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NEUROSCIENCE AND LEADERSHIP: THE PROMISE OF INSIGHTS Boyatzis, Richard . Ivey Business Journal (Online) ; London (Jan/Feb 2011): N_A.

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ABSTRACT  

The quest for understanding leadership seems perpetual. Against the context of the daily news that is full of

leadership failures and lost opportunities, it seems to be an area of mystery rather than understanding. Advances

in neuroscience may help understand the internal mechanisms that enable some people to be effective leaders,

and some not. Leaders need to build relationships that inspire and motivate others to do their best, innovate and

adapt. In Primal Leadership, Resonant Leadership, and a more recent article in Harvard Business Review (Goleman

&Boyatzis, 2008), the authors offered many examples of leaders who build resonant relationships with others

around them -- many others around them. And dissonant leaders who seem to turn people off, alienate them, and

lose their motivation. The neuroscience findings emerging suggest a basic reason why inspiring and supportive

relationships are important -- they help activate openness to new ideas and a more social orientation to others. FULL TEXT  

Headnote

Emerging findings in neuroscience research suggest why inspiring and supportive relationships are important -

they help activate openness to new ideas and a more social orientation to others. Insights such as these, this

author writes, may move the primacy of a leader's actions away from the often proselytized "results-orientation"

toward a relationship orientation. Readers will learn about this and other important findings in neuroscience that

have the potential to tell us what we need to know to be good, even great leaders.

The quest for understanding leadership seems perpetual. Against the context of the daily news that is full of

leadership failures and lost opportunities, it seems to be an area of mystery rather than understanding. Advances

in neuroscience may help us understand the internal mechanisms that enable some people to be effective leaders,

and some not. It will help us to know how some people can form effective leadership relationships, and some not.

It will also help us to understand why some people can sustain their effectiveness and others can not. But we are

not there yet.

Leaders engage and inspire others- that is how their work gets done. For the last 100 or so years, we have studied

their personality, intelligence, values, attitudes and even behavior. But seldom has anyone ventured physiologically

inside of leaders. Advances in fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging), access to people and machines, and

interest in more holistic approaches to studying leadership have made this possible. This has become so popular

and hot that a special issue of Leadership Quarterly is being reviewed right now on the Biology of Leadership

(Senior, Lee &Butler, 2010). In this brief overview, I will use a few of our current studies to highlight some of the

areas that seem to hold promise.

Building relationships

Leaders need to build relationships that inspire and motivate others to do their best, innovate and adapt. In our

earlier work, Primal Leadership (Goleman, Boyatzis &McKee, 2002) and Resonant Leadership (Boyatzis &McKee,

2005), we synthesized a great deal of research to support the idea that effective leaders build resonant

relationships with those around them. At the same time, less effective leaders or those that are more one-sided

seem to create dissonant relationships. We decided to explore this in one fMRI study.

A study was designed to explore the neural mechanisms invoked as a result of relationships with resonant, high-

leader member exchange (i.e., LMX), high-quality relationship leaders, and dissonant, lo- LMX, low-quality

relationship leaders (Boyatzis, Passarelli, Koenig, Lowe, Mathew, Stoller, &Phillips, in review). Middle-aged subjects

were asked about critical incidents with leaders in their experiences. fMRI scans were conducted, with cues

developed from these experiences.

In this exploratory study, preliminary observations revealed that recalling specific experiences with resonant

leaders significantly activated 14 regions of interest in the brain, while dissonant leaders activated 6 and

deactivated 11 regions. Experiences with resonant leaders activated neural systems involved in arousing attention

(i.e., anterior cingulate cortex) , the social or default network (i.e. right inferior frontal gyrus), mirror system (i.e., the

right inferior parietal lobe), and other regions associated with approach relationships (i.e., the right putamen and

bilateral insula). Meanwhile, dissonant leaders deactivated systems involved in social or default networks (i.e., the

posterior cingulate cortex), the mirror system (i.e., the left inferior frontal gyrus), and activated those regions

associated with narrowing attention (i.e., bilateral anterior cingulate cortex), and those associated with less

compassion (i.e., left posterior cingulate cortex), more negative emotions (i.e., posterior inferior frontal gyrus).

With creative designs, future research can probe the neural activations that various relationships and people have

had on us. We can begin to understand how they may be affecting our moods and cognitive openness.

