence is a superpower that growth mindset develops.
While fixed mindset thinkers often internalize failures (“I made a bad decision because I’m a bad decision-maker”), growth-oriented leaders contextualize them (“I made a decision with the information I had, and now I have new information”).
This and the down below listed mental framings, create resilience that maintains decision-making confidence even after setbacks.
1. Adaptability: dramatically improves decision-making in changing environments. Growth mindset managers excel at monitoring these shifts and adjusting course without the ego investment that can lead to doubling down on failing approaches.
During the pandemic, I watched some leaders rigidly cling to pre-COVID plans while others flexibly adapted, with predictably different results.
2. Maintaining perspective: one approach is the “10-10-10 rule” – considering how a decision will impact you in 10 minutes, 10 months, and 10 years.
This temporal distancing helps reduce in-the-moment anxiety and focuses attention on what truly matters long-term.
3. “Binary Reduction”: breaking complex decisions into a series of smaller yes/no choices that feel more manageable.
4. Building Mental Stamina: for complex, long-term decisions, is increasingly important. Major strategic initiatives often unfold over years, requiring sustained decision-making through uncertainty and setbacks.
Growth mindset provides the psychological foundation for this stamina by framing the journey as developmental rather than just evaluative. Leaders who maintain this perspective can make clearer decisions throughout extended projects.
5. Modeling learning-focused response: What I find most interesting about decision resilience is how contagious it becomes within organizations. When a leader models learning-focused responses to setbacks, team members adopt similar patterns.
This creates organizational resilience where failures become stepping stones rather than stumbling blocks. I’ve witnessed entire department cultures transform through this modeling from key leaders.
Pro Tip: Create a “resilience routine” for the aftermath of tough decisions. This might include physical activity to process stress hormones, conversation with a trusted mentor who provides perspective, and structured reflection to extract learning.
Having this routine ready prevents the decision fatigue that often follows challenging choices.
Practicing Resilience When Decisions Don’t Go As Planned
Separating self-worth from decision outcomes is perhaps the most fundamental aspect of decision resilience. There is a concept in psychology, known as contingent self-worth –and can come with some unpleasant consequences. This happens when one is basing one’s value on achievements or outcomes.
It also creates psychological fragility that undermines decision-making. I’ve worked with some high-achieving leaders who struggled with this connection, feeling personally diminished by business setbacks that had nothing to do with their worth as humans.
Emotional regulation techniques provide essential support during decision crises. One effective approach is “emotional labeling” – the simple act of naming what you’re feeling. “I’m experiencing disappointment and worry about this outcome” activates prefrontal cortex regions that help regulate emotional responses.
Another technique is the “physical reset” – using deep breathing, movement, or even cold water on your face to interrupt stress patterns and restore physiological balance.
Creating support systems for difficult decision periods is another approach. This one I had to learn in the hard way – by trying to handle everything alone early in my career.
Today I advise all my leadership clients to identify their “decision board of directors” – specific people who provide different types of support. This might include a technical expert who offers domain knowledge, a mentor who provides perspective, and a peer who simply listens without judgment.
Having this system in place before tough decisions arise makes all the difference.
Developing flexibility when original decisions need modification is a hallmark of resilient leaders.
I recall working with a healthcare executive who had championed a particular electronic records system, only to discover six months into implementation that it had serious flaws. Her ability to acknowledge the problems, explore alternatives, and pivot to a different solution – despite having personally advocated for the original choice – showed remarkable decision resilience. The team respected her more, not less, for this adaptability.
What’s particularly valuable about resilience practices is how they improve not just recovery from poor decisions but the quality of initial decisions as well.
When you’re not paralyzed by fear of failure, you consider options more creatively and thoroughly. This creates a virtuous cycle where better decisions lead to greater confidence, which leads to more thoughtful risk-taking, and so on.
Pro Tip: Practice “decision compartmentalization” – the ability to make an important decision, then mentally set it aside to focus fully on other priorities. Without this skill, decision stress spills across all areas of work, reducing effectiveness everywhere. A simple technique is to schedule specific “decision review times” rather than continuously ruminating.
