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BOOK REVIEW: Get ready for the brain Olympics

Neuroscience for Leadership: Harnessing the Brain Gain Advantage (The Neuroscience of Business) by Tara Swart, Kitty Chisholm and Paul Brown

NEUROSCIENCE has developed to the extent that we now know that behaviour cannot occur in the body or the brain without some chemistry. This raises fascinating questions, among which is whether we are in charge of our brains, or our brains are in charge of us.

Through the insights and research covered in this book, leaders can learn much about the complexity of their own functioning, as well as how to be humane and effective when relating to others.

There are eight primary emotions that make up the whole emotional spectrum of the feeling system. Five of these are survival emotions: fear, anger, disgust, shame and sadness, and all involve the release of cortisol.

There are two attachment emotion spectrums: from love to trust, and joy to excitement. These are responses to oxytocin, dopamine and noradrenalin on brain receptors. One emotion, ‘surprise’, can turn the attachment into a survival emotion, or the reverse.

Leadership training has become a huge industry because the demand for effective leadership is so great. However, there is little hard evidence as to why something works when it does, and this is where the work of neuroscience adds value.

It is beginning to shed some light on how the brain works, and affects and is affected by behaviours, beliefs and attitudes.

The authors look at the issue of leadership from both the perspective of the leaders themselves and of the people they lead. I will focus only on the leader.

Leaders generally have more than average testosterone, the hormone linked to the achievement and maintenance of high status and dominance. Leaders also have lower levels of cortisol, the hormone that the body produces in response to stress.

Effective leaders are, generally, less stressed than subordinates. (This has been shown to be related to a good social life with friends and family, a key cushion against stress.)

Predictor of status and dominance

High testosterone combined with low cortisol appears to be a predictor of status and dominance in people, whereas the presence of only one of these does not correlate with success in business at all. Similarly, leaders are likely to have a well-developed pre-frontal cortex, the part of the brain that is critical to the higher executive functions of the brain, such as focusing attention, self-control, planning and complex problem-solving.

Many characteristics have been identified as required for leadership. The good news is that elite performance, brain agility and engagement can be learned. To this end, the authors provide a guide to bronze, silver and gold “brain Olympics.”

For bronze level performance, you should be getting good quality sleep for about six to eight hours each night. This amount of sleep allows sufficient time for the brain to rest and build up the resources required for resilience.

Generally, the use of digital media should stop one hour before going to bed because of the effect of the unnatural light from the screen on the pineal gland. "You certainly should not be sleeping with your smart phone or device next to you because of the effects of Wi-Fi and G or G signals on your brain waves."

One of the most important findings from brain science research concerns how the brain cleanses itself of toxic waste byproducts while we sleep. Not getting enough sleep may prevent the brain from being able to remove neurotoxins. ‘Pulling an all-nighter’, far from being a source of bragging rights, costs about a standard deviation loss in one’s IQ score!

Cardiovascular exercise boosts productivity at work

Silver level performance requires doing all that is described for bronze as well as getting healthy nutrition, hydration and basic exercise. Recommendations for this level include doing 30 minutes of cardiovascular exercise on most days. This has been reported to boost productivity at work on the days you exercise in the morning by as much as 15%.

The brain, although only 2% of body weight, consumes 20% of its glucose intake. This glucose comes from a healthy, balanced diet, rich in antioxidants and supplemented with vitamins and omega oils.

Hydration is critical, and even just a small percent decrease negatively affects your memory, concentration and decision-making power.

For gold level performance, in addition to what is required for bronze and silver, you will need to learn, unlearn and re-learn. But you will also need to hone your ‘gut instinct’. Gut instinct is about intuition, judgement and decisiveness. This has a physiological basis due to the inordinately large nerve supply from our guts to parts of the brain concerned with instinct, mood and basic emotions.

The authors describe the purpose of this book as a way “to help you accumulate sufficient knowledge about how some of the major systems of your brain and body work, so that you may be able to take better care of the machinery, understand it when it becomes distressed, and enjoy the power of it when, properly cared for, it is working smoothly and well”.

There is much to learn from this book across a host of topics valuable to every leader who takes the responsibilities of leadership seriously.

Readability:   Light ---+ Serious
Insights:        High -+--- Low
Practical:        High ---+- Low

* Ian Mann of Gateways consults internationally on leadership and strategy and is the author of Executive Update. Views expressed are his own.


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