Sad, but true. In a world where seeking out modest growth isn’t always easy, high performance requires even more from leaders—boldness, innovation, and vision built on the confidence of market insights. Leaders work incredibly hard to provide those things and yet the results may miss the mark. What keeps so many of us in the arena of status quo?
After years of client service with growth-driven leaders, it is certainly not the “want to” that keeps them from accomplishing growth goals. The challenge comes in the form of practice that has turned into habit and has become lore, perceived as unchangeable. And yet, in truth, it is a convention and not a requirement. It can be anything from whether or not capacity exists (are we spending time on what matters most or what is on our calendars?), the financing (what do we stop doing to do something that would yield much more?), the innovation (which may require cultural shifts), or the right market (we need to do the analytics to see which customers line up with our value proposition and not assume that because they did in the past they still do). The one thing these forces of business gravity have in common—they are beliefs that are self-imposed but are open to change if we choose to challenge them.
One reason it is always helpful to listen to new people in the organization is they may ask great questions about why the company does something a certain way. If it seems obvious to the long-time associates but not the newbies maybe it is time to challenge the status quo.
A recent Harvard Business Review article titled “The Hidden Beliefs that Hold Leaders Back” by Muriel M. Wilkins, examined many of these same issues. Ms. Wilkins calls these hidden beliefs blockers, which are ingrained habits or perceptions that have been crowned as facts. Here are the seven she claims are most common and how to turn them around to productive beliefs. It appears to me that several of these may be born of the professional requirements of excelling in a workplace, standing out, taking more on personally to showcase talents, confidence born of past success, etc. That being said, while understandable, leaders are now in a different position with different requirements. Rather than being independent performers, they must model behavior, offer insights, and provide motivation for others to excel rather than expect to do it all themselves. Are any of these blockers in your mental vocabulary? If so, understand why you may feel that way, and determine a new more productive view of your mission.
