Neuroleadership: How Your Brain Fights for Social Survival in the Workplace
BY MANIE BOSMAN
Have you ever rolled around in bed thinking about an incident earlier that day and feeling really frustrated with yourself for not clearly explaining your point or saying what you should have said? Maybe it was a meeting where you struggled to state your case and later, thinking back, what you should have said was so clear and simple and you just couldn’t believe how you didn’t see that earlier. Well, for what it’s worth, thousands – perhaps tens of thousands – of people have a similar experience every day.
What you’ve experienced during that meeting was the activation of the classical ‘fight or flight’ response
in your brain. This response, also known as our survival instinct,
helps us stay alive by triggering neurological pathways in our brains
which enable us to react to danger without even having to think about
it. Here is how it work: as you grew up, your brain ‘labeled’ or encoded
some stimuli (things you observed or experienced) as “threats” (e.g. food that tasted really bad) and others as “rewards” (e.g. food that you enjoyed). These “labels” or neurological codes are stored in the amygdala, a small oval-shaped object in the brain’s limbic system,
which also plays an important role in the actual encoding process. From
then on, whenever you come across something encoded as either a
“threat” or a “reward”, the amygdala activates the limbic
system to trigger an automated ‘disengage’ (refuse to eat your cabbage)
neurological response when facing a perceived threat, or an ‘engage’
(eat the ice-cream) response when facing a perceived reward. Similarly,
your brain most likely encoded losing money, seeing a large predator, or
facing a scar-faced guy wielding a flick-knife as threats while
receiving money, water, sex, and a safe shelter were all encoded
asrewards.
So, you’re out hiking through the forest and you hear an unfamiliar sound somewhere behind you. Your limbic system is aroused in the blink of a second – neurons are activated and hormones are released – as you try to establish whether this is a threat or reward, and subsequently if you should disengage or engage. Anxiously staring into the underbrush your heightened senses pick up a small movement and the next moment you’re running – disengaging from what might be a lion or bear or some other dangerous predator. Important to note here that this entire process is automated – in other words your brain (or the neural pathways that are triggered) determines how you will respond without you consciously giving any real input.
While the basics of this survival instinct had been known for some time, neuroscience, with the use of fMRI scans
and other scientific methods, has in recent years given us new insights
into exactly what happens when a threat or reward response is
activated. Probably the most exiting revelation has been that exactly
the same neural responses which drive us towards food (reward-engage) or
away from danger (threat-disengage), are activated when we socially
interact with other people. In other words, when we’re having a meeting
at work, enjoying a braai (South African version of a barbeque) with
friends, or chatting about the weather while standing in the queue at
the supermarket, people’s behaviour during these social interactions can
trigger either a “threat” or “reward” response in one another.
For leaders, the consequences of this discovery are really profound. It means that the human brain is basically a social organ which reacts to social situations (and social pain in particular) in exactly the same way in which it reacts to the physical environment (and physical pain), which is a bit of a kick in the proverbial butt for Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. It also means that the brain views the workplace primarily as a social environment where it is constantly assessing social interaction as either threats or rewards.
But
there’s more. Studies have shown that when a threat response is
activated, it has a severely negative impact on our cognitive
performance. When the limbic system goes into its automated response,
fewer resources (oxygen and glucose in particular) become available to
the prefrontal cortex–
the part of the brain where conscious thought takes place. This means
that when a threat response is activated our ability to understand, make
decisions, remember, memorize, plan, inhibit impulses, solve problems
and communicate is impaired. Your creativity and innovativeness become
restricted, you struggle to see the “big picture” and ultimately your
overall productivity drops.
David Rock, who could probably be called the father of the emerging field of neuroleadership (applying the scientific findings of neuroscience with leadership practice) cites a study in which two groups had to complete a maze where a little mouse had to reach a picture on the outside. The first group had to guide their mouse through the maze to reach a picture of cheese on the outside, and the second group had to reach an owl, which of course is a predator. Once they had completed this exercise, the two groups were given creativity tests. The researchers found that the group pursuing the cheese solved considerably more creative problems than those approaching the owl. As Rock concludes, “this study, supported by several other similar studies, shows that even subtle effects of this approach-avoid (reward-threat) response can have a big impact on cognitive performance”.
Do you now see why you were finding it so difficult to hold your own during that incident which kept you awake that night? Somehow, at some point during your interaction someone (perhaps a dominating manager or maybe just an insensitive colleague) triggered a threat response in your brain. Your brain perceived this social threat in exactly the way it would perceive a physical threat, and it went into ‘survival mode’ where your cognitive abilities became impaired and restricted.
As
leaders in the highly volatile, constantly changing 21st Century, our
greatest skill will increasingly be the ability to facilitate engagement
in the workplace. Neuroscience is providing us with solid scientific
evidence of what happens in the human brain as we interact with each
other in the workplace. As leaders and facilitators of organizational
development this provides us with great opportunities to apply the
principles of “neuroleadership” which, among other things, means
understanding that the workplace is primarily a social environment and
that the human brain is a ‘social organ’ which needs to beled in a way that complies with its social needs.