Possible implications

In Primal Leadership, Resonant Leadership, and a more recent article in Harvard Business Review (Goleman

&Boyatzis, 2008), we offered many examples of leaders who build resonant relationships with others around them -

many others around them. And dissonant leaders who seem to turn people off, alienate them, and lose their

motivation. The neuroscience findings emerging suggest a basic reason why inspiring and supportive

relationships are important - they help activate openness to new ideas and a more social orientation to others.

These insights may move the primacy of a leader's actions away from the often proselytized "results-orientation"

toward a relationship orientation. This does not preclude the concern with results, but could show why being first

and foremost concerned about one's relationships may then enable others to perform better and more

innovatively- and lead to better results. John Chambers of Cisco Systems and Oprah Winfrey of Harpo Productions

are both driven to produce impressive results. But when people who work directly with them talk about their

meetings, they walk out of them motivated and inspired by what they are doing and their commitment to each

other.

Emotional Contagion and Empathy

While most people will acknowledge the role of empathy in understanding others, few appreciate how quickly

impressions of others get formed or the neural mechanisms involved. For this we must look to the research on

contagion. Prior research has explained mimicry and imitation (Hatfield, Cacioppo &Rapson, 1993). But recent

studies, although somewhat controversial, offer three possibilities regarding emotional contagion: (1) emotional

contagion spreads in milliseconds, below conscious recognition (LeDoux, 2002); (2) emotional arousal may

precede conceptualization of the event (Iacoboni, 2009); and (3) neural systems activate endocrine systems that,

in turn, activate neural systems (Garcia-Segura, 2009).

The mirror neuron system has been claimed to foster imitation and mimicry (Cattaneo &Rizzolatti, 2009). This

system allows us to discern the: (a) context of an observed action or setting; (b) the action; and (c) the intention of

the other living being. They help us to understand the sensing of the goals/intention of another's actions or

expressions, and to link sensory and motor representation of them. Even the most recent approaches to emotional

contagion that do not focus on the mirror system claim to show a sympathetic hemo-dynamic that creates the

same ability for us to relate to another's emotions and intention (Decety &Michalaks, 2010).

Relevant to leadership, there are three implications of these observations: the speed of activation, the sequence of

activation, and the endocrine/neural system interactions. The firing of the limbic system seems to occur within 8

milliseconds of a primary cognition and it takes almost 40 milliseconds for that same circuit to appear in the

neocortex for interpretation and conceptualization (LeDoux, 2002). With this timing, our emotions are determining

cognitive interpretation more than previously admitted. Once primary cognitions have occurred, secondary

cognitions allow for the neocortical events (i.e., reframing) to drive subsequent limbic or emotional labeling. Our

unconscious emotional states are arousing emotions in those with whom we interact before we or they know it.

And it spreads from these interactions to others.

Research has suggested that negative emotions are stronger than positive emotions (Baumeister, Bratslavsky,

Finkenauer, &Vohs, 2001). As a result, we would suspect that the contagion of negative emotion would ignite a

stronger neural sequence than positive emotions. This may serve evolutionary functions but, paradoxically, it may

limit learning. Arousal of strong negative emotions stimulates the Sympathetic Nervous System, which inhibits

access to existing neural circuits and invokes cognitive, emotional, and perceptual impairment (Sapolsky, 2004;

Schulkin, 1999; Dickerson and Kemeny, 2004).

The benefits of arousing positive emotions over negative ones have been demonstrated by Fredrickson and

Losada (2004) and others. A contagion of positive emotions seems to arouse the Parasympathetic Nervous

System, which stimulates adult neurogenesis (i.e., growth of new neurons) (Erickson et. al., 1998), a sense of well

being, better immune system functioning, and cognitive, emotional, and perceptual openness (McEwen, 1998;

Janig and Habler, 1999; Boyatzis, Jack, Cesaro, Passarelli, &Khawaja, 2010).

The sustainability of leadership effectiveness is directly a function of a person's ability to adapt and activate

neural plasticity. The SNS and PNS are both needed for human functioning. They each have an impact on neural

plasticity. Arousal affects the growth of the size and shape of our brain. Neurogenesis allows the human to build

new neurons. The endocrines aroused in the PNS allow the immune system to function at its best to help preserve

existing tissue (Dickerson and Kemeny, 2004).

