Fundamentals of Neuro-Intelligent Leadership

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Leaders are people who, through power and influence achieve results through others.

In the old days, the brain was assumed to be ‘hard wired’. Old psychology drew a lot of conclusions on human behavior based on the hard wiring of the brain during infanthood and childhood experiences. Today, with the advances in neuroscience, we know that the brain is in a dynamic state of constant evolution.

This has major consequences for leadership.

Much of the behavior in animals including humans, has neurochemistry or neurochemical markers associated with it.

To begin understanding neuro-leadership, we need to understand neurotransmitters and hormones. Neurotransmitters we will focus on in this part are dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, noradrenalin. Main hormones are cortisol, adrenalin, testosterone, estrogen/progesterone.

These two, neurotransmitters and hormones, in concert, determine much of our behavior.

Emotions, that feed into your and your followers’ feelings are associated with the following hormones:

Survival Emotions- fear, anger, disgust, shame, sadness?associated with autonomically controlled Cortisol.

Attachment emotions - trust, love and joy excitement associated with Oxytocin, Dopamine and Noradrenaline.

Emotion of ‘surprise’?mediated by noradrenaline, can flit response states from survival to attachment or vice versa.

Leaders must understand that when survival emotions are active, people are stressed due to cortisol flowing in their bodies. Large part of their brain capacity is worried about the present and they are unable to think about the future and be creative. Innovation in general will be stifled in the survival mode since it usually involves futures thinking.

When command and control style of leadership is used, it will generate survival emotions that will cause discomfort to the follower and stifle the brain space needed for innovation and improvement.

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Hence, the focus on influence and persuasion while gaining attachment of the followers, especially for highly intelligent and creative people. As a leader, you will free up a large amount of brain space if followers don't have to worry about survival emotions.

A leader must be TRUSTED. Trust will lead to an environment of creativity.

Trust is engendered by the leader primarily by doing actions that generate attachment emotions such as:

1. Being credible
2. Transparent Communication
3. Reducing anxiety by being transparent about future state
4. No negative surprises
5. Sharing credit
6. Show people that you care
7. Honor your commitments - be predictable in areas where survival emotions may be triggered.

The following actions will generate cortisol and emotions of fear, anger, disgust, shame, sadness in followers which will destroy your trust immediately:

1. Giving unpopular top down diktats and threatening someone's job repeatedly.
2. Belittling a followers contribution
3. Criticizing someone's work especially in front of peers causing the person to be ashamed
4. Promising and not delivering
5. Making repeated ‘executive decisions’ to override decision by consensus
6. Lack of communication when big changes are made to the job or company
7. Agreeing on a path in private with the follower and then diverting from it in public
8. Coercing people
9. Using offensive language. Offensive can be very subtle in modern times. Be mindful.
10. Negative body language
11. Lack of attention or lack of listening when followers are communicating/talking

Why is trust important?

Trust is an expectation of fairness.

Oxytocin levels indicate trust in mammals and is known as the bonding hormone.?Unfortunately, oxytocin secretion is a lot of times a function of our biases and heuristics. We trust people who look like us, talk in our language, are of the same sex, or look attractive by default. Now you know that's a trap - its just oxytocin releasing on default. More importantly, as a leader you know that many people won't trust you outright. You have to make a conscious effort to build it. Trust is the basis of a strong relationship which facilitates influence.

In fact, trust can be built over time with non-living things, such as cars, watches, laptops, rocket engines.

One can even trust organizations. Many people trust Toyota to manufacture reliable cars.

Followers need to be able to trust their leaders. Trust is a state of mind of the follower where he or she relies on the fact that the behavior of the leader will be predictable within the boundaries of their stated values. Thus, its easier to trust leaders who are credible and reliable.

Building relationships really in a biological way reminds one of a neurochemical soup. Your behavior and approach to your followers will elicit a neurochemical response in them, most of it subconscious. Listeners can consciously and subconsciously pick on cues to check your authenticity. For e.g Talking to someone with and without eye contact can lead to different flow of neurochemicals in the person, having very different effects.

