How Coaching Fosters a Growth Mindset for Nonprofit Employee Development

7 min readMay 16, 2024

Coaching drives nonprofit employee development and organizational success. But do you know how to do it?

If you want to learn how to coach your nonprofit employees, read this to learn 5 coaching questions to ask
AND get an opportunity to learn coaching skills and get extra resources to help you learn to coach from coaching great MBS who wrote The Coaching Habit
AND listen to my podcast with Michelle to immediately learn coaching techniques

It’s time to build a culture of coaching within your organization!!

Coaching drives nonprofit employee development and organizational success. But do you know how to do it? The thing is, many nonprofit leaders struggle to motivate employees to learn, develop and take responsibility for their work. Lena was one of those nonprofit leaders and maybe you are too!

Lena’s nonprofit team was overly reliant on her.

Lena’s staff would come to her with problems, and Lena would tell them how to fix the problem, hoping they would learn for the next time that a similar challenge arose. However, the next time a challenge arose for her staff, they would come knocking at Lena’s door.

The employee couldn’t figure out what to do or perhaps didn’t have the confidence to do it and wanted Lena’s reassurance. Lena would once again, albeit a bit frustrated with the interruption, walk them through how to deal with the problem, hoping they would learn this time. I don’t have to tell you what happened. Lena continued to be interrupted by her more-than-competent staff, and she was annoyed. Lena told me she was ready to give up as she believed the staff would never figure it out.

Lena learned about adopting a growth mindset as a nonprofit leader.

Lena was in a session I was teaching about supervision, where she learned about two mindsets we can have as leaders about our employees: a fixed mindset and a growth mindset.

A fixed mindset view of your employees

When you have a fixed mindset, you believe your qualities are carved in stone. Who you are is who you are, period. You think that characteristics such as intelligence, personality, and creativity are fixed traits rather than something people can develop. As a leader, you may view that about others, too. So when they come to you again, you think they will never learn!

Ugh, here we go again. Why can’t they handle this on their own? It’s not rocket science!
Seriously? They want me to solve this for them? Do they think I have a magic wand or something?
This is getting old. How many times do I have to go over the same thing? They should know better by now!

You can see how these fixed thoughts pulled Lena, and maybe you, towards believing This is hopeless. No matter what I do, my team just can’t seem to handle things on their own. It’s like banging my head against a wall. Why even bother trying?

Fixed mindsets keep leaders feeling incapable, which can lead to imposter syndrome. Having to deal with staff challenges constantly can leave you stuck in survival mode and move toward burnout. But there is another mindset that can turn things the other way.

A growth mindset view of your employees

When you have a growth mindset, you believe that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through effort. With this frame of mind, you understand that while people differ greatly in aptitude, talents, and temperaments, you fundamentally believe that individuals can grow or change with effort, hard work and time. As such, you have that view about your nonprofit employees, too!

So when your employee comes to you again, you remind yourself that this is a great opportunity for my team to learn and grow. As such, your thoughts shift as well:

I trust my team to make the right decisions and learn from their mistakes. It’s all part of the growth process.
I wonder what creative solutions they’ll come up with this time. There’s always something new to learn from each challenge.
Even if they stumble along the way, each obstacle is a chance for them to develop resilience and problem-solving skills.

These thoughts reflect a mindset focused on empowering and supporting your team’s development rather than feeling frustrated or annoyed by their challenges.

Leadership is about helping our employees reach their full potential.

In Lena’s session, she learned that leadership is about growing, developing and inspiring our employees to reach their full potential. To do that, we must have a growth mindset, believing that our employees can acquire new skills and abilities, albeit with work and effort. As such, we begin to get curious and ask them questions rather than solve their problems. With a growth mindset, we start to coach our employees!

Coaching conversations grow our employees

When we coach our employees, rather than managing, controlling, and directing them, we help them develop and grow. This keeps them motivated, engaged, and loyal, creating a magnetic workplace culture that people want to be in rather than run away from!

As you can guess by now, when Lena went back to work and started asking her employees more questions and getting curious about both how they would solve problems and what they needed to have the confidence to do that.

Lena saw tremendous improvements! Her employees became excited about their growth, potential and development. What’s more, Lena saw the trickle-down effect. At team meetings, she saw her subordinates coaching their team members. Over time, her team’s culture shifted from a crisis and putting-out-fires model to a proactive growth mindset!

5 Powerful Coaching questions to ask your employees

The point of coaching questions is to pull out the best in your employees, help them to use that to be their best and see their potential for growth . Here are some coaching questions you could ask your team members that not only put you in a growth mindset but also help your employees tackle their challenges with a growth mindset.

1 — What’s the real challenge here for you?

This question helps the employee identify and articulate the specific issue they’re dealing with.

2 — What strengths, talents or skills do you have that will help you sort through this?

This helps them see what they already have to help them solve the challenge.

3 — What part of this is hard for you?

We are growing the person, not fixing the problem. This question helps them look at their areas for growth and development.

4 — What resources or support do you need to tackle this inner challenge effectively?

They also need to grow, so this question helps the employee identify what they require to succeed and empowers them to seek assistance if needed . Again, the focus is on employee growth.

5 — How will you know when you’ve successfully overcome this challenge?

Encourages the employee to define what success looks like and to set measurable goals for themselves.

These questions empower employees to take ownership of their challenges and approach them with a growth mindset, emphasizing learning, development, and resilience. They also show you care as their boss, not just about solving problems, but also about growing them!

Resources to help you develop your coaching skills

If you are a member of The Training Library, you will find a webinar called The 3 Step Strategy for Creating Comfortable Coaching Conversations! It includes a list of 20 or more coaching questions to help you.

Remember, our job as leaders is to bring out the best in our employees and help them reach their full potential so that together, we can make an incredible difference in the lives of those we serve.
We do that when we coach, grow and mentor our team to be their best! That starts with you and your mindset!

3 Step Strategy for Creating Comfortable Coaching Conversations
Here’s the challenge: You know you are supposed to be coaching your staff but don’t know what that means or how it’s different from supervision.

Or you do know, but you have not been able to put coaching into action consistently.

If you want success with coaching, start small.
In this webinar, you will learn a 3 step strategy to help you engage with your staff in ways that help them reach their full potential!

In this one-hour webinar, you will:

Understand how coaching conversations are different than supervisory conversations.
Learn 3 strategies to help you create coaching relationships on your team.
Feel comfortable practicing coaching your team members and peers.