Do ‘C -Grade’ Students Make Better CEOs?

C grade students have to learn how to cope with setbacks and failure to meet expectations and, if they are to get through, how to devise recovery strategies for their next assignment or exam. All this is good training for the stressful demands of the role of CEO, which is anything but a set of structured tasks. Effective CEOs must cope with and recover from setbacks and remain flexible in the face of often overwhelming pressures and competing demands. Those who don’t are increasingly being shown the door.

Therefore Wood, an expert for organisational behaviour at Melbourne Business School, finds it is not the “A-” or “C-” performance level of students that determines their future in management, rather it is their mindset. Carol Dweck of Stanford has identified two factors that influence how people cope with failure, continue solving problems and learn from experience. She calls them the 'fixed mindset' and the 'growth mindset'.

Fixed mindsets are held by people who believe that abilities are fixed. They often refer to ‘natural ability’ or as being ‘gifted’ when referring to exceptional performers. When they don’t perform well on a task, they often attribute it to a lack in aptitude. Growth mindsets believe that performance is the product of effort, understanding and other factors that can be developed through experience.

Wood's research has now established the important impact that different mindsets can have on senior management roles: fixed mindset individuals attribute failures to ability or lack thereof; they become self-doubting, which undermines their cognitive functioning, leading to further poor performance. Often, their primary response on tasks that must be done is to work harder and they spend too little time on diagnosis and strategy creation. Growth mindset individuals may have initial self-doubts, but move more quickly beyond negative evaluations to diagnostic analyses and consideration of alternative strategies.

Fixed mindset individuals are more risk averse. They prefer to work on familiar tasks and employ strategies that have proven useful in the past. They also tend to be highly vigilant in regard to errors, which they seek to avoid. This makes them ideal for roles that require highly-structured risk avoidance approaches. Growth mindset individuals, on the other hand, see errors as opportunities to learn and refine strategies. This does not mean they try to perform poorly, just that that they respond more constructively when things go wrong. They are also more likely to experiment and seek improvement, even when they are performing well.

So, what about the “C” student? Professor Wood's basic message is simple: developing a growth mindset is a product of the guidance we receive from people and institutions about how to interpret life's up and downs. If we experience some setbacks like a C student and friends, family and partners help us to focus on recovery strategies, then we are more likely to develop a growth mindset. If, instead, we receive messages that we lack competence whenever we are outside our comfort zone and are not as talented as other people, then we are more likely to develop a fixed mindset.

• Melbourne Business School
  Full-Time MBA, Part-Time MBA, Executive MBA
• Stanford Graduate School of Business
  Full-Time MBA