The Hidden Beliefs That Hold Leaders Back

Every leader hits a wall from time to time. Perhaps you’re struggling to lead at scale, motivate your team, or persuade higher-ups to give you the resources you need. In such situations it can be tempting to focus on external blockers, such as organizational bureaucracy, employee attitudes, and managerial decision-making. However, in the two decades I’ve spent coaching hundreds of executives across multiple industries, I’ve found that the biggest limiting factors for most of them lie within: their own unproductive beliefs, which I call hidden blockers. Why hidden? Because these blockers are so ingrained and habitual that most of us aren’t even aware that they exist. But they are there, quietly shaping every aspect of how we think, feel, and act. As the psychologist Carol Dweck’s groundbreaking work on mindsets has shown, the sets of beliefs we hold about ourselves are key to our ability to learn, adapt, and grow and to our performance and results. Bottom line: Whether we’re aware of them or not, our beliefs affect our outcomes. Though I’ve seen clients suffer from a wide variety of hidden blockers, an analysis of more than 300 leaders I’ve coached revealed the seven most common: 1. I need to be involved. The belief that you need to be part of every detail at every level, which leads to micromanagement, bottlenecked decisions, and less leverage from your team. 2. I need it done now. The belief that you need immediate results, no matter what, which creates false urgency, rushed execution, increased errors, and burnout. 3. I know I’m right. The belief that you—and only you—know the answers to the problems at hand, which shuts down collaboration, causes you to dismiss input, and leads to missed opportunities and reduced innovation. 4. I can’t make a mistake. The belief that your performance must be flawless, which encourages unhealthy perfectionism, indecision, and risk avoidance. 5. If I can do it, so can you. The belief that others’ performance must be like yours to be acceptable, which leads you to set unrealistic or unnecessary expectations, underestimate others’ skills, and limit development. 6. I can’t say no. The belief that you must always step up to the plate when asked, which results in overwork, blurred priorities, and poor boundary setting. 7. I don’t belong here. The belief that you don’t fit in where you are or at your level, which fuels debilitating impostor syndrome and self-sabotage and reduces your ability to communicate, visibility, and influence. If you’re having trouble advancing in your career or having the impact you want at work, chances are, one of these beliefs is holding you back. The good news is that I’ve developed a three-step framework—rooted in established behavioral-change principles—that I’ve used successfully with leaders. Anyone can apply it to get unblocked and unstuck. Step one is to uncover the blocker: recognizing the problem and naming the belief that’s creating it. In step two, you unpack the belief, reflecting on where it came from, how it might have once served you, and how it is limiting you now. Step three is to unblock yourself by reframing the belief into something more productive and embedding that new perspective into behavioral changes and tangible action. Let’s look at how two executives used this framework to become aware of and better understand the beliefs holding them back—and ultimately navigate their way past them to become more successful leaders. (All identifying details about them have been altered to protect their confidentiality.) Uncover Sometimes the signs of being blocked are unmistakable: stalled advancement, missed targets, or declining team morale or performance. At other times the clues are more subtle: a nagging sense that something feels off, an uncharacteristic negativity toward work, or a growing disconnect between your intentions and your impact. For some leaders being disappointed by lackluster outcomes or feedback that doesn’t square with their self-image is the first indicator that they’re blocked. This is what happened with my client Kristin, a recently promoted SVP leading a division through the aftermath of an organizational shake-up. Kristin had gone out of her way to support her people, and a year in, her team was engaged and performing well. But feedback from her direct reports, peers, and boss revealed that while everyone appreciated her collaborative, empathetic approach and her strategic acumen, people found her indecisive. While she ultimately made good choices, her process was complicated and lengthy, and because she sometimes deferred decisions to others, she was creating confusion about accountability and slowing progress. Davide Bonazzi Kristin was taken aback by these criticisms—and at first felt resentful. She’d devoted a great deal of time to meeting with others to gather input, gain consensus, and foster a sense of trust and shared responsibility. But the organization clearly required more decisiveness from its division leader, and Kristin had to acknowledge that she was falling short. As she dug deeper into why she’d adopted her