The Leadership Paradox: Not Seeing the Invisible Barrier to Progress (when it's you).

As you might imagine, supporting leadership teams around the world, we witness the best and worst of so-called ‘best practice’ in action, and a lot of wilful blindness.

Time and again, we are reminded of our own experiences, as Engineers, Managers and Directors in corporate and SME settings, when those embracing BTFA share their frustrations, describing the seemingly unbreakable cycles of dysfunction between functions.

This misalignment and disconnect, that often becomes the main source of stress, crippling progress, and hamstringing collaboration, problem solving and innovation, is usually due to target-driven behaviours and conflicting KPIs, office politics and the 'Every person for themselves' attitude, that pervades business through horizontals & verticals ... basically, people acting out of fear / in defence of all the threats their brain is processing, coming hard and fast from their environment.

Inevitably, we see patterns emerging.

Much of it can be summarised using Einstein's definition of madness:

“Doing the same thing and expecting a different result.”

Despite citing this phrase regularly, most individuals in leadership positions fail to change the way their brain is wired, or how their behavior demands others defend themselves. The human brain is designed to maintain default thinking patterns, because those patterns keep us [relatively] safe in our lives. Which was great when we roamed the Savannah, but doesn't serve us so well now we're grouped together in office blocks and factory buildings.

But therein lies the challenge, and the amazing development opportunity: we humans are terrible at questioning the assumptions our own pre-conscious brain presents to our consciousness. We rarely stop to ask why we approach tasks the way we do, why we interact in the same ways within our teams, or why we accept our own cognitive outputs without scrutiny.

When we learn to do so, it is often the catalyst for genuine transformation!

Failing to develop this skill is nothing short of a travesty, as, so far as we know, we're the only creature on this planet with this cognitive capability ... and we fail to exercise it!

Some of the most predictable patterns of organisational stagnation arise from people existing in this autopilot mode: leaders struggling with alignment, teams fatigued by constant change and organisations locked in a perpetual cycle of firefighting while yearning for strategic clarity ... all under the guide of 'Best Practice'.

The boxes are ticked, but no-one recognises the factory is on fire.

In the absence of truly effective communication and a strategic approach that puts people [i.e. optimised brain function] first, multiple teams end up applying ‘best practice’ in isolated pockets. Senior leaders neither have the bandwidth nor the belief systems wired in place in their brain, to consider the bigger picture or their own part in it.

Many ticking boxes on the burning platform, fail to recognise they're the ones holding the match, that set the fire alight!

They don’t see the threads that could pull these disparate, often conflicting efforts, into a single, unified direction. Functional leaders, whose brains are also wired for self-preservation, act in ways that optimise their specific remit, even when it inadvertently detracts from overall organisational performance... and it's common to find reward mechanisms and incentive schemes in place to encourage them to do so.

Many boards simply fail to act like a team, they don't collaborate, they compete against one another, often from a position of personal insecurity, stress and anxiety... and they never open up about it from behind the corporate mask they've developed as their survival / defence mechanism.

For decades, leadership thinking has promoted isolationism and protectionism as ‘good’ - a way to hit targets, improve KPIs and drive OKRs within our own siloes. But that environment demands brains find ways to survive ... We could say this is not conducive to optimal brain function and how we are designed to thrive. But it's worse than that, this 'Culture' is killing people ... and when we look at the links between chronically elevated cortisol, the negative impact it has on other neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin, and how this impacts cellular inflammation, reducing mitochondria's capacity to produce ATP (Energy) ... it's little wonder we now have words like 'BURNOUT' and mental health issues replacing plans for improved productivity.

To put it mildly, the common-all-garden, institutionalised methods (still taught in top business schools - detached from learnings from neuroscience), systematically detract from effective teamwork and coordination... and it's way past time for a change.

That's one pattern we see ...

Another pattern within this broader landscape of institutionalised dysfunction has been more surprising. One, in particular, has become an inescapable truth: those who assume they already know all they need to know find it almost impossible to be open to anything new.

If the brain has already decided there is nothing to learn, it will dismiss any new insights that don’t fit its existing model of reality.

For those people, the notion of developing people (Hitozukuri), if it occurs to them as a route to a high-performance culture, isn't something they consider as applicable to themselves. As we used to say "It's the others!"

Via the BTFA experience, we're regularly seeing leaders amazed at the degree to which their own self awareness increases ... they come to "Know thyself" (and others), with clarity, provided through facts from science! = No more guessing ... = No more unconsciously undermining progress while convincing oneself it's 'everyone else' that needs to change.

Leaders come to recognise their own capacity for blame and projection as part of their defence mechanisms, as they come to realise stress (excess cortisol) stops people from learning and adapting (kills Brain Derived Neurotrophic factor, essential for brains to change their wiring patterns,via neurogenesis).

Failing to develop 'self', to recognise such unconscious abilities for defensiveness, and the creation of conditions that is stopping change at a neurological level, becomes deeply problematic when those who believe they have nothing to learn are also the most influential ... the ones controlling budgets, making decisions, and setting policy.

