What Is A Growth Mindset? Plus 3 Ways To Develop One

Business school isn’t just about gaining academic recognition and strengthening your hard skills—studying an MBA can allow you to develop personally as well as professionally, with opportunities to enhance your self-awareness, resilience, and intellectual curiosity. 

Today, employers consider these attributes vital. Interpersonal skills such as communication, emotional intelligence, and adaptability all feature in the top current and future skills employers look for, according to the GMAC Corporate Recruiters Survey 2025. 

Developing a growth mindset during business school is one of the most important steps for your career, not only helping with academic success but also your leadership, and personal progress. 

So, what exactly is a growth mindset and how can you develop one? We spoke with insiders and experts at Asia School of Business (ASB), where mindset development is a key part of the MBA curriculum, to find out. 

What is a growth mindset?

Primarily, a growth mindset is about adapting your attitude and thought process to welcome challenges and both embrace and overcome failure. By evaluating yourself, your skills, and your limitations, you can begin to step out of your comfort zone and change the way you perceive failure, contributing to a growth mindset.

“There are three phases of the growth mindset,” explains Thomas Maddison (pictured), an MBA graduate from ASB. “The first phase is to take stock of who you are, your strengths, and your weaknesses. The second part is working out what you want to improve, and the third part is just to do it.”

Adopting a growth mindset can also keep you on track during your business school journey, making sure you are taking steps towards achieving your goals.

“It is essentially something you can work toward—it might seem overwhelming and challenging, and the journey may not always be linear, but it’s something you put effort in to maintain,” adds Wei Han Lim, a fellow ASB MBA graduate.

How can I develop a growth mindset?

Business school provides an environment with ample opportunity to develop a growth mindset, from advancing your soft skills such as communication and leadership to being surrounded by like-minded professionals to help motivate and support you.

Students can expect to develop personally as well as professionally throughout their MBA journey, but often you can find programs specifically designed to facilitate this personal growth.

At ASB, the Mindset Lab is a dedicated feature within the curriculum that encourages MBA students to embrace uncertainty and push themselves, both academically and personally. 

Embedded throughout the MBA journey, the lab aims at helping students increase their resilience and adaptability. Through workshops and executive coaching sessions, students develop their growth mindset through identifying personal goals, self-reflection. 

“What I love about the words Mindset Lab is that it’s not necessarily just about growth, it’s about really understanding your mindset,” explains Sangeeta M Matu (pictured), who co-runs the Mindset Lab at ASB alongside Yi-Ren Wang.

“The word lab suggests innovation, agility, and that you can experiment. When you experiment, there’s no right or wrong, there’s no failure or success—you just get wiser along the journey,” she adds.

3 ways to develop a growth mindset

1. Shift your perspective on failure

One of the most important ways to work on your mindset is changing the way you view failure. Failure doesn’t have to reflect your skills or individual performance—instead, it can allow you to learn from mistakes and take on feedback that may prove valuable in the future.

“My biggest advice is to be vulnerable,” says Wei Han. “During an MBA, you’re going to do things you’ve never done before—whether you’re being exposed to new areas of business or doing a project in an industry you’re unfamiliar with. You have to embrace the unknown, be prepared to make a mistake, and know that you can grow from it.”

Reframing setbacks as opportunities for growth is essential to developing a growth mindset, and it’s important to reflect on what can be improved, rather than what went wrong.

“The worst outcome is looking back in 10 years and wishing you had done something. Even failing is going to feel better,” says Thomas. 

Describing his experience during the program, he says: “It scared me, and I did it anyway, and now I’m much more inclined to have the mindset of just doing something, and to stop overthinking everything.”

2. Surround yourself with others who want to grow

The MBA environment connects you with a network of like-minded students who can help and support you through your journey toward a growth mindset. Although faculty and coaches can be crucial in providing academic expertise and professional insight, the support of other students can also be essential in motivating and encouraging you.

“The mindset lab really created this space of vulnerability,” says Wei Han (pictured). “I feel like the conversations were the best when we were truly open about what we wanted and what our challenges were.”

Wei Han’s MBA cohort of just 18 students also helped build this supportive environment. “That’s the nice thing about having such a small cohort—you could have those discussions and know where people were coming from. That led to getting to know each other better and getting to reflect on myself more,” he explains.

3. Get out of your comfort zone

The only way to grow is to push yourself, by taking opportunities or completing projects that are outside of your comfort zone. Through challenging yourself, you can open up opportunities and achieve goals that didn’t previously seem attainable.

“The mindset lab is about taking ownership of your leadership growth, and it all starts with self-awareness,” explains Sangeeta. “We ensure students are setting goals outside of their comfort zone and that with sustained effort they will be as impactful as they think they will be.”

Thomas feels leaving your comfort zone is vital in achieving personal growth: “Whatever you do, make sure it makes you uncomfortable.

“You’ll slowly become more comfortable, and do more and more uncomfortable things, so you’ll grow regardless,” he continues. “I think that’s the cheat code to a growth mindset.”