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The Role of Beliefs in Leadership

A woman leaning against a window contemplating the question "what are my beliefs?"
This is the second of a four-part series on the role of values, beliefs, attitudes, and behavior in leadership. 


The role of beliefs in leadership is pervasive. Operationally, few jobs can survive the lack of a base theory or system, especially if you don’t make detailed plans. Ethically, few teams can survive a purely mission-oriented leader without a framework of beliefs to resolve conflicts and inspire cohesion. In both cases, “What are my beliefs?” requires an answer to qualify you for leadership.


You should divide the role of beliefs in business into two broad categories: beliefs as tools for operational success; and beliefs as morals that are not subject to change except in extraordinary circumstances. A good leader holds solid beliefs, but a great leader knows which ones to adapt to a given circumstance.


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Beliefs as a Toolkit

If you believe in specific things, you can be a successful leader in specific situations. If you can adapt your beliefs, you can be successful in most, if not all of them. This doesn’t mean that having a preferred operational style makes you less of a leader if you have the wisdom to recognize when your preference aligns with the project. If asking the question “what are my beliefs” reveals permanent, unchangeable ideas, then at least you’ll know what projects you’re best suited to lead and which you should pass on to someone else.


Consider the following three statements. When you ask yourself “what are my beliefs,” do one or more of these resonate with you?


1) Do It Right

I believe in doing the job right the first time, even if takes longer.

This belief makes sense if even the most minor mistakes cost lives or the tiniest change adds millions to the cost. The role of beliefs in leadership in safety-critical projects is literally life-or-death. When you’re building things that you can’t afford to let fail, you’d better believe in getting things right the first time.

2) Do It Fast

I believe that the sooner I get a prototype of our minimum viable product into the customer’s workflow, the faster we can iterate toward the customer’s perfect solution.

When the customer says things like, “It’s exactly what I asked for, but not what I wanted,” you’ll be thankful you’re the kind of leader who favors speed over perfection. The key to customer satisfaction when nobody really knows what “perfection” even looks like is iteration. If you believe in speed and iteration, you’ll succeed as an Agile leader. If you’re a consummate perfectionist, you’ll be chronically over budget with a lot of unhappy customers.

3) Do Both

I believe in using the right tool for the right job.


Yes, there is a way to complete tasks both correctly and quickly. You could use an agile methodology for the early prototyping stages of a safety-critical project, allowing room for failure without putting anyone at risk. Or, instead of handing over a minimum viable product to an actual customer, you could deliver it to a QA site and run a few iterations to perfect it.


Once you’ve decided which one of these statements best matches your beliefs, does that mean you can never change your mind? Of course not. In fact, there are advantages to adapting your beliefs to the job at hand. If you can identify when the role of beliefs in leadership is a toolkit rather than an ethical mandate, changing them makes you a more effective leader.


Beliefs as Morality

If you’ve honestly and thoroughly considered which beliefs are tools in the situational toolbox, then you should have some idea of which beliefs play a more constant, moralistic role in your leadership approach. When your moral urgency is aligned with your team, it motivates them to power through rough patches and maintain their drive to succeed.


Beliefs Determine Reality

“There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.” -William Shakespeare, Hamlet
When your team is working late, why are they working late? Why are you? How can you all remain enthusiastic when the work has become a grind?


The ideal team plays what project manager Tom West called “Pinball”: you win one game, you get to play another. Few teams are this motivated simply by the work itself. With your inspiration, they will play to win when they believe that winning matters far more than simply getting a paycheck.


Aligning Beliefs

You can’t adapt your morality, or at the very least probably shouldn’t — morality isn’t a toolkit. This brings up the issue of alignment. If you’re a leader in a religious institution or political organization that you don’t actually believe in, you’re either deceiving your teams to keep them motivated or they’re going to see you as an outsider rather than an inspiring leader.


To motivate your team and yourself, it’s important to align your beliefs with the mission. A leader must also have a moral framework to handle internecine conflict. Otherwise, teams might turn on each other and blame you.


To be a leader, you must inspire, and inspiration comes from the alignment of beliefs and actions.


Conclusion

If you understand the role of beliefs in leadership, you can determine which are woven into your moral code and which you can possibly adapt to the situation at hand. If you ask and answer the question, “What are my beliefs?” you can motivate your team on a moral level — or identify if there is a misalignment that cannot be reconciled.
Want to learn more about the power of beliefs in leadership? The Eighth Mile offers an 8-week online training course where you will find out how your beliefs fit and inform your leadership abilities.


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Don is a multi-skilled leadership and strategy consultant with significant experience derived from his career as an Australian Army Officer, owner of his own international import/export company, ISO accreditation consulting for Veteran’s assistance programs, and working as the Vice President/Treasurer of his local RSL. Don completed 17 years as an Army Officer, specialising in highly complex and strategically sensitive environments, with Operational commendations received for excelling in high-pressure situations under considerable time constraints. Strategic leadership is a focus of Don’s as he successfully identifies strategic roadmaps for a diverse group of Military, Government, NGO, and NFPs, however, is underpinned by effectively translating visions into tacit operational imperatives. Recently, Don established ISO Certification for HomeFront Australia which provides home services support to Veterans in need and conducted strategic mission thread planning in the digital arena for the Land Network Integration Centre (AS Govt). Don has also been continuing his own personal entrepreneurial endeavors and supports his fellow Veterans through roles within RSL. Don has approached his role within Eighth Mile with the same intensity and passion he is renowned for and espouses the values of wanting to develop those in need.

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