From a position of authority, senior leaders unwittingly undermine the very progress they desperately seek to achieve, and NEVER come to see it. They refuse to address root cause of performance at a cultural level (in the form of their own beliefs and definitions of 'what good looks like', as currently wired into their brain). All the while, they demand rapid results from those they inadvertently undermine and inhibit from making progress.

The question becomes: Who is willing to see the pattern, recognise their own capacity for blame and projection and put the work in, to do something about it?

If the answer is 'not me', and 'me' is a senior leader, we're sorry to say, there really is no hope of affecting any meaningful change in that organisation! You'll be facing the same issues you faced 20 years ago in another 20 years ... bigger budgets, more technology, top and bottom line growth are no pill for this ailment ... poor performance is a people thing, and people are a brain thing.

This is said, in recognition that how any organisation is performing right now, is a reflection of the leaders beliefs and autopilot actions, presented by those who have acted, as an output of their brain function, to bring that organisation to this point in time.

"All organisations are perfectly aligned to get the results they get'

This quote about alignment from Arthur Jones, an Australian born sociologist, author and former editor of Fortune Magazine ... can be considered today in terms of brain wiring and similar firing patterns.

So if your business is underperforming, perhaps, the issue to address isn’t just external factors or operational inefficiencies, it is the assumptions wired into the brains of the leadership team, the very patterns of thought that drive their actions and behaviours, which have an impact (positive / negative, if you like it, acknowledge it, or not) on their teams.

This is, of course, the toughest of sales pitches in the current market ... anything that asks ... "Have you considered the problem might be you, and the way your brain is currently wired" is never going to land well with anyone, who assumes their brain is perfectly OK!

However, for those who respond with curiosity, the potential for transformation is huge!

The Paradox of Knowing Too Much

We might assume that the biggest sceptics of neuroscience in leadership would be those from highly structured, data-driven disciplines, engineers, scientists, accountants. After all, these are the people who have traditionally viewed emotions as intangible, unquantifiable, and secondary to ‘real’ business concerns.

But in reality, when introduced to BTFA, many of these professionals engage with it deeply. They see the structure behind human behaviour, recognise the mechanics of thought, and, perhaps most importantly, are reflective enough to apply it to themselves.

Any resistance to BTFA (which is minimal and rare), surprisingly, comes from those whose careers are dedicated to understanding people. Those who, by virtue of their experience, assume they already know what there is to know. Those with 'people-centric' backgrounds enter BTFA sessions convinced they will find nothing new, pre-empting the experience before it happens, or assuming this is something 'Others' need to understand. In doing so, they miss the point entirely... i.e. their assumptions are the type of brain function BTFA allows us to understand in ourselves.

When Assumptions Become Blind Spots

This isn’t a question of intelligence or competence. It’s a reflection of how the human brain is designed to work. Once we believe we ‘know’, our cognitive filters reinforce that belief. (Unconscious incompetence).

We dismiss contradictory evidence. We hear what aligns with our preconceptions and filter out what challenges them. And, most crucially, we assume that if we are not learning, it is because the information has no value, rather than questioning whether we have truly engaged with the learning experience. As shakespeare wrote "Hoist by your own petard" ... or in this case "held back by your own thinking."

As said, BTFA can be transformational for those who approach it with curiosity. But for those who enter with a closed mind (neurological framing), it is easy to walk away unchanged, all while watching those around them have life-changing insights, and denying it is happening.

Ironically, the brain is designed to ensure those who find themselves in this thinking framework, fail to see that this very reaction is proof of the exact brain behaviour BTFA is revealing to their co-workers. It is the cognitive equivalent of standing in a room full of people who have just discovered a hidden door, while insisting that no such door exists.

The Silent Cost of Intellectual Certainty

We see this phenomenon across industries, across leadership levels, across the world. We meet leaders demanding results, while resisting the internal shift required to create them, preferring to perpetuate the belief in their minds that it's a logic problem to be fixed with tolls and capex. We meet experts who believe in lifelong learning, until the learning challenges their own expertise. We see leaders seeking cultural transformation, yet insisting they continue to operate with the same rigid structures that prevent it.

What makes the difference? It isn’t intelligence, experience, or authority. It is the ability to ask: What if there is something I don’t yet see?

The best leaders, the ones who create real change, are not those who assume they already know. They are the ones willing to reconsider. To challenge their own thinking. To be learners as well as teachers.

So, if you’re reading this, ask yourself: When was the last time you actually reframed your perspective?

If you can’t remember, perhaps it’s time to question what works, and what doesn't. After all, c.50 years of doing more tech and tools, has led to increased disengagement, burnout, quiet quitting, unsustained change initiatives and falling national productivity levels ... that's not exactly a great track record for 'Best Practice' as it's currently defined.

There is something missing and that something is BTFA.

#Leadership #BTFA #SelfAwareness #CognitiveBias #ChangeManagement