Unveiling Hidden Barriers – What Do Leaders Need To Know To Drive Team Improvement?
- Jun 24, 2024
- 6 min read
Written by Elizabeth Congdon, Team and Leadership Coach
Elizabeth Congdon, is a Team & Leadership Coach rooted in Creative Consciousness' Coaching. She guides individuals, teams and organizations to clarify and align their purpose, values and goals. Her work cultivates cultures that ignite growth, unlocking full potential in high performing individuals and teams who consistently achieve impactful results.
"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results," a line often attributed to Albert Einstein. While doing something different may sound simple, applying it is usually challenging. This article will explore the invisible barriers to change and outline effective steps to overcome them.
Take a moment to reflect on the strategies you have employed to help your team improve. Have you focused on goal setting, implemented new processes or practices, or emphasized cultural shifts? How easy or difficult was it to implement them? How successful were these strategies?
The invisible drivers
To help your team improve, you likely have a compelling vision, mission, and SMART goals. But have you ever considered the invisible drivers of human behaviour? Understanding these drivers or barriers to behavioural and cognitive change is crucial for fostering effective progress. Behavioural change is inherently challenging because it requires a fundamental shift in your beliefs and thinking. Additionally, the environment in which you operate triggers unconscious and subconscious reactions to stimuli. Recognizing these underlying factors is the first step in addressing and overcoming the barriers they present, paving the way for meaningful and sustainable change.
Beliefs
What is a belief? A belief is an idea that a person holds to be true. Beliefs are formed through repetitive thoughts and hold weight because we decide or agree that they are true. `They are an amalgamation of our past experiences and exposures, encompassing the good, the bad, and the ugly. Beliefs primarily form from two sources:
our interactions and experiences with the world, and
our acceptance of cultural and societal norms, education, mentoring, and so on.
Based on these past experiences, beliefs shape what we assume to be true about ourselves, others, and the world. Essentially, beliefs are a collection of assumptions.
The environment
You create or recreate experiences from moment to moment, from event to event, and from person to person. For most people, this creation process is unknown to them—a brain on autopilot. The brain's automatic function takes care of basic life processes such as breathing. It further drives learned behaviours and habits, such as driving a car.
A person never thinks about these actions. Instead, the brain is the pilot, and all actions happen automatically. The subconscious mind forms the autopilot brain. The subconscious mind is a recording device that stores memories, behaviours, emotional attachments, lessons that a person has learned, and events that have a profound impact on the individual. Your subconscious mind constantly absorbs information from outside sources and uses that information to form beliefs that shape how you think and behave.
The profound impact of the invisible drivers
The potential insanity that Albert Einstein referred to lies in your beliefs. Your beliefs become the lenses through which you see and experience the world, giving rise to your expectations and perceptions. They act as filters through which you evaluate, judge, and engage with the world. Your beliefs and expectations guide your everyday choices, mostly subconsciously and unconsciously, creating behaviors, actions, and inactions that produce outcomes and results. These results, in turn, confirm your initial beliefs, perpetuating a cycle. Without conscious awareness and deliberate choice, this cycle can easily become an insane loop of repeating the same actions and expecting different results.
6 steps to lead for growth
Becoming better and achieving growth involves more than just setting outcomes and targets. Understanding your assumptions and beliefs—and how they shape your (and your team's) experience and behavior—is vital to making meaningful changes in the quest for continuous improvement.
1. Awareness
Making the invisible visible starts with awareness. At the heart of leading change is awareness of your thoughts and feelings, bodily sensations, actions or inactions, awareness of others, the environment, and the triggers around you. This awareness must be with a gentle attitude of kindness toward yourself and others.
It's about understanding yourself and others, recognizing assumptions, beliefs, values, and the triggers that influence behavior. Consider what triggers you and how it affects your expectations and actions. Understanding these elements is crucial for meaningful and sustainable change.
