Transforming Your Worldview for Better Results

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Today, we look at worldview through the lens of results—our expectations for ourselves and others.

Are the expected results ever good enough, fast enough, or high enough? Perhaps these expectations leave an undercurrent of disappointment and constant stress, allowing little room for gratitude. These expectations of results reveal your worldview more clearly than your stated values ever could.

In our previous discussions, we explored how worldview forms the foundation of leadership. Remember our key axiom: worldview, values, beliefs, and style are "more caught than taught." Leaders don't primarily influence through what they explicitly teach but through what others observe in their actions and decisions. Your team catches your worldview through your everyday behaviors—how you respond to challenges, what you prioritize, and where you direct your attention.

The trust statements we make often reveal our deepest worldviews.

Just as the models in our lives and leaders we've admired weren't always perfect, the truisms and assumptions we carry may not always serve us well. Statements like "People need to be closely managed" or "If you want something done right, do it yourself" might feel like proven wisdom, but they invite a pause to reflect on whether these assumptions still support our current leadership goals.

While not an overnight process, the potential for profound changes in leadership effectiveness through worldview transformation is immense. Consider the case of a construction executive I once worked with. For twenty years, he operated under the belief that 'People need constant direction'—a view shaped by his military background and early career experiences. A transformative realization during our program opened up a world of possibilities for him.

His exhausting leadership style involved checking every detail and solving problems his team should have handled themselves. When asked to examine his worldview, he recognized this approach had created dependent team members who waited for instructions rather than thinking independently. The cost was burnout for him and underdevelopment for his team.

His transformation began with a simple shift: "People can rise to challenges when given clear expectations and appropriate support." This wasn't abandoning standards but changing his approach to achieving them. Over six months, he gradually shifted his management style by delegating outcomes rather than processes, implementing regular check-ins instead of constant oversight, asking, "What do you think we should do?" before offering solutions, and explicitly celebrating initiative and problem-solving.

The results were remarkable. His team's capabilities expanded, his stress decreased, and several team members emerged as potential future leaders. Most importantly, he found a sustainable leadership approach that allowed him to focus on strategic priorities.

Worldview transformation follows a reflective pattern that can happen in a moment or maturated over time: awareness of your current beliefs and their impact, examination of these beliefs against evidence, experimentation with new approaches, and integration of new perspectives that yield better results.

Growth requires the courage to question deeply held assumptions, especially those that have brought some measure of success in the past. The most effective leaders continually refine their worldviews as they gain experience and insight. This process of questioning and refining can be empowering, putting you in control of your leadership journey.

Reflection Questions:

1. What results in your leadership have been disappointing or frustrating?

2. What worldview belief might be contributing to these outcomes?

3. What small experiment could you try to test a different approach?

Remember, worldview shifts don't require abandoning your core values. Instead, they examine the assumptions shaping how you express those values in your leadership. The goal isn't to adopt someone else's worldview but to ensure your own genuinely serves your effectiveness as a leader—and your fulfillment as a person.

As you go into your next meeting today, consider that achieving the desired results might be better served by reflecting on your worldview before focusing on behavioral tactics. There's nothing wrong with aspiring toward best practices, but what drives you may not motivate your people.

Worldview - The Language of Leadership: Part 2 of 3

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Part 2: How Trust Statements Reveal Your Worldview

During a recent worldview conversation with industry leaders, the discussion quickly revealed their underlying assumptions. One financial director firmly stated, "Russell, you can't trust people. If you do, they'll take advantage of you." Another leader challenged this perspective, sharing, "I struggle with trusting my people. However, I've adopted an approach of 'trust, then verify.'" A third participant smiled and added, "It's best to inspect what you expect." These statements, shared within minutes of each other, demonstrate how our deepest beliefs about people emerge in casual conversation—and how dramatically they shape our leadership approach.

While Part 1 explored the origins of our worldview—the family, friends, mentors, and workplace experiences that informed the developmental stages that shaped us—Part 2 examines how these beliefs manifest in our daily language and leadership approach through what I call "trust statements."

The phrases we routinely use reveal our deepest assumptions about people and the world. Like an invisible operating system, these statements guide our decisions without conscious awareness. I've witnessed how dramatically they affect team performance, underscoring the urgency for leaders to address their beliefs.

Consider two project managers with similar technical skills. One consistently says, "If you want something done right, do it yourself." His first boss fired people for mistakes, embedding a belief that safety requires control. His team performs reliably but rarely innovates or takes initiative—they await instructions and avoid risks. Another manager operates from "people rise to expectations" and "everyone brings valuable perspectives." Her team consistently outperforms on problem-solving and adaptation. The difference isn't skill—the worldview shapes how team members are treated and respond.

Trust Statements versus Truth Statements

It's crucial to distinguish between trust and truth statements in our leadership language. Both types of statements inform our worldview through values, beliefs, and behaviors. Truth statements express absolutes or core convictions—the hills we're willing to die on. Trust statements, by contrast, are often truisms or axioms providing general wisdom or perspective. When someone says, "Trust is relative," they're offering a trust statement, not necessarily a truth. These language choices significantly shape our leadership philosophy.

Discernment is crucial in responding to relationships, whether we deal with trust or truth statements. We must honor one another by respecting similarities and differences. Our worldview reflects assumptions we've made about how the world should work. The challenge for all of us is to consider how these assumptions continue to serve us and those around us, emphasizing the importance of respect and understanding in our interactions.