When you do indeed make an authentic connection, and have an emotional resonance with the follower, the following may occur:

1. Dopamine increases signaling motivation to do something they want
2. ?Opioids released when followers like something you offer as a leader
3. Serotonin signaling a good mood
4. Oxytocin increases due to growing trust and diminishing boundaries.
5. Low cortisol levels signal low stress

Building relationships and engaging others, is to be aware of the impact you are having on the brain of others. It also means that as a leader you consciously work to:

1. Motivate
2. Offer what people like
3. Ensure a happy environment
4. Create trust
5. Reduce stress

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Hypothalamus, in the brain, has nerve cells that make chemicals that control the release of many hormones especially those secreted from the pituitary gland. The hypothalamus gathers information sensed by the brain through the senses and sends it to the pituitary. This information via neurochemical signals influences the secretion of hormones. The neurotransmitters act upon emotions and trigger the hormones that act on the body.?We had discussed some of these hormones earlier.

Studies have found that people who are leaders have a unique distribution of hormones cortisol and testosterone.

Leaders have high testosterone and low cortisol - they are confident, dominant, risk taking and are able to manage stress and be calm. Testosterone alone does not mean dominance and status. Low cortisol alone also does not translate to dominance or status. Thus, the two hormones together provide indicators for leadership capability.?In fact, good leadership leads to low levels of cortisol stress in followers as well. In Mikumi National Park in Tanzania, analysis of elephant herds that had lost experienced matriarchs that were replaced by inexperienced leaders led to high level of glucocorticoids in the herd noting chronic stress.

High testosterone also means more risk-taking behavior and low cortisol means less stress and more sociability. Focus and determination are strongly indicative of testosterone action. Overly commanding, pacesetting and aggression are also due to higher testosterone levels. Collaborative leadership is infact inversely correlated to?testosterone and more a result of oxytocin and serotonin levels.

Leaders also have a highly developed Prefrontal Cortex (PFC). This brain region has been implicated in planning complex cognitive behavior, personality expression, decision making, and moderating social behavior. The right PFC has been particularly recognized for its role in self control. This includes our ability to reframe a particular problem and apply novel outlook to views we don’t agree with to look at the opposing viewpoints objectively. Self control often has been found to be a predictor of success over IQ or talent alone. There are god given gifts or talent and IQ but focus and dedication play the activating role in success which in turn comes from hours and hours of beating on your craft. If you are doing that, you are growing your PFC.?

?It also plays a huge role in overcoming bias. All very important aspects of being an effective leader.

Developed PFC also means that the person has ability to be flexible and realign action with changing context. Successful entrepreneurs who deftly navigate change and display risk resilient behaviors have well developed PFC. PFC also is related to self control. People are more likely to trust leaders who exhibit this self control since such people are perceived to be less likely to behave irrationally.

New neurons can be created throughout adulthood as opposed to what was previously thought. They are especially concentrated in the hippocampus that is located in the temporal lobe and is responsible for learning and memory. This is called neurogeneration and neuroplasticity. In fact, neuroplasticity goes beyond this, it includes myelination that is a coating around neurons that helps faster signal flow and synaptic connections which means new connections between existing neurons.

All these pathways have a tremendous impact on continuous growth and self-improvement especially late in life. Just by linking existing previously unconnected neurons, news skills/competencies can be learnt. Myelination can make one work faster and more efficient and help polish existing skills/competencies. This means that you can learn the skills and competencies to be a leader anytime and better yourself continuously.

Biography:

Veronica Stephens is the Senior Vice President of Quality and Risk management solutions for the firm Auchincloss-Stephens. Her book ‘Risk Intelligent Neuro-Leadership’ (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSJ9XLXK) was recently released by Asquith Winterton Press, Boulder, Colorado. She is a Risk Management subject matter expert with over two decades of experience in Fortune 500 companies across a range of industries, including pharmaceuticals, food production, consumables, durables, and medical devices.