2. Empathy
Empathy, in its simplest form, means putting yourself in the shoes of others and being aware of how they feel. It involves being curious about why they think and behave the way they do. Compassion takes this further by understanding what people are going through while still expecting the best from them. Practice awareness with empathy by engaging with your team members to understand their thoughts and beliefs. Foster empathy and compassion in your interactions to build stronger, more supportive relationships
3. Challenge assumptions
Assumptions give rise to expectations, and unmet expectations lead to conflict—conflict with oneself, with others, and with the environment. This is when doing something different feels like a burden. With kind awareness and empathy for oneself and others, it's time to get real and commit to challenging these assumptions. Change your question, change your life. Ask yourself: What assumptions have I not challenged lately?
An assumption you believe to be true based on a past experience may have been accurate then. But is it still valid? If it is, how can you use this assumption to your advantage? If the assumption is no longer valid, gently let it go and create space for a shift.
4. Conscious choice
By challenging your assumptions, you create the space to focus on crafting new experiences and achieving different results. Setting clear intentions can guide your focus and action throughout the day. Start your day, and take a moment before significant events to choose what you want to create consciously. This conscious choice allows you to reprogram your beliefs and leverage the brain's neuroplasticity to form new, empowering thought patterns.
Ask yourself:
How do I choose to experience the day, event, or interaction?
What do I stand for?
Who do I choose to be?
Connect and focus on what you want to create moment by moment, event by event, or interaction by interaction. Let go of limiting beliefs and invalid assumptions and set clear intentions to guide your actions. By doing so, you harness the power of conscious choice to shape your reality.
5. Cultivate courage
With conscious choices guiding your actions, the next step is to embrace the courage needed to face challenges. Courage is very specific; it's doing something that frightens you. It is something where you are not too sure about the outcome.
To be brave is to do something challenging. Fear is the invisible barrier to courage—fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of humiliation, and so on.
Step into awareness to recognize when fear is present. Feel it in your body. It could be a racing heart, sweaty palms, or fear disguised as frustration like a clenched jaw. Just feel it, breathe and feel, breathe and feel with kindness, no analyzing, no judgment. Confront your fear directly. Acknowledge it with a simple greeting, "Hello fear, it makes sense that you are here." In doing so, you take ownership of your fear rather than letting it control you.
6. Cultivate a learning mindset
A learning mindset isn't about achieving; it's about aspiring to improve. When obstacles arise, instead of falling prey to limiting beliefs that you "can" or "can't", stay curious and open. Use your awareness as your teacher and guide. Be courageous in questioning your assumptions with empathy while making conscious choices moment by moment, person by person, event by event. Regularly take moments to reflect on your choices, experiences, and behavior. Consider this, life is a continuous journey of growth, where there's no pass or fail – just opportunities to learn and improve.
Start your intentional growth today
"Ready to embark on a journey of possibilities and growth, achieving remarkable results for yourself, your team, and your organization? Contact me today, Elizabeth Congdon | LinkedIn, for a complimentary coaching session. Together, we'll explore how challenging beliefs can unlock your full potential and elevate the performance of your leaders and teams. Don't miss out on our 'Lead Yourself with Authenticity' workshop, where we dive deeper into your belief system, cultivating a growth mindset and fostering authentic leadership. Join us to discover practical strategies for personal and professional development!
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Elizabeth Congdon, Team and Leadership Coach
Elizabeth Congdon is a team and leadership coach who brings a unique blend of experiences to her practice. She empowers people to embrace innovative thinking and adaptability. With a foundation in creative consciousness coaching and a background in leading business transformation, digital transformation, and agile ways of working projects for global companies, she excels at guiding individuals, teams, and organizations toward clarity and alignment in their purpose, values, and goals. Elizabeth fosters inclusive cultures that promote courage, confidence, and creative thinking. Her holistic coaching approach ignites team engagement and collaboration, resulting in high-performing teams and individuals.
