leadership and neurosciences

“Know thyself?” If I knew myself, I’d run way. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Research in neurosciences and psychology is telling us why the traditional behaviour change approaches that we have tried in the workplace are not working Leadership.

It is a given that we all now work in a knowledge economy, where people are paid to think and respond to change that is exponentially increasing in complexity and uncertainty. Command-and-control, wait-until-you-are-told-what-to-do cultures can no longer produce innovation, quick response and places where Generation Y want to work. The problem is that most managers have grown up in such a culture, and they will need to learn new management behaviours to adapt to the new environment.

Leadership behaviour is not easily changed...why?

The question is: How do people learn new management behaviours? Traditional leadership and management development programs in the corporate world and academia are based on learning by transmission—give the student the book and the lecture and they will change their behaviour. “Run the two-day Leadership Excellence program through the entire organisation and you will change the culture in a year.” We all know that this doesn’t work.

The way we manage people has become a routine that is 'hard-wired' into our brain in a very efficient automatic processing centre called the basal ganglia that operates like an automatic transmission, shifting among patterns of deeply held thought. How we sell ideas, how we run meetings, how we communicate to our people are deeply embedded within us. Trying to change these embedded behaviours creates discomfort.

At Mettle, we experience seven classical reactions to change in our clients:

1. People feel awkward, ill at ease and self conscious
2. People think first about what they have to give up
3. People feel alone, even if everyone is going through the change
4. People can handle only so much change
5. People are at different levels of readiness for change
6. People are concerned that they don’t have enough resources
7. If you take the pressure off, people revert back to old behaviour

Mettle believes that the fundamental work of leaders has not changed over time but that step change is required in how organisations successfully engage their people leaders in the work.

Further Reading

 The Neuroscience of Leadership and Culture | MettleDetectorPaper | Aug 2007 | KatharineMcLennan

 It's all in the mind | The Australian Financial Review | 09 Nov 2007 | Page:24 | Boss