Let Go of the Beliefs That Limit How You Lead

AMY GALLO: You’re listening to Women at Work from Harvard Business Review. I’m Amy Gallo.

AMY BERNSTEIN: And I’m Amy Bernstein. A regular guest of ours, executive coach Muriel Wilkins, is here with us yet again, yay, with her signature mix of candor and compassion.

MURIEL WILKINS: Hello. Thank you for having me here again.

AMY GALLO: Nice to have you back.

AMY BERNSTEIN: So great to see you.

AMY GALLO: Muriel, every time you’re on the show, you help us see what being a leader actually requires on the inside, and you’ve channeled that special gift into your latest book. Tell everyone what it’s called.

MURIEL WILKINS: Absolutely. So, my latest book is called Leadership Unblocked: Break Through the Beliefs That Limit Your Potential.

AMY BERNSTEIN: So, I have to be honest, I identified with several of those beliefs, but the one I focused on is the belief called “I need it done now.”

AMY GALLO: And I identified with another of them, the “I know I’m right,” which I understand, Muriel, is one you have struggled with as well.

MURIEL WILKINS: Yes. Have struggled with, struggle with, and probably will always struggle with, but with a little bit more ease.

AMY BERNSTEIN: So, we’ll go into detail about those hidden blockers and the steps you had us go through, which we strongly recommend our listeners go through too.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. We went from vague feelings of we know we need to make a change, all the way to concretely listing what we need to start and stop doing.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Not only so that we as individuals can reach our full potential, but also so that our teams can and our organizations can as well.

AMY GALLO: All right, so Muriel, before Amy B and I tell you about the awareness we got from reading and reflecting—and it was a bit of painful awareness at times—can you just tell us what you mean by a “hidden blocker” and how would someone know that’s what they have?

MURIEL WILKINS: Yeah. So, a hidden blocker is basically a belief. It lives on the inside of you, which is why it’s often hidden because you’re not even aware that it’s there. And a belief, for simplicity’s sake, is something that you think is true. We all have beliefs, and some of them are based on facts. Most of them are based on our perceptions—the lens through which we look at the world—which has quite frankly nothing to do with what’s happening at the moment but is a reflection of everything that has happened to us beforehand. So, the reason I call them hidden blockers is one, because we’re often not aware of them, so they are hidden until you can bring them to the surface. But second, they often block us from being able to reach the goals that we have for ourselves unwittingly because they are serving another purpose but not necessarily the purpose that you want to have, which is to reach whatever professional goals or personal goals that you have.

AMY BERNSTEIN: So, some of the signs that you describe of struggling with one or more of those blockers—they include low morale, stalled advancement, resentment—they sound like problems we blame on others. Why is it so hard to see that we might be the common thread?

MURIEL WILKINS: Think about it. When you have to blame yourself for something, what does it mean? It means that you have to do something about it. So, I think it’s very easy to look at others to blame for what might be happening. And in effect, it’s not say that others aren’t contributing to it, but what most of us don’t do is say, How am I contributing to the issue that’s at hand or the challenge that I’m facing? And when we can start looking at what our own contributions are, at the very least we can make some movement there; because once you start making movement, it will change the dynamic of the circumstance no matter what.

And in my role as an executive coach, which is what I’ve done for over 20 years now, my role is to help my clients or the individuals that I’m working with figure out how to be as successful as they can be within the context that they’re in. My role is not to change the context. And so as much as my clients hate it, at the end of the day, what I always tell them is, “you’re the one who’s sitting in front of me, so you’re the only one who I can work with in terms of making a difference. So, let’s talk about what choices you have in front of you for what you can do differently, keeping in mind again that everything is co-created.” So, the minute that one individual changes the way that they behave or respond, it automatically changes the dynamic.

AMY BERNSTEIN: So, my blocker, as I mentioned, is “I need it done now.” And I used to see that as one of my strengths—that you sent me an email, I responded almost immediately. Slack, even faster. And I hit this point of exhaustion not too long ago where I realized I cannot do that anymore. It was counterproductive, and it was burning me out. And so I realized that I was making this fundamental mistake, which was I was not separating the urgent from the important, and then relatedly, I was letting other people’s urgency be my urgency. And I realized from that, that I needed to first make the distinction between the urgent and the important and stick to it, not get blown with every puff of wind.