too-careful, overly consultative approach, she realized that the biggest driver was her fear of making the wrong choices. Her hidden blocker was I can’t make a mistake. This made sense. Having come through a period of corporate upheaval, she wanted to avoid inflicting additional damage on her team and herself. So she was putting off decisions until she’d gathered enough data and polled enough people to feel comfortable that she’d arrived at the right conclusion. This belief was preventing her from being the decisive, forward-moving leader that the organization needed her to be. Another one of my clients, Philip, a brilliant technology executive who was admired and relied upon for his expertise, was stymied midcareer because of his impatient, insensitive demeanor, which had been cited many times in 360-degree reviews. His peers didn’t consider him a team player, and his boss was concerned about his ability to collaborate on deliverables critical to the company’s growth. Initially Philip defended his behavior, noting that he was merely pushing his colleagues to debate and develop solutions more quickly. But after watching his interactions with others in a recorded Zoom meeting—which included interruptions, dismissiveness, and condescension—he realized he wasn’t just ruining his work relationships; he was preventing himself and the team from achieving their goals. He finally admitted that he was blocked and that the belief powering his problematic behavior was I know I’m right. Unpack While it can be tempting to try to “fix” your limiting belief as soon as you recognize it, lasting change requires that you first fully accept, without defensiveness or blame, how it is negatively affecting you, your colleagues, and your organization and then seek to better understand it. To do that, you must examine its origins and purpose and its current role in your life and career. Most of us cling to beliefs that at one point helped us succeed or protected us from mental, emotional, or even physical pain or discomfort. Kristin’s perfectionism was no doubt an asset as she was rising through the ranks of her company, while Philip’s confidence and action orientation earned him high praise earlier in his career. When you unpack a belief, you can see how it no longer serves the purpose it once did and why it’s time to shift your thinking. Upon further reflection, Kristin realized that beyond wanting to avoid mistakes that would derail her organization’s recovery from its reorg, she harbored a deep-seated fear of disappointing others that stemmed from past experiences when her errors had let people down. That feeling carried a lasting sting. Recognizing that helped her distinguish between irrational, emotion-driven risk aversion and strategic caution and see how her desire to gain consensus on every choice rather than making her own clear-eyed assessment about the right course of action was compromising her effectiveness. She started to track when her I can’t make a mistake belief surfaced during the day and found that it was causing her to overthink not only major decisions but even minor, low-stakes ones and to spend excessive time perfecting every piece of work. The result for her and her division was inaction, inefficiency, and missed opportunities. For Philip, acceptance took some time, given his habit of criticizing others for their inability to move at his pace. The breakthrough came when he reviewed the Zoom meeting a second time to focus on how others reacted to him. He saw unmistakable looks of frustration on his colleagues’ and boss’s faces and recognized that all the credibility he’d built up over the years was being overshadowed by his domineering behavior and that he was undermining his own influence and effectiveness. He located the roots of his blocker in a source that will be familiar to many high achievers: the praise, positive reinforcement, and accolades he got from family, teachers, and managers for always providing the right answers. Of course, it’s good to consistently offer up knowledge and solutions, expertise, and excellence. But the I know I’m right belief can blind you to alternative ideas, stifle collaboration, and undermine team morale and productivity. When Philip finally recognized how strongly he associated being right with being valued, not just as a leader but as a human being, he was able to start breaking free from the belief and find other attributes around which to build his identity and self-worth. Self-knowledge loosens the grip of a hidden blocker. Unblock We’ve now arrived at the stage that most leaders relish: action. To truly overcome a hidden blocker, you need to replace your limiting belief with a supportive one that will promote more-productive, effective behavior. Often the best way to do that is to work back from the outcome you want. If you are an I need to be involved type, but your real priority is ensuring that you don’t miss giving input on and checking over mission-critical work, shift your thinking to I will weigh in on key matters but understand I can’t micromanage every task. (See the sidebar “From Hidden Blockers to Productive Beliefs” for more