How Neuroscience Can Make Better Leaders? What is Neuroscience?
- Ray Williams
- Jan 20
- 4 min read
Leaders today must understand and apply the knowledge of neuroscience to manage organizational change successfully. In the past, efforts at organizational change which have focused on the structural aspects of organizations have systematically failed because they have neglected the reality that change doesn’t happen without individual people changing their thinking, beliefs and behaviour. In the past, efforts at organizational change focused on the structural aspects of organizations have systematically failed because they have neglected the reality that change doesn’t happen without individual people changing their thinking, beliefs and behavior.
What Is Neuroscience?
Neuroscience is a discipline that studies the development, the physical structures, and the chemical functions of the nervous system. One important question that neuroscience seeks to answer is how the human brain responds chemically to certain thoughts or events. Research has been made possible by advances in technology, including the development of functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI. Using fMRI, scientists can actually see which parts of a subject’s brain have been activated or deactivated.
Questions and Issues That Neuroscience Raises in Relation to Leadership and Organizations
How does brain function affect leadership behavior?
What are some conventional and traditional leadership practices and behaviors that are not supported by neuroscience research?
How should neuroscience research evidence influence or change the recruitment, training and evaluation of leaders in organizations?
The Research
A challenge for the examination of neuroscience and leadership is how to technologically examine the topic. The technology associated with neurological assessment and research has advanced greatly in recent years. A number of techniques are now available to investigate brain activity that may be relevant to effective leadership behavior. For research purposes, two of the more popular ones are functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and quantitative electroencephalogram (qEEG). These techniques vary in terms of their precision and exact capabilities, but nevertheless represent a large improvement over past techniques in their ability to detect and quantify key aspects of brain activity. A key challenge for researchers is to attempt to make theoretical connections between brain activity and overt leadership behavior and qualities. Without such theory, research endeavors might simply involve searches for relationships between vaguely conceived neurological variables on the one hand and traditional, psychometrically based measures of leadership on the other.
Evian Gordon, a neuroscientist at the University of Sydney Medical School, outlines how the brain works in his book The Brain Revolution: Know and Train New Brain Habits. He calls it the 1-2-4 brain model:
Our brain has a key organizing principle: minimize danger and pain and maximize reward. When our brain judges something to be threatening our perception of reality is affected because there are five times more neural networks for processing threats than rewards.
Our brain has two operational modes: conscious and non-conscious. Most of our brain’s operations function at the level of the non-conscious.
Our brain has four highly-integrated ways to process information: emotion, thinking, feeling, and self-regulation.
Research from Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky published in their book, Thinking, Fast and Slow identifies the brains quick or “hot” cognition involving instinct, quick reactions, and automatic responses, and the brain’s slow or “cool” system of careful reflection and analysis. Slow thinking can be seen as a sort of autopilot according to the authors. It’s helpful in certain situations involving obvious and straightforward decisions. But in more complicated decision-making contexts, it can cause more harm than good. Kahneman says Western business culture puts a premium on individualism and fast decision making, puttying a premium on quick action.
Various authors have proposed a specific neurological basis for emotional intelligence or skills. Daniel Goleman and his associates noted that emotional intelligence has a basis in brain circuitry and further suggested that it derives from cortical regions of the brain interpret and manage neurotransmitter signals from the brain’s limbic system. Morse (2006) suggested that a leader’s use of emotions and reasoning for the purpose of formulating and espousing a vision has a basis in the limbic system. Naqvi, Shiv, and Bechara (2006) further suggested that parts of the brain, such as the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, may help a person to balance emotions in decision making, especially in situations in which outcomes are ambiguous or uncertain. There is also recent research showing that regions of the cortex may help to assess risk and guide behaviors in anticipation of emotional consequences, including such negative consequences as fear and despair.
John Medina, a molecular biologist, author of Brain Rules: 12 Principles For Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home and School, argues “the brain is so sensitive to external experiences that you can literally rewire it through exposure to environmental influences.” For example, he says, we know that stress hurts the brain and that has a huge impact on productivity
Medina says there is no such thing as a perfect memory because the brain’s prime purpose is survival. So it will change the perception of reality to survive. The brain is not a perfect recording device. Medina also argues that long-term memory doesn’t happen instantly, but occurs over a long period of time.
Comments