MURIEL WILKINS: Yeah. This is a really common one, and I want to touch on a few things that you said, Amy. The first is you used to think of this as a strength of yours. Well, the fact of matter is it was perceived as a strength of yours when it served you well in the capacity that you were in, probably when you were an individual contributor, earlier on in your career. I remember when I came out of college, my first job, and for a long time afterwards, that is what got me great credibility with my bosses. The minute they said jump, I was like, How high? Let’s go. I was more urgent than they were. I was figuring out what was urgent for them and solving it before it became urgent for them.

But then this belief though is one of the ones that really holds people back from leading at scale. So one of the things that’s key here is recognizing, are the mantras or beliefs or principles that we live by at certain points of our career or in certain organizations… do they necessarily serve us well when the situation or the context or the goal has changed? And in your case, it does not to continue with the “I want it done now” across the board because you are now leading at a much bigger scale with a lot of people wanting you to do things urgently—but not necessarily the most important things.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Right. And just to your earlier point about how hard it is to realize that these are things that are built on beliefs rather than facts, my behavior was habit. There was no mantra. It was decades and decades of habit. And so understanding it took some work.

AMY GALLO: And also I am realizing so much of this is internal work, but you have to undo what others look to you for.

MURIEL WILKINS: That’s right. A lot of people benefit from our behaviors and well, what is it going to mean now if Amy B is not responding to her all her emails within four hours? Oh my gosh. And so, all it means is that there’s a dynamic that now needs to be renegotiated. And that’s what I talk about is if you can own your part of the dynamic, the minute you make a change, the dynamic changes. So let it start with you.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah.

MURIEL WILKINS: So, Amy B, let me ask you a question. If you had to reframe from “I need it done now” to a different belief that you think would best serve you right now, what would that be for you?

AMY BERNSTEIN: Well, so what I do now is before I even open my inbox or look at my Slack, I start out thinking, What do I need to get done today? What needs to happen so that everything else that needs to happen can happen? So, setting priorities and sequencing my own activities. And then when I look at the inbox, I’m scanning for the white-hot stuff that I need to deal with. And the rest of it, I just leave it unread.

MURIEL WILKINS: I hear that reframe as moving from “I need it done now” to “I need to focus on what actually needs to get done today.”

AMY BERNSTEIN: Exactly.

MURIEL WILKINS: Which, there’s a small nuance there.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Well, it’s also me taking control and not being controlled by other people’s requests. It was just super-responsiveness.

MURIEL WILKINS: Look, this is a really common one, and I think to really unpack it, you have to understand what the source of it is. Because this, “I need to do it now” did not just start a couple of years ago. And for everybody it’s different. I know for myself that I need to do it now came from a place of, the more productive I was, the more accolades I got. And that’s nice to get accolades, and so why not keep getting those accolades? At the end of the day, it was a way of being valuable. And so I had a strong identity to productivity being where I pinned all of my value until it came too much of a cost.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. Well, the blocker I identify most with the, “I know I’m right.” The point of this chapter where you start talking about things that may have led you to have this hidden blocker. I was a little like, Was she sitting in my therapy sessions? Because you were praised a lot for having the right answer. You were often told that you were smart and publicly recognized for it. You excelled academically. I was just like, oh my gosh, of course I ended up with this know-it-all blocker. It makes so much sense, and yet you’re blind to it because it serves you so well until it doesn’t.

MURIEL WILKINS: Until it doesn’t.

AMY GALLO: That was the interesting thing about reading that chapter is that you don’t try to convince the client example… Philip is his name in the chapter. You don’t try to convince him that he doesn’t know it all. You’re just trying to convince him that his arrogance and impatience is standing in his way. So, it’s not that he doesn’t have the right answers. I’m saying [laughter] it’s not that I don’t have the right answers; it’s that the fact that I’m not including others in the decision. I think the real cost of the blocker is that I end up making other people feel small because I don’t leave room for them. My thoughts, my ideas, my confidence takes up so much room that it just hurts the connection to be honest.

