[Applause]
but how many of you show plans or be the
first to do in these color talks has had
a wonderful leader one who inspired you
who let you be really good at what
you’re doing on great lots of hands are
yes and you can see you’ve kind of kept
it with you those leaders actually
changed our brains at both do it are
really interesting study last year it’s
a really great scan of executives and
what they did was they top people with
many years of experience and they talked
to them about their leaders and good
leaders created this pattern in people’s
heads now this is the mirror neuron
system so it’s about effect it’s about
connecting with people and if it’s
orange that means it’s positive effect
so they had really good memories about
getting on well with people about
sharing information about feeling good
and also about dealing with novelty and
eunice that’s all what happened with the
people that had the bad leaders was
different parts of them running silly
talk
and that’s negative effect and that was
about dropping compassion and narrowing
in the capability to deal with things so
those rates which changed forever
basically by those leaders so I want to
talk to you today about how that happens
the neuroscience I guess
so something that really struck me over
30 years at working in industry all
different kinds of industries with good
leaders some bad leaders leading a bit
myself was that the good leaders had
some things in common so the first thing
many things but the first thing that was
really strong was they all had a very
clear vision about where they were going
what was our reason for being here and
they could share it so everybody could
understand what they were there for and
the second thing was an extremely strong
set of values so if you think about that
we know where we’re going and we feel
safe getting there because we know we’re
going to have each other’s backs and
it’s consistent and it means that within
that boundary people can do wonderful
things they can be very innovative I’m
making strive and that’s because the
third thing that those people did really
well was they were pragmatic optimists
so they made sure that people understood
that they expected the best out of them
and as human beings were interesting if
people have really high hopes for us we
need them so when they build things they
don’t build lots of rules and
regulations that they don’t have to have
all of those measurements because you
don’t need that if someone’s striving
measurements drive us down to the
minimum but if you are able to sir to
strive for what you could possibly hope
for then you’re going to get there
so this fascinated me and always
thinking what is it about them yes there
are all different structures but do they
think differently do they have different
brains and the answer is yes they do so
I’ll be looking at that for a number of
years and there’s some really
interesting work now right through
Europe from Asia and America and
Scandinavia and another trained TV when
I was watching over the years
look at this work and doing some work
myself is that now that we’ve got really
good scanning opacities to have a look
at what’s happening is lots of you don’t
know about the brain but there’s some
things we do know the brains of
inspirational transformational leaders
are different and the way that all of
the different kinds of tests and
research found things is that the
difference is around the social aspect
of the brain so if you take an
inspirational leader and you stand them
are you getting them to talk about their
organization the present and the future
the parts of their brains that light up
are around that social networking system
around engagement around telling stories
and they’re able to do that they’re able
to get people involved and they use a
lot of we we will make it better bigger
happier we’ll have better clients yet
when you scan the people who are much
more hierarchical and controlling the
parts that light up in their brain are
mostly around tasks and it’s I how I
will build an organization that’ll make
more profit that’ll be the competition
so it’s a very different look and
they’re actually uncomfortable even
having that discussion because being
able to win my heart while they’re
talking to me that’s that’s kind of not
where their head is so that was a really
interesting clean but why is that
important it’s because human beings are
hard-wired to connect it’s really
critical to us so if you have the
capacity to do that then you’re going to
lead a lot more powerfully and people
are going to be a lot more keen to go
where you want to go
and even to go other places as well that
can make the organization even better
we’re hardwired in the way that we have
something called interpersonal neural
synchrony synchronization so it’s a big
word for saying that if I’m talking to
you directly
then we synchronize our brains so that
becomes really powerful there’s actually
something happening in your brain that’s
making a difference so if we have an
example I’m one of those charismatic
inspirational leaders and this is my
company right so were a small neat
wonderful company but the markets
