Darius Srebalius
There has been an overwhelming amount of books and articles dedicated to the power of belief. Indeed, belief has a crucial power on personal and organizational development. But what about disbelief? There is a tendency to admit that disbelief is void, which is actually not, as it is of a negative form. “I don’t believe” means “I believe I cannot do it, I believe it is not part of me, I believe this is not possible” and so on. Disbelief is an intrinsic part of our being which affects our personal and organizational development just as well as belief does.
Belief influences many aspects or areas of an organization and makes a crucial impact on the areas which generate income. There are a great number of reasons for a particular form of belief to appear in the company, but the one which plays a decisive role in designing the overall form of belief in the company is within the leader. The team behaves the way in which the leader behaves. To me leadership entails more consciousness and the individual in the leader role primarily is the one who encourages leadership in others. Leadership is to be cherished within every single human being no matter what status one has obtained in an organization or society. Disposition to seek knowledge, perfection and well-being is an innate feature within us, but there is something that ruins and puts this feature to malfunction. The leader or boss is the soul and leadership nutrition supplier to the whole company and in fact is a perfect forecaster, development pace setter, and success designer for his company. The business or personal development projection and path to follow is always outlined and borne within. Should we fail to read it out, we will lose the chance to modify it if necessary and we may be guided and consequently may guide others to a failure. How can corporate goals be achieved if leadership doesn’t believe they are accomplishable? The chances to accomplish are commensurate to ones belief. No belief – no chances to succeed.
I know a number of superb managers with excellent management skills, but their companies don’t perform well or achieve what was planned. In many cases, this is because they don’t seem to be integral, they do not believe what they say to their people, and the result is commensurate not to what they utter out but to what they bear within. The staff behaves the way in which their boss behaves.
When we deal with other people, we tend to assume that messages are conveyed by words. This is correct, but not quite exact. The messages are conveyed by our thoughts expressed in words, voice tone, behavior and other physical expression of our body. Should we assume that we transmit our messages by words only, then we may be wasting a great deal of time and money to hit our targets.
Any single move, action, speech, talking or any other activity committed by the leader will to a larger or smaller extent be fixed in the mind of an individual, organization or community and will serve as the guide way to follow as well. For that reason the thoughts and words of the leader must be congruent to adequately transfer ideas. If the leader talks about the company’s plans but deep inside doesn’t believe they are achievable, he will transmit an ambiguous message to his team. Communication is two-fold. We communicate at the conscious level by words and we also communicate at the subconscious level by other means of bodily expression. For that reason, if one declares about one’s vision, plans, objectives, assignments or tasks but deep inside is having doubts about the accomplishment of them and can no way form a clear picture of the final result in mind, one will look or sound unconvincing. Not only will one be unconvincing, he will send over an ambiguous message. Irrespective to the contents of what we say, deep inside we communicate our own way and if we are no confident, the words will be incongruent with our thoughts.
So how exactly does disbelief affect our daily activities and our ultimate business goals? One part of the listener‘s mind which is consciousness will pick words as message transmitters, whereas the other part which is subconsciousness will be after other forms of message transmitters. If we give an assignment to a group of people and don’t believe that it is accomplishable, what message will we convey to our team or anyone with whom we talk ? Consciously, people hear the information as it is being conveyed by words and accepts it as the task to accomplish. However, the other parts of the speaker’s body will speak differently and will transmit an opposite message and it will be acknowledged by the recipient’s subconsciousness as incompletion of the assignment exists alongside as a task. Would you believe it?
This is happening to a smaller or bigger effect throughout all companies. In fact, this is the leader who has the power to set the chances for accomplishment because belief or no belief in the positive outcome will empower or frustrate, will enable or deactivate consciousness of his team. In the end, he gets what he thinks which might be a way too far from what he says. That’s why the leader must be careful not only about what he speaks but what he thinks as well, because there are message transmitters which are hardly controllable. The staff will pick not only words but will definitely adopt the information conveyed by voice timber, gestures, moves or speech of the eyes.
If the manager speaks out about big plans but doesn‘t trust his own resources and does not lay confidence in the desirable outcome of the company’s endeavor, the company will adopt the manager‘s thought processes. The manager sets the collective thought of his company. His disbelief will unconsciously spread, ungrasped, throughout the company and will tune the collective mind accordingly, which means completion and incompletion of the assignment or vision will coexist as a task. The staff won’t be able to fully engage inner resources once an ambiguous message comes over. Their subconsciousness will not guide them through to the planned result if they don‘t believe it.
Many managers complain about the unproductive staff delivering results no way corresponding to the plans or tasks. In most cases, its not the staff to be reproached but the one who delivers tasks or sets plans, which most probably were ambiguously perceived by the team. We are the way we think. To be more precise we do and act the way we believe. If someone in the team gets the message wrongly, he will set his mind wrongly, consequently will perform his duties wrongly.
The good news is that there of course is a way to have it all congruent and this is Belief, which purifies our thoughts and synchronizes with body. Belief makes the message crystal clear. Faith is the linking between our thoughts and body, consequently between us and the ones to whom we are talking . Rather than try to change the team, managers who are struggling with motivation of their sales teams could try to change their own thoughts instead. Changing thoughts will change the manner of speaking and the communication with the team will change too, which is the best way to keep the team inspired. The team behaves as does the manager. If the manager is inspired, the team will also be inspired; if the manager believes, the team will also believe; if the boss sees positive result, the team will also see positive results. When we transmit an assignment to our people and are not sure or have doubts about the success of it, in the end, we will get what we have been thinking.. Our confidence and belief in the positive outcome will make sure the message is unequivocally transmitted in every single detail of it, and the mind of our staff is tuned accordingly.
Belief and disbelief deliver unprecedented power. It affects the guideline of our subconsciousness, which is the direct and true way to the accomplishment and fulfillment of thoughts. Any doubts or wavering thoughts towards our goals will hinder our personal commitment and restrain resources from the full employment towards the goal.
The modern leader is the person who animates integral leadership, who cares about what he says and what he thinks, who believes in the positive outcome and transmits unequivocal messages to his people which is the best way to harness the company’s potential towards the successful outcome of any endeavor. Isn’t it the way you could considerably improve your business or personal life?
About the Author
Darius Srebalius (BA, MBA) was inspired to inquire into the realm of spirituality following his breakthrough performances in international businesses. His leadership conception is based on the philosophy that leadership can be cherished by enabling consciousness to challenge inner belief systems. Program designer on animating consciousness as the key precondition for leadership development, he is also a personal/organizational development effectiveness facilitator and an author of numerous articles to the top tier international business community.