Neuroleadership

Neuroleadership is a new field of study focused on bringing neuroscientific knowledge into the area of leadership development, management training, education, consulting and coaching.

Neuroleadership is a new field of study focused on bringing neuroscientific knowledge into the area of leadership development, management training, education, consulting and coaching.

Ongoing research, development and education is happening around the world in  this exciting new field.  

 

 

 Neuroleadership summit,  2007 Summit was held in Asolo, Italy and brought together 55 open-minded, high-powered thinkers from many corners of the globe.  Neuroleadership scholars hope to build a better science for leadership by integrating relevant neuroscientific research.

 

The 2008 Summits were held in Syndey,Australia  and New York City in the United States.

 

The 2009 NeuroLeadership Summit will be held in Los Angeles on 27, 28, 29 October 2009.

The venue is on the UCLA campus in Westwood.

Registrations open early 2009 and the core program will be announced.

The summit is absolute must for any manager or leader who wants to:

• Gain access to cutting-edge research into human performance in easy to understand terms
• Understand and manage their own thinking better
• Discover how to use neuroscience inside coaching, leadership and learning programs to dramatically increase their capacity to influence change

 

The first Neuroleadership Journal is now shipping. This new JOURNAL provides an outlet for research and discussion about the application of neuroscience in the field of leadership and leadership development. There are papers covering a wide range of the field, across the four areas of interest: decision-making and problem-solving, emotional regulation, collaborating with and influencing others, and facilitating change.

 

 

Do you know?

 

"Neuroeconomics," is a burgeoning field that uses brain scans to explore economic decisions, such as why we won't dump a dog stock.  "Neuromarketing,"  is a controversial technique of using functional magnetic-resonance imaging (fMRI) to study how our brains respond to pricey Super Bowl ads or, say, brand images of Coke or Pepsi.

 

The catchy term  "Neuroleadership" was coined  in 2006  by David Rock, a leadership consultant who has been importing notions from neuroscience to help explain managerial behavior. Rock is just one of a small but growing group of people connecting the two fields. Business school professors at Arizona State University and Emory University are working with neuroscientists to use electroencephalograph (EEG) machines and fMRIs to study the brain waves or images of executives rather than those of traditional undergraduates. In May 2007, Rock helped organize a NeuroLeadership Summit in Asolo, Italy, where scientists mingled with executives from companies such as fashion house Hugo Boss and agribusiness giant Cargill.

 

Research Studies

 

At Emory, researchers asked 16 executives to respond to PowerPoint slides about moral quandaries, such as acting on privileged information, while inside an MRI machine. They found that managers weighing ethical dilemmas use the part of their brain associated with early memories, which could mean moral thinking is formed early in life. This could indicate that sending leaders with an appetite for Enron-style accounting through ethics seminars will do little good, says Roderick Gilkey, a management and psychiatry professor who was part of the study.

 

In "The Leadership Neuroscience Project," Pierre A. Balthazard and David A. Waldman, both at ASU's School of Global Management & Leadership, have used EEGs to monitor the brains of 44 business leaders while they discussed scenarios such as layoffs. Working with neuroscientists, they hope to eventually find patterns in effective leaders' EEGs and use the readings to supplement training.

 

David Rock and his  collaborator Jeffrey M. Schwartz, a research psychiatrist at the University of California at Los Angeles, are attempting to  apply broader themes from neuroscience to leadership.  One of their main ideas emphasizes that mindful, focused attention on new management practices, rather than on old habits, can rewire the brain. Such concepts have already attracted management elite.  McKinsey & Co. uses Schwartz's lingo in client workshops. "I think they're very leading edge," says Michael Rennie, a leader of the McKinsey & Co.'s Organization Practice. An article by the pair in Booz Allen Hamilton's Strategy + Businessjournal was the publication's most downloaded article last year.