MURIEL WILKINS: And Amy G, if your goal was solely around knowing the answer, then we’re good. Keep doing what you’re doing. Keep being the first person to give the answer. Keep having the answer. But if you are now defining your success as, I want to make sure we get to the right answer, solving the problem is important, and I don’t want other people to experience being around me as being small or not included…if that is also part of my leadership, the way that I want others to experience my leadership, then in a way that belief is not supporting that goal. So, it always comes back to, What’s your goal? What is it that you want as a leader, how do you want others to experience you and as well as how do you want to experience yourself?

AMY GALLO: Yeah. Can I tell a… I don’t think I’ve ever shared this on the podcast. But when I realized this was a problem, this hidden blocker for me was when I was working as a consultant, I had a colleague who had become a good friend, and we were working on a project. And at the end of a meeting, he looked at me, and I’ll change the curse word, but he said, “Do you know at the end of every sentence, there’s a silent ‘you idiot’ that you don’t say, but it’s in your tone?” And he said it. At the time we laughed about it, ha ha, and I’m mortified, but that moment of feedback was really harsh. And yet, such a… I mean, thank you to Rosario, who gave me that, who took the leap to say that, because I had no idea.

MURIEL WILKINS: And Amy G, I have a story to one up on you. I went through the exact same thing. I literally rolled my eyes at someone. To this day I can see it. I remember doing it, and I know what was going through my head was I know the answer to this, and this person here doesn’t know what the heck they’re talking about. And this was very early on in my career, and I remember—it was in consulting as well. And the partner pulled me to the side, and he was like, “Okay. You can’t do that.” And I was like, “Do what?”

AMY GALLO: You mean, have every answer all the time?

MURIEL WILKINS: And he said, “I know you knew the answer, but that wasn’t your job in that meeting. Your job was to let the client get to the answer. You were just there to be supportive and to answer questions if they had them.”

AMY GALLO: Amy B and I are pretty aware at this moment of what our hidden blockers are, although maybe we have more too. But if you had coached us five years, 10 years ago when we weren’t as dialed into this, how do you get people to develop the awareness that these exist and what their specific one is?

MURIEL WILKINS: So, I see my job as helping facilitate that thought process with the goal of that anyone who I work with—and that is my goal with the book as well—can do that for themselves, so that they can coach themselves. And I think the first place to start is to recognize when there’s some dissonance that is important enough to the individual for them to want to change. And that dissonance either needs to be with themselves, they’re feeling like the way I’m behaving is not aligned with either who I want to be or who I believe I am. That’s number one. Or there’s a dissonance between how they’re behaving and external.

So what that looks like a lot of times is the boss says, “This is unacceptable,” or the organization says, “This is unacceptable,” or everything that I’m using to externally measure my success, the promotion, company results, that presentation, the outcome is not aligned with what I want. And so it’s dissonance for most individuals that creates this sense of need for change. And I will say for a lot of my… Not even a lot—all of my clients. I always tell them it’s actually not about changing the belief. It’s having more range in your beliefs so that they are aligned with what it is that you want, which is where we start getting into… you know, the most mature leaders are the ones who can hold conflicting beliefs at one point. This is the both-and. They can hold different beliefs and operate with them because they have enough maturity and wisdom and discernment to be able to say, Okay, yes, this is a time where I need to have the answer, and this is a time where that belief doesn’t serve me and I’m not going to do it.

So, the first is usually when somebody asks me to work with them is because there’s a tension; it’s not because everything’s going well. And so you have to feel that tension that makes you wonder, There’s something that’s not working as well as I would like it to. Again, most people don’t think it’s them. They think it’s somewhere out there that something is not right. And then the second is to really get curious. What is happening right now in you that’s making you experience this in the way that you’re experiencing it? And what would you need to believe in order to be able to meet that goal that you now have?

