Leaders rarely get stuck because they lack skill or effort.
More often, they get stuck because of unexamined beliefs — invisible assumptions that shape how they lead, how decisions are made, and how their teams respond.
Muriel M. Wilkins, in her Harvard Business Review article “The Hidden Beliefs That Hold Leaders Back” (Nov–Dec 2025), describes these as “deeply rooted assumptions that feel like truths.”
They’re often formed early in our careers — sometimes even before — and they quietly influence the systems we build and sustain.
How Hidden Beliefs Shape Systems
At CPEM, we see this play out in organisations of every size and industry.
Leaders want to create healthy, high-performing environments — yet their systems often reflect the beliefs they hold, without them realising it.
For example:
- A leader who believes “If I don’t do it, it won’t get done right” builds a system of dependency — where delegation is limited, trust is low, and innovation stalls.
- A leader who believes “I need to be available to everyone” creates a system of reactivity — where urgency replaces clarity.
- A leader who believes “Slowing down means falling behind” reinforces a system where pace becomes a performance metric, not a reflection of effectiveness.
Each belief becomes a small design choice in the broader organisational system. Over time, those choices accumulate — shaping culture, conditions, and ultimately, performance.
From Awareness to Adaptation
The good news?
Beliefs are not fixed. Once leaders bring them into view, they can redesign how those beliefs show up in their systems.
That starts with reflection — noticing where your system might be showing symptoms of a belief that no longer serves your purpose:
- Where do you see tension or repeated friction?
- What assumptions might be sitting underneath those patterns?
- What would change if that belief were no longer true?
Reflection isn’t self-indulgence; it’s leadership hygiene.
It creates the awareness necessary for sustainable performance, enabling leaders to align culture, pace, and purpose more intentionally.
How CPEM Helps
At CPEM, we help leadership teams create the structured space to pause and reflect — not just on performance, but on the systems and beliefs shaping it.
Through guided reflection and diagnostics, we help leaders see the connections between what they believe, how they behave, and what their systems produce.
It’s a process of slowing down just enough to see clearly — so the next move is deliberate, not reactive.
Start Your Reflection
Every system reflects its designer’s beliefs. The question is: what do yours reveal?
Take our Leadership System Pulse Check — a simple starting point to explore where your system might be running too fast, too tight, or too hard.
And while you’re there, explore more about how hidden beliefs might be quietly shaping your leadership system.
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