Possible Implications

The most likely implication of these results is that leaders bear the primary responsibility for knowing what they

are feeling and therefore, managing the contagion that they infect in others. It requires a heightened emotional

self-awareness. This means having techniques to notice the feelings (i.e., know that you are having feelings and

become aware of them), label or understand what they are (i.e., giving a label to vague or gnawing sensations), and

then signal yourself that you should do something to change your mood and state. Merely saying to yourself that

you will "put on a happy face" does not hide the fast and unconscious transmission of your real feelings to others

around you.

You are infecting others around you with specific feelings. Some of those feelings help them to perform better and

innovate and some are debilitating and inhibit adaptive thinking. Remember, negative feelings, even the

unconscious ones, will easily overwhelm positive ones. The leader, because of his/her position of power, has a

greater affect on others in a social or work environment. Being able to change your internal state might be one of

the most powerful techniques you learn in becoming an effective leader- one who inspires others to learn, adapt

and perform at their best.

Helping and inspiring others

Leaders should be coaches in helping to motivate and inspire those around them (Boyatzis, Smith &Blaize, 2006).

But not any old form of coaching will help. Coaching others with compassion, that is, toward the Positive

Emotional Attractor, appears to activate neural systems that help a person open themselves to new possibilities-

to learn and adapt. Meanwhile, the more typical coaching of others to change in imposed ways (i.e., trying to get

them to conform to the views of the boss) may create an arousal of the SNS and puts the person in a defensive

posture. This moves a person toward the Negative Emotional Attractor and to being more closed to possibilities.

We decided to test this difference.

In a study, sophomores were coached with each approach (Boyatzis, Jack, Cesaro, Khawaja &Passarelli, 2010). On

the basis of two 30 minutes coaching sessions, one to the PEA (asking a person about their future dreams) and

the other to the NEA (asking them how they are handling their courses and whether they are doing all of their

homework), we found dramatic differences in neural activation. Using an fMRI to track neural activity, it showed

significant differences in activation as a result of these two approaches to coaching. We found activation of the

orbito-frontal cortex and nucleus accumbens to be positively related to PEA coaching. This also activated a part of

the visual cortex in which a person can imagine and visualize something. These are associated with PNS arousal.

Meanwhile, the NEA seemed to activate the Anterior Cingulate Cortex and Medial Prefrontal Cortex, both regions

known for self-consciousness and reflections while feeling guilt.

These results were consistent with those from Jack, Dawson, Ciccia, Cesaro, Barry, Snyder &Begany (2010)

showing that there is a network of brain regions activated when engaged in social activities (formerly called the

Default Motor Network in the neuroscience literature). There is a dramatically different network that is activated

when you are engaged in analytics or trying to solve a non-social problem. They showed that these two networks

suppress each other. That is, when you are busy thinking about budgets, financial analysis, or product

specifications, you will have turned off the parts of your brain that are key to social functioning- and visa versa!

Possible implications

If you believe that leadership involves inspiring others and motivating them to be their best and develop, learn,

adapt and innovate, then activating the parts of their brain that will help requires arousing what we have called the

Positive Emotional Attractor. To arouse the PEA, these studies are suggesting that we need to: (1) be social; and

(2) engage the person in positive, hopeful contemplation of a desired future. The latter might also be stimulated

when discussing core values and the purpose of the organization or project. All too often, people in leadership

positions begin conversations about the financials or metrics and dashboard measures of the desired

performance. These findings suggest that while important, this sequence confuses people and actually results in

them closing down cognitively, emotionally and perceptually. If you want them to open their minds, you need to

discuss the purpose of the activity (not merely the goals) and the vision of the organization or clients if a desired

future were to occur. THEN, you can lead a discussion about the financials, metrics and measures. But you have

made it clear that the measures follow the purpose, they have not become the purpose.

If this sounds like transformational leadership, versus its less effective sibling, transactional leadership, you have

made an important connection. But our research shows that you need to arouse the PEA and the NEA to get

sustained, desired change. The key appears to be, so far in our research, that you need to: (1) arouse the PEA first;

and (2) arouse the PEA sufficiently such that it is about three to six times more frequent in the discussions than

the NEA.

