Do you believe you can lead your team during a recession? Can you lead your organization when most of your team is working remotely and actual in person face time is limited to a couple of team BBQ’s?

Whether or not you believe you can lead, you’re right.

Our pre-conceived limits are seldom based on our actual ability or potential. We set our limits of what we can or cannot do based on our belief systems. In other words, our set limits are based on what we have accomplished in the past. Limiting yourself to past events disables you from future growth.

Your belief systems hold the collection of what is possible and impossible to attain. They are a set of pre-defined limits that govern your every action and ultimately dictate the outcomes of every conflict, adventure or project.

Belief systems also hold an array of judgments, and associations, basically a set of prejudices and pre-conceived notions regarding every aspect of life. The irony of beliefs is that for the most part, they are not even our own. We ‘inherit’ most of our beliefs from our parents, siblings, teachers and colleagues.

The limits imprinted on you in your past do not have to control you present reality. To succeed you must pull out the stakes and chains that bind you to the sets of limitations that you don’t have to own.

What Do You Believe?

Before changing your beliefs, you must first realize what they are. For example:

• Do you believe your organization can thrive when customer demand is decreasing?
• Do you believe you can lead and inspire your team via a Zoom call, without meeting them face to face?
• Do believe your team can perform at a high level without physically showing up at the office? Can you?

Review your answers. Do these beliefs serve you in your current circumstances?

Are they limiting your ability to act and lead today?

Do they empower you or chain you to past defeats?

Now that you’ve exposed some of your limiting beliefs, your goal is to short circuit this array of negative programming that is keeping you from realizing your potential. The alternative is to be governed by a guidance system locked on target for self-sabotage.

Adjust your questions to focus on:

• What aspects of our service delivery process can we enhance to better serve our customers?
• Are our customers experiencing any new pain points in in their business?
• Can our products or services mitigate some of this pain? How?
• Can I schedule more regular touch points (phone calls, zoom meetings) with my team?
• Have other departments in my organization successfully led internationally dispersed teams? Can I contact those department leads and discuss key learnings from those experiences?
• Can I develop a plan/strategy to have meaningful connections with my team based on these learnings?
• Are other parts of my organization thriving in this current environment? Are my competitors thriving? Why? Can I model their behaviours and tactics and lead my team to achieve similar success?

The answers to these questions will start to build a foundation of empowering beliefs enabling you to take your team forward.