Fostering a Team Culture of Growth-Oriented Decision-Making
“We don’t need to decide today.” I’ll never forget hearing an executive say this during a meeting where everyone was clearly rushing toward a premature decision.
By modeling patience and commitment to gathering more information, she demonstrated growth mindset leadership in action. The team visibly relaxed, better options emerged, and ultimately a superior decision was made. This is the power of leadership modeling in team decision contexts.
How leaders respond to their own mistakes sets the tone for team decision culture. Organizations in which executives carefully conceal errors, create environments where team members do the same. The result? Problems festered until they became crises.
Contrast this with leaders who openly discuss their missteps and learning, creating psychological safety for others to do likewise. The difference in decision quality and speed of problem resolution is remarkable.
Creating psychological safety for collaborative decisions includes specific leader behaviors:
- genuine invitation of diverse perspectives
- non-defensive response to challenging viewpoints
- acknowledging uncertainty
- explicitly separating idea evaluation from idea generation
By implementing these practices, leaders improve their collective decision quality substantially as previously silent voices contributed valuable insights.
Feedback techniques that encourage growth look different from traditional performance feedback. Rather than simply evaluating outcomes as good or bad, growth-oriented feedback explores process, assumptions, and learning opportunities.
Questions like “What information might we have overlooked?” and “How could we test that assumption?” replace judgments like “That was the wrong call.” This shift transforms feedback from evaluation to development.
Celebrating smart process over perfect outcomes reinforces growth mindset throughout the organization. One manufacturing leader created a monthly “good calls from bad data” recognition, highlighting decisions that were sound based on available information even when outcomes weren’t ideal.
This practice reinforced that good decision-making isn’t always reflected in results, especially in highly uncertain environments.
Growth mindset in team settings creates compound benefits beyond individual improvement. It enables:
- faster problem identification (as people feel safer raising concerns)
- more thorough option generation (as diverse perspectives are welcomed)
- better implementation (as decisions are owned collectively rather than compliance-driven)
I’ve seen teams transform their performance through these cultural shifts, resolving problems that had persisted for years under fixed mindset leadership.
What continues to amaze me is how deeply these principles resonate with teams once they experience them in action.
While there’s often initial skepticism about “mindset talk,” the practical benefits of improved decision quality, faster problem resolution, and greater innovation quickly convert even the most hardened cynics. This isn’t just psychology theory – it’s practical business advantage.
Pro Tip: Implement “decision retrospectives” where the focus is explicitly on improving the decision-making process rather than just reviewing outcomes. Questions like “How could we have gathered better information?” and “What assumptions proved incorrect?” foster growth-oriented learning that improves future decisions.
Conclusion
Adopting a growth mindset doesn’t just change how you view challenges—it fundamentally transforms how you make decisions as a manager.
By embracing failures as learning opportunities, taking calculated risks, and developing resilience, you’ll make more innovative and effective decisions for your team and organization.
Developing a growth mindset is itself a journey that requires practice and reflection. The good news is that every decision becomes an opportunity to strengthen this powerful mental framework.
Throughout my years working as both a healthcare professional and psychological consultant, I’ve witnessed remarkable transformations in leaders who embrace these principles.
Their decisions become more nuanced, their teams more innovative, and their organizations more adaptable. The science is clear: our brains can change and develop at any age, meaning it’s never too late to shift from a fixed to a growth mindset in your decision-making approach.
What makes this journey particularly worthwhile is that the benefits extend far beyond professional success. The same mindset that improves your leadership decisions also enhances personal resilience, relationships, and overall well-being.
By viewing challenges as opportunities and setbacks as feedback, you create a foundation for continuous growth in all areas of life.
What To Do Next?
Start by identifying one area where you tend to have a fixed mindset and challenge yourself to approach it differently this week. Pay attention to how this shift affects your decisions and leadership. Share your experiences or questions with a senior colleague or a mentor to further develop your growth-oriented decision-making skills.
Remember that mindset transformation happens through consistent practice rather than overnight change. Consider keeping a decision journal to track your thought processes and outcomes, creating a tangible record of your growth over time.
And don’t hesitate to share these concepts with your team—the collective power of growth-oriented decision-making can create remarkable results throughout your organization.