Published Date: 3rd December 2024
We all want to be better leaders, but what if the secret to realising your leadership potential lies in understanding the brain? Neuroleadership taps into the science of how our brains respond to everyday workplace challenges, from managing stress to motivating teams.
By earning how these neural processes work and acting on that knowledge, leaders can make smarter decisions, create more engaged teams – and build happier workplaces.
The good news is that you don’t need a qualification in neuroscience to understand what neuroleadership involves. We’ll cover practical examples of this concept in action, with leadership tips any organisation or individual can use to be more effective at work.
Understanding how neuroscience for leadership works can produce a number of important benefits for your teams and organisation and allow you to ride the ups and downs of work life.
Manage Your Emotions
This is a big one for just about all of us at work. We’ve all had those days when our emotions have affected the quality of our decision-making, an experience backed up by research.
The brain’s prefrontal cortex, responsible for rational thinking, often competes with the amygdala, its emotional centre. Effective leadership involves understanding how to regulate your emotions to balance the two to make better decisions.
To harness this aspect of neuroscience for leadership, it helps to identify your emotional triggers so you can better manage them when they arise. Taking regular breaks throughout the day and making time for self-reflection is important. Checking in with yourself helps you gain some objectivity and be less reactive in high-stress situations.
Build a Growth Mindset
One of the wonders of the human brain is its capacity for ‘neuroplasticity’ – the ability to change and adapt at the level of neural pathways, allowing for forming new connections and reorganising existing ones in response to new experiences and learning.
That’s why cultivating a growth mindset is so beneficial for effective leadership (and for your team members. If, as Carol Dweck’s research highlighted, a ‘fixed’ mindset is the belief that abilities and intelligence are static and unchangeable, a ‘growth’ mindset is the belief that they can be developed through effort, learning and persistence. Building a growth mindset within yourself and your team taps into the power of neuroplasticity.
Instead of focusing solely on outcomes, processes and procedures, leaders can promote a growth mindset and adaptability by regularly looking for the lessons learned from a situation. Giving your teams training, recognising their efforts and offering constructive feedback are ways to reinforce the idea that their skills and abilities can be developed.
Understanding Social Pain and Reward
Arguably, one of the most fascinating (and possibly consequential) areas of neuroleadership is the concept of social pain and reward.
Neuroscience indicates that social rejection or exclusion activates regions in the brain that are similar to physical pain. Rejection, quite literally, hurts us. It’s no wonder that feelings of exclusion at work can significantly impact employee motivation and engagement.
Given that social exclusion can be as painful as physical pain, creating a culture of belonging is of vital importance for all workplaces. As a leader, you should encourage inclusive behaviours, ensure everyone’s voice is heard and build respectful relationships with your team members.
On the other hand, social rewards like recognition can stimulate the same brain pathways activated by tangible rewards. Providing positive social reinforcement where it’s due, in the form of praise and recognition, is a powerful motivator for employees.
An influential researcher in neuroleadership, David Rock, once outlined a framework for understanding how social experiences can trigger threat or reward responses in the brain. The SCARF Model’s five domains – Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness, and Fairness – help explain why certain social experiences cause either pain (threat) or pleasure (reward) by affecting these fundamental needs.
For example, feeling excluded can threaten one's sense of Status or Relatedness, eliciting a pain response. Conversely, experiencing positive social interactions that boost Status or foster Relatedness can trigger a reward response, which can reinforce behaviours that satisfy these needs.
Keeping Stress Under Control
Another important neuroleadership principle is stress management. Prolonged stress can impair the brain's cognitive functions, particularly in areas related to memory and learning.
Creating supportive work environments that minimise unnecessary stressors is key to avoiding these problems. However, that’s not an overnight process. Leaders and team members need to put in a continuous effort to identify stress triggers, implement solutions and adjust practices based on an open exchange of feedback. Such approaches can make the difference between a great place to work and one where employees are on the verge of burnout.
Allowing stress to get out of control – either yours or that of your employees – can make huge dents in your productivity and even your ability to attract new talent to your organisation. Building a supportive culture, after all, makes people want to work for you.
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Neuroleadership principles can help managers hire right and retain. Neuroleadership also helps managers and employees not only work more effectively but also mitigate much of the unpleasantness that can come with high-pressure or complex work environments. With mindfulness, compassion and a focus on growth and development, managers can be the kind of inspirational leaders that motivate their teams to go above and beyond.
For support to you as a leader to help with building your team, access our blog resources here or get in touch with one of our friendly team members. We’d love to help you!