Have you ever rolled around in bed thinking about an incident earlier that day and feeling really frustrated with yourself for not clearly explaining your point or saying what you should have said? Maybe it was a meeting where you struggled to state your case and later, thinking back, what you should have said was so clear and simple and you just couldn’t believe how you didn’t see that earlier. Well, for what it’s worth, thousands – perhaps tens of thousands – of people have a similar experience every day.
What you’ve experienced during that meeting was the activation of the classical ‘fight or flight’ response
in your brain. This response, also known as our survival instinct,
helps us stay alive by triggering neurological pathways in our brains
which enable us to react to danger without even having to think about
it. Here is how it work: as you grew up, your brain ‘labeled’ or encoded
some stimuli (things you observed or experienced) as “threats” (e.g. food that tasted really bad) and others as “rewards” (e.g. food that you enjoyed). These “labels” or neurological codes are stored in the amygdala, a small oval-shaped object in the brain’s limbic system,
which also plays an important role in the actual encoding process. From
then on, whenever you come across something encoded as either a
“threat” or a “reward”, the amygdala activates the limbic
system to trigger an automated ‘disengage’ (refuse to eat your cabbage)
neurological response when facing a perceived threat, or an ‘engage’
(eat the ice-cream) response when facing a perceived reward. Similarly,
your brain most likely encoded losing money, seeing a large predator, or
facing a scar-faced guy wielding a flick-knife as threats while
receiving money, water, sex, and a safe shelter were all encoded
asrewards.So, you’re out hiking through the forest and you hear an unfamiliar sound somewhere behind you. Your limbic system is aroused in the blink of a second – neurons are activated and hormones are released – as you try to establish whether this is a threat or reward, and subsequently if you should disengage or engage. Anxiously staring into the underbrush your heightened senses pick up a small movement and the next moment you’re running – disengaging from what might be a lion or bear or some other dangerous predator. Important to note here that this entire process is automated – in other words your brain (or the neural pathways that are triggered) determines how you will respond without you consciously giving any real input.
While the basics of this survival instinct had been known for some time, neuroscience, with the use of fMRI scans
and other scientific methods, has in recent years given us new insights
into exactly what happens when a threat or reward response is
activated. Probably the most exiting revelation has been that exactly
the same neural responses which drive us towards food (reward-engage) or
away from danger (threat-disengage), are activated when we socially
interact with other people. In other words, when we’re having a meeting
at work, enjoying a braai (South African version of a barbeque) with
friends, or chatting about the weather while standing in the queue at
the supermarket, people’s behaviour during these social interactions can
trigger either a “threat” or “reward” response in one another.For leaders, the consequences of this discovery are really profound. It means that the human brain is basically a social organ which reacts to social situations (and social pain in particular) in exactly the same way in which it reacts to the physical environment (and physical pain), which is a bit of a kick in the proverbial butt for Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. It also means that the brain views the workplace primarily as a social environment where it is constantly assessing social interaction as either threats or rewards.
But
there’s more. Studies have shown that when a threat response is
activated, it has a severely negative impact on our cognitive
performance. When the limbic system goes into its automated response,
fewer resources (oxygen and glucose in particular) become available to
the prefrontal cortex–
the part of the brain where conscious thought takes place. This means
that when a threat response is activated our ability to understand, make
decisions, remember, memorize, plan, inhibit impulses, solve problems
and communicate is impaired. Your creativity and innovativeness become
restricted, you struggle to see the “big picture” and ultimately your
overall productivity drops.David Rock, who could probably be called the father of the emerging field of neuroleadership (applying the scientific findings of neuroscience with leadership practice) cites a study in which two groups had to complete a maze where a little mouse had to reach a picture on the outside. The first group had to guide their mouse through the maze to reach a picture of cheese on the outside, and the second group had to reach an owl, which of course is a predator. Once they had completed this exercise, the two groups were given creativity tests. The researchers found that the group pursuing the cheese solved considerably more creative problems than those approaching the owl. As Rock concludes, “this study, supported by several other similar studies, shows that even subtle effects of this approach-avoid (reward-threat) response can have a big impact on cognitive performance”.
Do you now see why you were finding it so difficult to hold your own during that incident which kept you awake that night? Somehow, at some point during your interaction someone (perhaps a dominating manager or maybe just an insensitive colleague) triggered a threat response in your brain. Your brain perceived this social threat in exactly the way it would perceive a physical threat, and it went into ‘survival mode’ where your cognitive abilities became impaired and restricted.
As
leaders in the highly volatile, constantly changing 21st Century, our
greatest skill will increasingly be the ability to facilitate engagement
in the workplace. Neuroscience is providing us with solid scientific
evidence of what happens in the human brain as we interact with each
other in the workplace. As leaders and facilitators of organizational
development this provides us with great opportunities to apply the
principles of “neuroleadership” which, among other things, means
understanding that the workplace is primarily a social environment and
that the human brain is a ‘social organ’ which needs to beled in a way that complies with its social needs.
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