And so it’s through a series of questions. There’s no way I could go to a client and just say, “You know what your hidden blocker is? It’s that you think you need it done now.” It’s more in that they’re seeing that something isn’t working. And I say, “Well, what do you want to have work?” They’re like, “Well, I want to feel like I’m being productive and I can make decisions.” “Okay. Well, what would you need to believe in order for that to happen?” And they’ll say, “I would need to believe that I don’t need to respond to all of my emails within four hours.” “Okay. So what would you need to believe?” “I need to believe that certain things are being taken care of and that I can delegate certain things and that there are certain things that are really urgent and that’s what I need to focus on.” And then we work down that thread: If you were to do that, what would look differently?

AMY GALLO: Well, I love the, “what would you need to believe?”

MURIEL WILKINS: Look, I’m not a therapist, I’m not a psychologist, and I give all credit to those who are. But at the end of the day, whether you’re at work or outside of work, we all have these fundamental human needs, which are, we need to feel like we’re safe, we need to feel like we’re connected and we belong, and we need to feel like we’re worthy and valued. The issue is that many times we try to force circumstances to make it happen, which is where these beliefs come from.

For me, the one around “I need it done now” or “I have the answer” came from a place of, I need to feel valued, and this is the best way I can show my value so I’m going to go for it. But part of what needs to happen as we lead is we need to evolve and grow, which to me is the biggest business case for leadership development. We need to grow to a place where we’re not looking for these external circumstances to feed that. Because as long as we’re looking for those external circumstances to feed that, we move into control. We try to control people, we try to control systems, we try to control… Which is very different than management and leadership. And it starts becoming very unproductive. And that’s where we start getting people like my clients that need help to move through those things because not only is it blocking them, but it’s blocking their teams and sometimes organizations.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. Let’s talk about other people’s blockers for a moment, because sometimes you notice someone else thinking about the “I need to be involved” chapter, and you list signs—like joining meetings you don’t need to be in, being resentful about your workload, insisting on being CC’d on things. Sometimes we see those behaviors in other people. Is there any way to help someone you work with see this as a blocker?

MURIEL WILKINS: Okay, so here’s the thing. Part of this is that we wait until the moment or the situation to figure out how do I now show people that they could be doing something differently? And this is to me where modeling leadership is important. If you have shown all along as a leader or as a colleague, that you are very self-aware and that you take that self-awareness seriously, that you do the work, believe me, people are watching. And you have much more permission and leeway to say, “Hey, you know what, colleague, can I share something with you about what I’ve experienced?” And you use yourself as the role model. So that to me is always the first place to start. The second place or the subsequent place, is you need to ask for permission from people to actually provide them with help, even if you’re a manager.

AMY BERNSTEIN: So how do you ask for permission?

MURIEL WILKINS: If you came and we’re having coffee, Amy B, or I walk into your office, and you’re like, “Oh my God, I’ve got 10,000 emails in my inbox.” And I would be like, “So do you mind if I give you some thoughts and some suggestions or that we talk through this right now?” And you have every right to say, “No. I don’t want to.” Most people will not turn it down. And then you move into, “Well, what’s going on? Why do you feel…” You try to figure out that dissonance. Do you want to feel something different? Is it that you want a different result? What is it that you want? And you’re like, “Oh my gosh, I can’t… These decisions.” “Okay. Well, here’s what I’m noticing. Can I give you a little bit of my observations?” I don’t even think you have to call it feedback. Feedback is so loaded. “Can I share with you my observations? I’m seeing you respond very quickly, and I’m just curious what’s driving that for you.”

AMY BERNSTEIN: So back to the person who always needs to be involved, has to be at the meeting, needs to be CC’d on the email. What if you said to them, “Why do you need to be at the meeting?” What if you interrogated it with an open mind? Would that be helpful? Would that help move them?

