Beliefs influence our feelings, behaviours and actions. They underlie and guide our decisions. In this way, they determine our effectiveness as leaders
Dr Robert A. Morton
Possunt quia posse videntur
They can because they think they can
Virgil
“believing in others is a virtuous circle. Believe in others and you will believe in yourself, and as Genesis said “It’s the bottom of a staircase that spirals out of sight””
From my post in 2018: “Leadership Superpower – Belief“
I truly believe in the saying I used in that post, and I recognise the influence in my thinking of not only my only experience as a leader and my work with leaders, but today I also want to acknowledge someone I learned much from about this theme.
Acknowledging Dr Robert Morton
Recently a client noted to me that, many years ago, they had met with someone to do a two-day intensive assessment as they moved into a new leadership role. They noted the depth of the process as well as multiple areas of self-awareness and self-knowledge that this brought to them, as well as how much they had appreciated and enjoyed the process and the time spent with the highly expert individual. They then said they could not remember their name, but knew that they were Canadian. Somehow I sensed strongly who they were describing, so I said: Dr Robert Morton?” and indeed it was he.
Quite a number of years ago, Dr Robert Morton was introduced to me as we were both working on a global leadership programme. I listened and learned a lot from Robert and in particular his focus and writing around the topic of Leading from Belief. After that client coincidentally mentioned his work, I then contacted Robert to check in. He is now “winding down” his illustrious career, not doing podcasts or interviews and not open to new client work, so this had me reflect further on the privilege of spending time with him in years past to learn from his knowledge and absorb some of his wisdom.
His book, “The Art of Leading with Belief” is available on kindle. For this post, though, I’ve simply captured in the image above (from his site Leading with Belief) his five principles.
- Beliefs Drive Effective Leadership
- Successful Leaders Believe in Themselves
- Successful Leaders Inspire Belief
- Leadership Credibility is Built on Belief
- Leadership Development is Enabled by Belief
Leaders start with self-belief, then they can inspire, build trust and credibility, then, with that continuing focus on belief, develop themselves and others as leaders again anchored on belief.
Leading with Belief and BDO
One other thought from his site. On there is a case study: “One Firm” – Leading Organizational Transformation BDO Canada LLP, which talks about work Robert did with the then CEO of BDO Canada, Keith Farlinger, now CEO of BDO Global.
The leadership programme that Robert and I both had roles within was a programme for BDO Global. One of the participants then (in 2014) was Pat Kramer, who, shortly after that programme, succeeded Keith Farlinger as CEO of BDO Canada. Pat then asked me to work with him and BDO Canada quite extensively in 2015 and 2016 and we remain in touch to this day.
I hold both Keith and Pat in high regard and, in fact, Pat was a past guest on #WhatComesNextLive (see podcast here) and Keith and I plan to bring him on as a future quest in Q1 2022. They have seen and demonstrated the power of “Leading with Belief” consistently and are role models for others leaders to follow. I look forward to talking to Keith on the show, and for now I do encourage you to watch or listen to my conversation with Pat, it is an exemplary example of leadership and yes, leading with belief.
Oh, and in closing, I also acknowledge and honour Emree Siaroff, now a partner with Challenge Factory and involved in some powerful and leading edge work around the potential of people in the workforce. Emree was a very senior and highly strategic corporate CHRO for many years (including BDO Canada and BDO Global) and had the insight and foresight to have his corporations work with both Robert Morton and myself over many years.