Leaders Don't Command: Inspire Growth, Ingenuity, and Collaboration

11

Managing Beliefs, Assumptions, and Prejudices

It’s easier to break an atom than a prejudice.

—Albert Einstein

Beliefs and Belief Systems

Just as we have a skeleton that supports and structures our body, our thoughts have their own skeleton that shapes them. We call this a belief system. Beliefs are convictions that determine and modulate our thought patterns, which are created primarily during early childhood. They are the source of assumptions and prejudices that will determine the way we think and feel. In short, they condition our attitude and decision making.

Beliefs aren’t there by chance. They are the product of what we learn when, in the process of developing our character, we face the outside world—which in our early years primarily ...