MURIEL WILKINS: Look, I think that it really depends on your relationship with that individual. If there is high trust, you’ve had these types of conversations, this person is used to you kicking the tire on them, no problem. That question with all those conditions not there can also lead to some defensiveness and them shutting down and actually defending the hidden blocker, which is why I think it’s very important to add context. Why are you asking that question? And that’s when it is,” look, I noticed that you’re in these meetings and I know you’re also really busy, do you mind if I just share my observations or ask you a couple of questions around that?”

AMY BERNSTEIN: That makes sense.

MURIEL WILKINS: Yep. I want you to. Okay. And I don’t even think it’s “Why?” It’s, “What is it that’s making you have to come to these meetings?” And the minute they start… they usually will blame it on other people. Okay, “I have to be there.” “Oh, okay. Well, what would happen if you weren’t? Oh, and is that causing any difficulty for you?” Again, let’s remember if it’s not causing dissonance for the individual or causing any type of tension or difficulty, they’re not going to be open to any type of input that you have on this. And if we think that we can actually influence them and get them to change the belief or whatnot without them wanting to, that’s a form of our own control. So, this is not about manipulating and controlling others. It is about them being able to get out of their own way. But they have to get out of their own way, and you’re just there to facilitate it if they’d like.

AMY GALLO: Amy B, how have you pointed out to other leaders when you’ve noticed they might have a hidden blocker?

AMY BERNSTEIN: Well, I didn’t have that language and that structure in my head when I’ve done it in the past, I only just read Muriel’s book. But what I have done is when someone I’m close to has complained about something: “I’m always so busy; I don’t have time to catch my breath.” And the same person also needs to be included in every conversation, in every meeting, on every email thread, I’ve asked, “Why do you really need to be in that? Your deputy is handling it. Do you not trust her to make a good decision? Are you worried that you’re going to miss something important? Are there other ways that you can catch up?”

I’ve also pointed out how complicating it is to demand that this person need to be included in everything. Every additional person you add to a meeting makes that meeting that much more complicated to schedule, for example. And very little gets decided in meetings with 15 people in them. You know what I mean? So I try to point out that there are behaviors that this person can control that are both causing the pain and by modifying them could alleviate some of the pain.

MURIEL WILKINS: And I think what’s critical here is people can modify behaviors, but if they don’t modify the thing that’s driving the behavior, it’s short-lived is the issue. And I think that that’s what I realized after years of coaching: I could coach on new skills, and I could provide new actions and new strategies and approaches, but it wasn’t sustainable because the operating system that supports those new actions and those new skills—which are the beliefs—weren’t in place. And so, they would then revert back to the old behavior quite quickly.

AMY BERNSTEIN: So, I want to get your help on something, Muriel. I want a free session. [Laughter] It’s not about me personally, although it causes me a lot of pain. It’s really about the organization and our love of meetings, our reliance on them, our over-reliance on them to conduct any business. Meetings that are not always all that productive, meetings that are a huge drain on individual’s time. And I’m wondering if you can help us understand what hidden blockers may be at play here.

MURIEL WILKINS: I think the place to start is to say, Okay. If we feel pain from the way it is now, what would make it feel like it has less pain? What would that look like? Okay. So, is it that we have less meetings? Is it that less people are at meetings? So it’s the envisioning the future. And then you have to ask yourself, What would we need to actually believe in order to make that happen? To have less meetings, let’s say, or for not everyone to be in the meeting. And what I have found in this particular situation is you’ll hear things like, “Oh, we would need to trust that the people who are in the room will actually make the right decision.” And that starts hitting the nerve.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Right.

MURIEL WILKINS: Right. Because then it’s like, “Okay. So, what is your capability of believing that now?” “I don’t know how comfortable I am with that.” “Well, what makes you uncomfortable?” “Because I don’t believe that I can trust everyone.” Now we got it. Okay. So now we understand what we need to work on is the trust factor. And I’m just using that as an example. I don’t know if that’s exactly what’s happening in your situation. But I think it is about envisioning what is the new goal, what would need to be the mindset that we would need to have collectively in order for that new goal to happen? And if we don’t feel confident we can have that mindset, why is that? Get curious about it, to understand what’s the mindset that we have currently that’s keeping us from being there and unpacking that. And then making a decision around do we want to have a different mindset or not and what actions would support it. So, it’s no different than the work you have to do at an individual level. You’re just doing it at a collective level.

