You Get the Team You Believe You Have
Your assumptions about people quietly shape your decisions, expectations, and rules.
A sawmill was losing about $1 million a year to theft. And every attempt to catch the thieves made things worse.
Stealing had become a sport. Workers competed to see who could walk out with the biggest piece of equipment. Getting away with it was the point. Most didn’t need what they took. They didn’t sell it either. The thrill was the reward.
Management wanted to double down on control. They considered surveillance cameras and harsher punishment for anyone caught.
But the risk of punishment would only make the game more exciting. That’s what organizational psychologist Gary Latham concluded after interviewing employees. Surveillance would raise the stakes. Some employees even fantasized about stealing the cameras.
Latham recommended a counterintuitive approach: let employees borrow equipment legally. He suggested an amnesty for people to return the “borrowed” equipment. Management and the union backed the recommendation. Workers responded to the new system and returned the equipment. Theft fell to almost nothing.
You don’t get the team you have. You get the team you believe you have.
Beliefs shape your decisions. Your actions shape workplace conditions. And people adapt to those assumptions. Beliefs become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The Pygmalion effect suggests that our expectations influence others’ behavior more than we think. Leaders pay more attention to the people they consider competent. And dismiss the ones they expect little from. These beliefs shape how leaders treat people, and that treatment shapes their performance. It becomes the culture.
The sawmill’s managers believed their people were thieves, and that belief led straight to cameras and punishment. Latham helped them replace it with a new belief: treat them as adults.
Your Beliefs Decide for You
Most leaders aren’t aware of their beliefs. They think they’re facts.
I notice this when I meet a leader for the first time. We start with a quick interview about the challenges they’re facing. As they describe what’s going on, they think problems are caused by others. One team is not collaborating. Another has low standards. It’s never about them. They explain the issues from a place of moral superiority.
Leaders aren’t alone. This trap is common. We all get blindsided by our beliefs.
Ask people whether they’re better-than-average drivers, and most will say yes. That’s statistically impossible. The same bias shows up more strongly in character and morals. We tend to think we’re better than everyone else. That’s why blaming others is a default response.
A study by Ben Tappin and Ryan McKay shows that moral superiority is a common and powerful illusion. It also makes sense. It’s hard to evaluate people well, so we overestimate our own abilities. We believe we’re more honest, fair, and capable than average. Even convicted criminals rate themselves as kinder and more trustworthy than those who aren’t behind bars.
That’s why I don’t judge leaders when they act morally superior. They believe they work harder and smarter than everyone else. That illusion is natural, even expected. Instead, I help them notice how their beliefs decide for them. That’s the opportunity.
Once a belief feels like a fact, we stop challenging it. Our judgment gets tainted.
Look at the return-to-office debate. Malcolm Gladwell went on a podcast and criticized working from home, invoking the image of people sitting around in their pajamas. The odd part is that Gladwell has worked remotely for years, often writing from his own sofa. Freedom worked for him, but he prescribed the office for everyone else.
Beliefs create two different experiences at work. Leaders think they deserve freedom because they’re disciplined and responsible. But employees need structure and supervision.
This harms trust and diminishes results. Leaders get what they pay attention to (often not what they hoped for).
Force everyone to the office, and you end up promoting presenteeism. People fill the day with emails, meetings, and noise. Productivity theatre doesn’t drive better results.
The same goes for forcing AI adoption. Companies that pay a bonus to whoever uses AI the most get what they reward. They wanted innovation. But they get workslop.
The higher you sit on the corporate ladder, the harder this is to notice. Not because leaders are clueless. But because feedback is scarce at the top. Dr. Tasha Eurich calls it CEO disease. As leaders rise, people stop telling them the truth: their assumptions go unchallenged for years.
Most leaders are convinced they know their team well. They’re just living an illusion.
Audit Your Beliefs. Audit Your Behavior.
You can’t change a belief you can’t see. You need to surface those shaping your behavior.
This is one of the most powerful self-reflection exercises I run with leadership teams. It’s called What If I’m Wrong? because it’s not just about surfacing beliefs. It challenges how they taint their actions.
Done well, this exercise puts a name to what’s driving your choices. It surfaces the assumptions behind your decisions: your rules, your priorities, and who you trust. That discomfort is the goal.
It doesn’t always work. Some leaders are ready to be challenged, but not everyone is. Don’t expect to reach anything real on the first pass. It takes a few honest attempts before the beliefs under your beliefs show up.
1. List the beliefs you hold:
Write down your assumptions, starting with “I believe…” Capture your beliefs across six categories: yourself, people overall, your team, leadership, your organization, and the future.
Focus on the ones that feel true, important, and meaningful. Quality over quantity.
“I believe people are selfish and care more about themselves than the team.” “I believe I hired excellent people, so they don’t need direction.” “I believe I’m more open-minded than most leaders.” “I believe high standards require constant pressure.”
2. Challenge your beliefs:
Write the opposite belief using the prompt, “What if I’m wrong?” Choose three to start with. Focus on beliefs that feel critical, non-negotiable, or hard to question.
If the exercise doesn’t feel uncomfortable, then you’re not trying hard enough.
“I believe people care more about themselves than the team” could become “Our systems reward individual behavior, not collaboration.”
“I believe I hired excellent people, so they don’t need much direction” could become “Not everyone thrives in ambiguity the way I do.”
“I believe leaders always make better decisions” could become “I don’t think people are smarter than I am.”
“I believe I am transparent” could become “People have real concerns that I’m not addressing.”
3. Watch out:
Reflect on the impact of those beliefs. Name the risk each belief creates and where it could blindside you.
Explore the rules, decisions, and norms you support because of those beliefs. Next time you feel frustrated, overconfident about a call, or quick to jump to conclusions, take a few minutes to reflect. Are you looking at what happened, or at what you expected to see? Are you reacting to evidence, or letting your beliefs guide your reaction?
This is not a one-off exercise. Beliefs do not disappear because you wrote them down once. They return under pressure, often disguised as instinct or common sense. Challenging your beliefs is a habit that takes time to build.
The most interesting results come when I run this with an entire executive team. Each leader names their beliefs alone, then we integrate all results. I can identify shared beliefs and also the ones that divide the team.
Download a free copy of the What If I’m Wrong? template.
Your Team Becomes What You Believe
Your beliefs about people don’t stay inside your head. They taint your actions. Beliefs shape how you treat your team, your decisions, and your culture. And people can tell.
If you believe a team member is lazy, they will stop giving you their best. If you believe your people have a low bar, their work will eventually fall to meet it.
You get what you believe.
Building trust starts with positive intent. That doesn’t mean giving everyone a free pass. Hold people accountable when they fall short. But avoid punishing an entire team for the actions of a few offenders, or treating everyone as untrustworthy until they prove otherwise.
Begin by questioning your starting point. Are people really underperforming, or are your expectations unrealistic? Are they not making progress, or are you only focusing on what needs to improve? Acknowledging progress drives improvement more than constantly pointing at the gap, as I wrote here.
I understand if you believe “Gustavo, you’re being naive.” I’m not telling you to trust everyone blindly. I’m challenging you not to let your beliefs blind you.
Better beliefs lead to better decisions. Want to challenge the ones driving your team? Let’s talk.
Better conversations. Better Culture. Better Results
Check my new book Forward Talk: The Bold New Method for Getting Teams Unstuck
Join the Forward Talk program. Better teams start with better conversations. Join the September cohort.