Your Brain and Business: The Neuroscience of Great Leaders (14 page)

Concept 3

Attachment anxiety has been linked to the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis in humans. The HPA axis is involved in many functions, such as stress regulation and maintaining mood states. One study found that attachment anxiety was positively correlated with cortisol response to stress and negatively with the cortisol response to awakening.
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What this implies with regard to leaders is that leaders who are unable to form secure attachments have a greater cortisol response under stressful situations. The HPA axis is overactive.
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Concept 4

Furthermore, people who tend to withdraw from close relationships respond spontaneously to a lesser extent to negative interpersonal emotional signals than securely attached individuals.
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That is, their brains (somatosensory cortex) appear to not pick up negative emotional signals as well as securely attached individuals.

Concept 5

Insecurely attached individuals also activate the amygdala and reward brain differently. Activation of the striatum and ventral
tegmental area (reward brain) was enhanced less to positive feedback signaled by a smiling face in participants with avoidant attachment, indicating relative impassiveness to social reward. Conversely, a left amygdala response was evoked by angry faces associated with negative feedback, and correlated positively with anxious attachment, suggesting an increased sensitivity to social punishment. Thus, the brains of insecurely attached leaders (leaders who display this attachment style in questionnaires) are less sensitive to reward and more sensitive to punishment.
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The application:
The attachment styles of leaders are critical when it comes to enhancing their leadership effectiveness. Managers, leaders, and coaches can reflect on how alignment within their organizations and in their partnerships requires the cooperation of their brain’s abilities to ensure secure attachment. Insecure attachments (anxious and avoidant attachment styles in relationships) increase the stress response within the leader and also decrease the leader’s brain sensitivity to reward while increasing the brain sensitivity to punishment. (Decreased reward and increased punishment are additive in the brain.) Their attachment style also makes them less sensitive to negative interpersonal signals. This means that even when their brains overreact to punishment, they don’t feel other peoples’ pain as much as securely attached leaders do. Coaches can help leaders determine their attachment styles, with a view toward developing new learning around reading emotions as well as skills around people engagement so that this leadership style does not trickle down into the organization, affecting its integrity as a whole.

Table 3.1
below summarizes some of the concepts on social intelligence as it applies to managers, leaders, and coaches.

Table 3.1. Social Intelligence through the Neural Lens

Conclusion

Social intelligence is far from a soft skill for leaders. It is critical in the execution of teamwork, in understanding how a company runs, and in understanding the needs of customers at a deeper level. Goleman’s view is summarized in his seminal article: “The only way to develop your social circuitry effectively is to undertake the hard work of changing your behavior.... Companies interested in leadership development need to begin by assessing the willingness of individuals to enter a change program. Eager candidates should first develop a personal vision for change and then undergo a thorough diagnostic assessment, akin to a medical workup, to identify areas of social weakness and strength. Armed with the feedback, the aspiring leader can be trained in specific areas where developing better social skills will have the greatest payoff. The training can range from rehearsing better ways of interacting and trying them out at every opportunity, to being shadowed by a coach and then debriefed about what he observes, to learning directly from a role model....”
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Thus, social intelligence development is critical to any leader. By reflecting on this and much more extensive knowledge of social intelligence, leaders can improve their own performance and the performance of their companies.

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