What I find a lot of times is with teams or organizations, when there is either disagreement or behavior in the organization that’s misaligned with what people want or what they say they want is that a lot of times there’s not alignment around the assumptions that individuals are making. So, even from a meeting standpoint, if there’s misalignment around what the purpose of the meetings are, that in itself is a belief. If I believe the meetings are to make decisions, but my colleagues think that the meetings are for us to get consensus, that creates a different need for the meetings. So, it is unpacking, What is leading to today us having a lot of meetings in this culture, to what would we need to understand, what assumptions would we need to make in order to support what we envision, which is less meetings or shorter meetings or meetings with less people in it.

AMY BERNSTEIN: That’s very helpful. Thank you.

MURIEL WILKINS: But what you can’t do is—well, you can do it; I’m just saying I don’t think it will lead to long-term success, I think it will lead to long-term frustration—is all of a sudden say, We’re changing the meeting structure, and we’re moving from our weekly meeting where everybody’s involved to now we’re going to move to monthly and only these three people come. You can do that. But if you do that, you have to provide what are the underlying assumptions that are shifting to then warrant this new structure. That’s where people miss out. They not only announce the change; they don’t give context for it. And as part of that context, they don’t provide, what are the assumptions that are moving to align with this change?

AMY GALLO: That resonates so much having been part of organizations that are trying to make shifts, but they don’t address the underlying beliefs. You addressed the meeting issue, but is there any other advice you have about pushing back on some of those blockers or helping the organization make a shift when it’s a group shared belief?

MURIEL WILKINS: Yeah. Look, I think it starts with leadership. If you really want to see a shift from an organizational standpoint, you better work with the leaders first and ensure that they are aligned with what needs to change—not just in terms of actions, but they are also aligned in terms of mindset and assumptions. And then how do they do the work with everyone else? I have an organization that I’ve worked with, and they say, “Oh yes, we believe in work-life balance.” But when you look at the leadership, they’re in there every Saturday, every Sunday, all day. And so—

AMY GALLO: And sending emails at 11:30 at night.

MURIEL WILKINS: At 11:30. So the mindset is not aligned with the values that they espouse, and everybody sees right through it. Something fundamental underneath this is that a leader cannot move an organization to a capacity level that they haven’t reached. So, if a leader is trying to shift an organization to behave in a particular way, and yet they have not been able to move themselves to that behavior or evolve their own mindset, there’s no way they’re going to be able to lead others to it.

AMY GALLO: Muriel, as always, this has been so helpful, and I feel like a better person as a result. So, thank you so much.

MURIEL WILKINS: Thank you.

AMY BERNSTEIN: And Muriel, thank you for helping me think constructively about some stuff that’s really been eating at me.

MURIEL WILKINS: It’s always such a pleasure to speak with both of you, and thank you for having me and being deep in this conversation with me. It’s truly an honor.

AMY GALLO: Can’t wait for the book to be out. To hear more of Muriel’s wise clear-eyed guidance, listen to her HBR podcast, Coaching Real Leaders. Each episode is a real-life lesson with an executive.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Some of the questions that recent guests have asked include, How do I get out of constant crisis mode? How do I lead change when there’s stakeholder resistance? How do I deal with low performers on my team?

AMY GALLO: In each case, Muriel helps them see what’s really getting in their way and how to move forward with clarity and conviction.

AMY BERNSTEIN: To learn how to coach yourself and other people through all sorts of hidden blockers, pre-order Leadership Unblocked. If something in our conversation surfaced for you while listening, the book will help you understand it, reframe it, and move forward.

Women at Work’s editorial and production team is Amanda Kersey, Maureen Hoch, Tina Tobey Mack, Hannah Bates, Rob Eckhardt, and Ian Fox. I’m Amy Bernstein.

AMY GALLO: And I’m Amy Gallo. Get in touch with us by emailing womenatwork@hbr.org.