You may find this hard to believe, but there is one thing that is so powerful that it can destroy everything good you have learned from LEAD 24/7. And this powerful thing with such destructive capability isn’t hiding in the cubical next to you. It isn’t in your smart phone. And it isn’t in your DNA. It’s in your head.

In Chapter 1 we were introduced to the DoKnowBe Tree and your “Be” roots. We described values, passions, gifts/voids, and wiring. But there is one root, the tap root, that has a greater impact on your decisions and your behavior than any other. It is what you believe to be true—your beliefs. In this week’s post I want to describe for you just how powerful beliefs are in every chapter and topic of LEAD 24/7. 

I’m going to take a sampling of our topics and then give examples of beliefs that will totally derail your ability to be a great leader and live these topics out.

Feedback

• I believe giving positive feedback encourages complacency.
• I believe receiving negative feedback reduces my worth as a person.

Leaning in to Healthy Conflict

• I believe that leaning in is not worth the discomfort it causes.
• I believe that leaning in will destroy most relationships.

Johari Window

• I believe I am more effective as a leader when I withhold information from others.
• I believe that allowing others to see my weakness makes me less effective.
• I believe that apologizing makes other people respect me less.

Communicate 7 Times/7 Ways

• I believe that communicating the same thing in more than one way rewards the inattentiveness and irresponsibility of others.
• I believe if I am clear when I first say something, it does not need to be repeated.

Shaping Culture

• I believe that problems are always people problems, not situational problems.
• I believe I need to find what’s wrong and fix it, rather than find what’s working well and figure out how to do more of it.
• I believe changing the physical space only adds expense and brings no additional value.
• I believe that soft structures are unnecessary because people should take the right path without needing systems in place to help them.

Building Great Teams

• I believe that I should hire people who are just like me in order to have a great team.
• I believe that having others more competent than me on my team is a threat to my success.
• I believe that caring about people’s lives outside of their work is the job of friends and family, not team members.
• I believe that competence alone is what matters, not a person’s values and passions.

Leading Change

• I believe that team members need to accept changes I make without me needing to listen to them and without me explaining why the changes are needed.
• I believe people should have an unlimited capacity for accepting the new changes I implement.

Leading Yourself

• I believe my impact will ALWAYS increase with doing more.
• I believe that it is a sign of greatness to be over-committed.
• I believe my significance as a person is tied to my title and position.

I could have easily gone through each of these and given examples of powerful, positive beliefs that make us effective as leaders. But sometimes seeing the other side helps us see the light more clearly.

Where might you have some of these derailing beliefs in yourself? 

On a final note, one of my strong beliefs is that beliefs can actually change. I know this to be true because some of the examples I gave above were things I once believed to be true, and now I believe very differently.

Lead on…with great beliefs!
Jeff

Image by the half-blood prince. Used under CC BY-ND 2.0 license.