In Part 1, we identified seasons of growth and development. Worldview often shifts during these transitions. As one mentor once shared with me, "The things worth fighting for become fewer as I get older, yet there are a few things I will die for." Our truths typically become fewer and deeper as we mature. Ultimately, your truth statements inform your trust statements, creating a coherent leadership philosophy.

Our trust statements typically reflect four orientations:

• Protection-Oriented: "Better safe than sorry," "Keep your guard up"

• Skepticism-Based: "If it seems too good to be true, it probably is"

• Experience-Based: "I've been burned before," "People don't change"

• Control-Oriented: "If you want something done right, do it yourself"

The most revealing exercise is completing "People are..." Your instinctive responses expose your fundamental assumptions about human nature. Leaders who believe "people are lazy unless motivated" create management systems with heavy oversight—often producing the very behavior they fear. Those who think "people want to contribute meaningfully" develop stronger teams through delegation and development.

These statements connect directly to the worldview foundations we explored in Part 1. The voices that shaped your early understanding now speak through your leadership language. The good news? Awareness creates choice. By recognizing your trust statements, you can evaluate whether they still serve your leadership goals.

Reflection Questions:

1. When the last time you faced a conflict with someone, what may have been some trust or truth statement that may not have aligned with your worldview?

2. What are your top three "People are..." statements?

3. What trust statements reflect one of the four primary orientations?

4. What are you most common trust statements that you share at home or work?

Action Steps:

1. Ask for feedback about how others perceive your trust level based on your trust statements.

2. Identify one assumption that you've held true that may need to be challenged.

Worldview: The Lens of Your Life & Leadership - A Three-Part Series

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Part 1: The Foundation of Worldview

Since 2018, I've been on the facilitation team for a 4 day construction leadership institute. I serve in this program 10-12 times a year with the opportunity to directly spend time 1-1 in coaching with 50+ leaders. The 30-year-old Leadership Institute program begins with a baseline teaching on worldview. Every leader wants better results, but working harder using the same tactical practice may not yield your desired outcomes. As my mentor Paul Stanley once shared, we need to rethink our thinking on leadership. Marshall Goldsmith posed a similar approach in his book What Got You Here Won't Get You There. It’s a caution when there's no time to think beyond tactics in the ready-fire-aim approach to strategies, decisions, and people management.

Worldview provides a lens through which we see the world around us, informing our values, beliefs, and biases. If you want to see different results from your work, it may be time to pause and consider your worldview.

During our leadership training, we have a worldview conversation within a small group setting where I'll ask, "Who has influenced your worldview, and how does that impact how you lead today?" It's fascinating to hear the stories of positive and negative examples from family members, athletic coaches, and first bosses. We all have people who have influenced our lives—good or bad—and their voices tend to reflect our worldviews. These people model a way of thinking that often translates into our expectations of people we live or work with day-to-day.

Challenging Assumptions: A Key to Leadership Growth

Most role models are never perfect, so we focus on the good of those who have a voice in our lives. However, even positive influences can create limitations we don't recognize.

Psychology offers additional frameworks to understand how our worldview evolves. Lawrence Kohlberg's moral development theory provides a valuable lens through which we can examine the maturation of our ethical reasoning—a core component of worldview. Kohlberg identified six stages across three levels:

1. Pre-conventional (focused on punishment avoidance and self-interest)

2. Conventional (centered on social conformity and authority)

3. Post-conventional (based on universal principles and ethical reasoning).

Leaders often progress through these stages as they mature, moving from rule-following to principled decision-making. Understanding where you fall on this moral compass can illuminate why specific leadership challenges emerge—perhaps you're operating from a conventional worldview in an environment that requires post-conventional thinking. This developmental perspective helps explain why our worldview naturally shifts over time through experience and maturity, suggesting that periodic reassessment is helpful and necessary for continued growth.

My mentor Paul Stanley introduced another powerful framework for understanding life stages that profoundly influences how our worldview evolves:

• Learning (who am I?)

• Building (what is my place?)

• Focusing (why am I here?)

• Investing (how do I finish well and leave a legacy?).

Each stage brings different priorities, challenges, and perspectives. For example, I transitioned to wearing glasses a few years ago. How we see the world changes with life stages and seasons. Knowing your season and those whose voice(s) shape your thinking and actions provides crucial insights into your present worldview. A leader in the Building stage will naturally have different concerns and perspectives than one in the Investing stage—neither is wrong, but awareness of these differences enhances self-understanding and interpersonal effectiveness.

Our inherited beliefs shape how we view our teams and challenges. In Part 2, we'll explore "trust statements" that reveal our underlying assumptions and how they manifest in our daily leadership decisions. Until then, reflect on how your worldview origins influence your leadership effectiveness.

Reflection Questions:

1. Who are the 3-5 people who have most shaped your worldview?

2. What specific beliefs about work, success, or people did you inherit from them?

3. Which of these inherited beliefs have you never questioned?

4. How might your current challenges connect to your worldview?

Action Steps:

1. Write down the names of people who significantly influenced your thinking.

2. For each person, note one specific belief you adopted from them.

3. Identify one belief that might benefit from reexamination.