Howard Gardner, in his book Extraordinary Minds, concluded that exceptional individuals have “a special talent for identifying their own strengths and weaknesses.” It’s interesting that those with the growth mindset seem to have that talent.

It’s also important to realize that even if people have a fixed mindset, they’re not always in that mindset. In fact, in many of our studies, we put people into a growth mindset. We tell them that an ability can be learned and that the task will give them a chance to do that. Or we have them read a scientific article that teaches them the growth mindset. The article describes people who did not have natural ability, but who developed exceptional skills. These experiences make our research participants into growth-minded thinkers, at least for the moment - and they act like growth-minded thinkers, too.

So telling children they’re smart, in the end, made them feel dumber and act dumber, but claim they were smarter. I don’t think this is what we’re aiming for when we put positive labels - “gifted,” “talented,” “brilliant” - on people. We don’t mean to rob them of their zest for challenge and their recipes for success. But that’s the danger.

Summing up, if someone has the right intellectual capital, social capital, and psychological capital, they will have more potential to be a good leader. But it’s not guaranteed.

I asked, “If you could pick one trait that would predict how someone would turn out, what would it be?”

“That’s easy,” he said. “How willing they are to change their mind about what they think they know.”

The most valuable people, he continued, weren’t the ones with the best initial ideas, but the ones with the ability to quickly change their minds. They were focused on outcome over ego. By contrast, he said, the people most likely to fail were those obsessed with minute details that supported their point of view.