changing and we have to do something a
bit different so when I’m coming here
and I’m talking to you if I can inspire
you in my pathetically optimistic way
and we’re talking about where we’re
going to go and the fact that we have to
move but that’s okay because we’re a
really good company and people in this
organization are very capable so we’ll
get there and what we’ll do is do it
together and we’ll figure out what’s in
the way and we’ll get past that then
your parasympathetic nervous system
starts to fire up you have a little bit
of anxiety because it’s new but that
becomes energy and when that
parasympathetic nervous system the vital
immune system kicks in and you start
getting all sorts of chemicals in your
body and some of those chemicals are the
chemicals that your brain uses to make
new neurons so if I was to scan everyone
while we start doing this you’d be
growing a new neural map and the
wonderful thing is would be some
matching lis so
about how powerful that is we need less
rewards less regulations I don’t need to
keep giving you emails of all charts and
videos and all that kind of thing
because you’ve got it in your head so
that’s another part of what the
charismatic leader understands is that
face-to-face direct communication is
critical because when I meet you like
the first time I meet you if we start to
talk then you’ve got spindle neurons
mirror neurons but all sorts of things
going on in your head and we’ve got
dynamic resonance of being in the same
space and once again we start getting
these chemicals and those neurons are to
do with trust they’re the trust neurons
so we actually start building a
relationship immediately
in fact in as little as one twentieth
and 1/6 that our second look really fast
and that’s really critical because
that’s the second thing that these
leaders understand is the power of trust
if I trust you and you trust me that we
trust the process you’re going to be
able to go outside of your comfort zone
you’re going to be able to do things
that you didn’t do before try new things
because you know that someone’s got your
back you’ll be more collaborative and
the other thing that will be really
important is fairness perceived fairness
is quite critical it means that we will
collaborate we will try new things but
in really interesting studies about
perceived unfairness that shuts down
because your brain goes into a different
type of filter it stops looking for
information that’s going to make us
collaborate together and it starts
looking for information that proves to
me that I don’t have to do it with
anyone else so you actually change what
you look for and what you bring into
your brain so Trust is really critical
and the third thing I’ll leave you with
is empathy because a big part of trust
sympathy and a big part of working with
other people is being imperfect that
people think empathise fluffy it’s not
fluffy at all in fact it’s a
physiologically structured process in
your brain and one of the things that’s
really critical for is complex
problem-solving and strategy so the best
strategist I’ve ever worked with are
very empathic so don’t leave that at
home you bring that right to the table
what happens in your brain when you have
a complex problem it’s this information
that’s missing so your brain says okay
I’m not sure where that is so what I’ll
do now is I’ll go and find it my new
filter is going into your brain and
those filters look for information based
on different criteria and the criteria
is around long-lens thinking and
consequences not what about right now so
it actually shares how we look at things
and it engages of course people’s hearts
because you’re being imperfect you’re
caring so it really is right that if you
engage the heart that’s when you can
change the mind because the chemicals
that are in the discernment process can
really organize the patterns in your
brain and actually make you think
differently so what is all this mean it
means that you have a wonderful chemical
cocktail going off in the brains of
people with these kirkwood leaders it
means that their brains with fast stuff
that they take in information more
quickly that they are more nimble in
giving out decisions but it means they
happier at the mass wonderful thing to
think about is so are you so everyone
here if they’re not a little already you
will be because why else would you be in
a TED talk you will be happier because
the wonderful thing about human being
this is reciprocal when your brain
changes my brain changes too so you get
better at the metacognitive skills of
leaving you build better organizations
so people can be flexible you get better
at that social capacity of getting
people to work together and you also get
better at your own emotional perspective
leading some we can all do it we’ve all
got parts and we’ve all got brains so
don’t think that the capacity to engage
and the capacity to like people and to
build that picture and paint the future
is a fluffy thing it’s not the soft
stuff is the hard stuff but it actually
makes the neurophysiological difference
so I’m here to tell you that
scientifically those parts of leading make you a great leader