Findings such as these may help us to understand, if replicated, how to help others- and how to help us sustain our

effectiveness as leaders.

References

References

* Baumeister, R. F., Bratslavsky, E., Finkenauer, C., &Vohs, K. D. (2001). Bad is stronger than good. Review of

General Psychology, 5: 323-370.

* Boyatzis, R. E., Jack, A., Cesaro, R., Passarelli, A. &Khawaja, M. (2010). Coaching with Compassion: An fMRI Study

of Coaching to the Positive or Negative Emotional Attractor. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Academy of

Management, Montreal.

* Boyatzis, R. &McKee, A. (2005). Resonant Leadership: Renewing Yourself and Connecting With Others Through

Mindfulness, Hope, and Compassion. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

* Boyatzis, R.E., Passarelli, A.P., Koenig, K., Lowe, M., Mathew, B., Stoller, J. &Phillips, M. (under review).

Examination of the Neural Substrates Activated in Experiences with Resonant &Dissonant Leaders. Leadership

Quarterly.

* Boyatzis, R.E., Smith, M. and Blaize, N. (2006) "Developing sustainable leaders through coaching and

compassion, Academy of Management Journal on Learning and Education. 5(1): 8-24.

* Cattaneo, L. &Rizzolatti, G. (2009). The mirror neuron system. Neurobiological Review, 66(5), p. 557-560

* Decety, J. &Michalska, K.J. (2010). Neurodevelopmental change in circuits underlying empathy and sympathy

from childhood to adulthood. Developmental Science. 13: 6, 886-899.

* Dickerson, S.S. &Kemeny, M.E. (2004). Acute stressors and cortisol responses: A theoretical integration and

synthesis of laboratory research. Psychological Bulletin.130(3): 355-391.

* Fredrickson, B. L., &Losada, M. (2005). Positive affect and the complex dynamics of human flourishing. American

Psychologist. 60(7): 678-686. Psychology, 86(2): 320-333.

* Garcia-Segura, L.M. (2009). Hormones and brain plasticity. NY: Oxford University Press.

* Goleman, D., Boyatzis, R., &McKee, A. (2002). Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence.

Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

* Goleman, D. &Boyatzis, R. (September, 2008). Social intelligence and the biology of leadership. Harvard Business

Review. 86:9, pp. 74-81.

* Hatfield, E., Cacioppo, J.T., &Rapson, R.L. (1993). Emotional contagion. NY: Cambridge University Press.

* Iacoboni, M. (2009). Imitaiton, empathy, and mirror neurons. Annual Review of Psychology. 60, p. 653-670.

* Jack, A., Dawson, A., Ciccia, A. Cesaro, R., Barry, K., Snyder, A. &Begany, K. (2010). Social and Mechanical

reasoning define two opposing domains of human higher cognition. Under review. Manuscript from Case Western

Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio.

* Janig, W. &Habler, H-J. (1999). Organization of the autonomic nervous system: Structure and function. In O.

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* LeDoux, J. (2002). Synaptic self: How our brains become who we are. NY: Viking.

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338: 171-179.

* Sapolsky, R. M. (2004). Why zebra's don't get ulcers (third edition).NY: Harper Collins.

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advance of print, 1-10.

AuthorAffiliation

The Author:

Richard Boyatzis

Richard Boyatzis is Distinguished University Professor, Case Western Reserve University. He is the author of six

books, including Primal Leadership with Daniel Goleman and Annie McKee; Resonant Leadership, with Annie

McKee; and Becoming a Resonant Leader with Annie McKee and Fran Johnston. DETAILS

Subject: Neurosciences; Leadership

Location: United States--US

Classification: 2200: Managerial skills; 9190: United States

Publication title: Ivey Business Journal (Online); London

Pages: N_A

Number of pages: 1

Publication year: 2011

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Publication date: Jan/Feb 2011

Section: Leadership

Publisher: University of Western Ontario

Place of publication: London

Country of publication: Canada, London

Publication subject: Business And Economics

Source type: Trade Journals

Language of publication: English

Document type: Feature

ProQuest document ID: 852766997

Document URL: https://search.proquest.com/docview/852766997?accountid=8289

Copyright: Copyright University of Western Ontario Jan/Feb 2011

Last updated: 2015-03-05

Database: ProQuest Central