Do you want to learn how your team members' brains work better to help with motivation and performance? Here is how you can utilise neuroscience to do this. Historically, leadership has evolved. AI and the 4th industrial revolution have further accelerated the speed at which advanced leaders must think and act. With these advances and others associated with imaging and predictive modelling of our brains comes the ability to understand how our brains work, otherwise known as neuroscience. Understanding the myths and truths about neuroscience and how this can help you advance to the next leadership level can help you gain performance ahead of your competition. A recent meta-analysis has demonstrated how important this is. The link to the meta-analysis is here
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Myth 1 - Our brains no longer change after the age of 7 years
The Truth - Our brains continue to change and develop even as adults (neuroplasticity). Your brain continues to make new brain cells (neurons) known as neurogenesis your whole life into adulthood, a process which you can accelerate and decelerate via the food you eat, exercise, socialising, good quality sleep and how you manage stress levels. You can also change your neural pathways, retiring old and generating new neural connections between existing neurons for better performance. These changes occur when you create new ways of thinking, which, when you focus really hard on new ways of thinking, encourages people to take new actions and ways of being. As a leader, knowing how to change your brain and helping your employees learn how to change theirs will give you an advanced competitive edge.
Myth 2 - Neuroscience is only for scientists
The Truth - Once upon a time, neuroscience was only for people with access to the right intelligence, education and resources. Now the ability for AI platforms like ChatGPT to simplify advanced neuroscientific discovery in layman's terms gives every person today the opportunity to understand how their brain works. As adults, almost every person also has the ability to make changes to the neuro-pathway construction of their brain, otherwise known as neuroplasticity. For leaders, knowing how this works, even at a basic level, can make the difference between being a good and a great leader.
Why is this important for advanced leadership?
Understanding how the brain works at a deeper level and the effect words and actions have on your own and other’s neurobiology helps shape your brain in a more advanced and effective way. Also, it helps you understand how to motivate and lead your teams by appealing to their deepest neurobiological mechanisms.
Understanding how to find neurobiological drivers in your team
Why do you do what you do? What really anchors your reason for being a leader? Is it money? Reputation? Drivers from your parents telling you only leaders or people which are the best matter? Does fear of being financially insecure drive you? Fear of being a disappointment to your family? Are you driven by pride of what others see, which may also mean the fear of failure drives you if others see it? We are all driven by some kind of emotion, that is a neuro-driver. If you can discover what that emotion is within the individuals of your teams and work on creating a reward for that emotion, this results in a high neuro-driver response from your team members.
Visualising neurobiological drivers
Imagine your brain is a network of roads to different towns. Some of the towns are sad and not so safe. They are run down and inefficient, make you feel uncomfortable, and are not the best place to be. Other towns are warm, happy and full of kind friendly people who love to learn and you can be content there. These towns are also where you perform at your best because you are happiest and your brain's thinking function (cognitive function) is at its highest. When you feel persistently stressed or unhappy, your neuro-highway often drives you automatically to an unsafe town. This can be helpful as it warns and teaches us to look for danger, which can be useful. It can also be a warning about knowing where you do not want to be, learning about inefficiencies in this run-down town.
However, you do not want to hang around too long, as this can be exhausting. Ideally, you want to go to a happy/ efficient town where you know you can find more answers to your questions and have better cognitive functioning. To help you with this, you can make as many new roads to the happy/ efficient towns as possible, which are resourceful and great for your efficient cognitive functioning. The basic road may already be there from one happy/ efficient town to the next; you just need to lay down more tarmac or concrete to strengthen that neuro-highway and make it easier and faster to travel there. You can do this with your thoughts alone. Think about that happy, efficient town when you are stuck in a run-down town and create a new road to the place you really want to be, where you will function the best.
Understanding your team members’ maps
The above analogy is similar to creating new neural pathways (otherwise known as axons), from neuron to neuron and creating new neurons via neurogenesis. Building out a neuro-map with highways and finding your way back to different towns for different thought processes, as well as laying down the foundations for new roads to be built and reinforced to create superhighways to the most efficient/ effective towns, is the same as creating new high-performing networks of neurons.
New thoughts = new behaviours = new neural networks with strengthened axons (the superhighway connections between neurons) = new ways of being = better cognitive function.
The stronger the axon’s myelin, insulation for the neurological electrical impulse (equivalent to neuro-road tarmac), the easier it is to travel to the new behaviour/ thought process/ way of being. So, understanding your team members’ thought processes and the towns they visit can be important. Also, helping them learn how to create new neuro-pathways (roads) to the right neuronal networks (towns) will help enhance their and your company's performance.
What does neuro-motivation look like?
You may understand your motivators, but do you understand your individual team members‘ motivation? Do you know what fires their neurons in the right way to encourage them to enhance their performance? When positively enhanced neurons fire, they create a positive emotional reaction which gives a natural reward of feeling good. When the brain feels good, it wants more of this.
What do their most amazing towns (emotional desires and thoughts) look like to them? Are they full of kind and happy people with safe, secure living in a big house for their family? Do they see a variety of towns with different exotic locations to visit on holiday? Understanding these more profound wants and needs and then learning how to enable these neuro-highways and the actual outcomes that motivate people is a colossal leadership strength. Encouraging people to visualise this as their neuro-highway destination can help strengthen motivation and the will to succeed, releasing the handbrake without needing fuel to accelerate.
This is just the start of your leadership growth into an advanced model of understanding neuroscience for advanced leadership. If you learn about your team's neuro-drivers and how to communicate effectively, your team will motivate themselves.
Caroline Langston is the Co-Founder of Successful Consultants Ltd, an Executive, Personal and Career Development Coaching company in Hong Kong and New York. Caroline is dedicated to coaching people to achieve performance success, wellness, and happiness in their careers and lives. She is degree-qualified, with a postgraduate certificate in the Psychology and Neuroscience of Mental Health. She is studying at King’s College London for an MSc in the same subject. With a Certificate in Professional Coaching Mastery, she is also a Professional Certified Accredited Coach (International Coaching Federation), has a Certificate in Team Coaching from the EMCC and further certifications in Neuro Linguistic Programming at Master Practitioner and Coach level. www.successCL.com
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