examples.) From Hidden Blockers to Productive Beliefs Seven examples of how to reframe unhelpful thoughts into more-beneficial ones. I need to be involved. I can do anything, but I can’t do everything. I need it done now. I need to focus on what truly matters. I know I’m right. My role is to help others find solutions, not to always give them the answers. I can’t make a mistake. My focus is excellence, not avoiding failure. If I can do it, so can you. What worked for me might not work for everyone. I can’t say no. I can say no to some things. I don’t belong here. I belong wherever I am. Kristin still wanted to be a collaborative, consensus-driven leader, but she also needed to make decisions more quickly and confidently in her new role. To support those intentions, she shifted her mindset from I can’t make a mistake to I’ll do the best I can with the information available to me, making excellence rather than perfection the goal. To hold herself accountable, she created a checklist that helped her determine how much time to devote to each decision and how much input to gather on any particular issue before making a call. Not only did her team benefit, as it could now act on the clear direction she provided, but her peers and senior leaders also gained more confidence in Kristin’s progress toward key goals, and she developed a deeper trust in her own judgment. Similarly, Philip, who wanted to be seen as less adversarial and more influential, chose to reframe his I know I’m right belief to I guide others to find the best solutions. He then backed up that mindset shift with action: a premeeting practice of visualizing himself as an equal collaborator on the same side of the table as his colleagues, which helped him keep his attitude, tone, and words aligned with his desired impact. He also began to tailor the level of pressure he exerted on others to the urgency and risk of the matter at hand and the specific goals to be achieved. With practice, he learned when to give answers immediately, when to guide, and when to hold back and listen. As a result, he became a more respected leader. He engaged with his peers better, which improved collaboration both in and out of meetings and led to faster, more sustainable follow-through. His teammates grew more comfortable asking questions and raising concerns without fear of damaging their credibility, which increased transparency and the quality of deliverables. His influence grew not because he imposed his ideas on people but because others chose to follow his lead. Helping Others Once you’ve learned to coach yourself through your own blockers, you can play a vital role in helping those you manage do the same. It might be as simple as modeling your willingness to self-reflect, shift your mindset, and tweak your behavior. But you can also work more deliberately with others who are being held back by their limiting beliefs. Say you have a highly capable team member who consistently misses opportunities to showcase her achievements. Whereas you might previously have seen this solely as a function of poor communication skills, you might now recognize it as potentially stemming from the I don’t belong here blocker and begin to approach feedback conversations with her differently. Instead of advising on behavior (“You should speak up and highlight your wins more often”), you can encourage her to first explore the underlying belief getting in her way (“When you think about mentioning all the work you’ve done to peers and senior leaders, what thoughts and feelings come up?”). I’m not suggesting you function as a therapist or supply answers, just that you put on your coaching hat to help others reflect and embrace productive change. On a broader scale, unblocked leaders working together are uniquely positioned to identify and overcome collective limiting beliefs that have become embedded in the organizational culture. They might include This is the way it’s always been done, Failure is not an option, That’s not our job, or We stay the course no matter what, each of which can drive actions that diminish rather than enhance productivity and performance. When entire teams, business units, or companies get stuck, it’s futile to move straight to change initiatives without first examining whether the group’s beliefs are aligned with and acting in service of its goals. As the leadership expert Bob Anderson notes, organizational transformation cannot occur until there is a change in the consciousness of leadership. When we all start working to identify, understand, and reframe our own blockers as well as those facing our colleagues, teams, and organizations, work becomes a place where we can achieve our full potential and collaborate to generate the best results. What begins as personal professional growth becomes positive collective change, which leads to extraordinary achievement. This article is adapted from Leadership Unblocked: Break Through the Beliefs That Limit Your Potential (Harvard Business Review Press, 2025) by Muriel M. Wilkins. Learn More

The Hidden Beliefs That Hold Leaders Back

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