2 minutes
Understanding why humans think the way we do can make us better leaders.
You've probably heard the saying, "If mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy." The same idea applies to leaders, according to Sandra McDowell, PCC, VP/communication and culture for $275 million First Credit Union, Powell River, British Columbia. Put a bit more grammatically, "if a leader is in a bad mood, everyone is in a bad mood," she told her CEO/Executive Team Network audience, Tuesday in Scottsdale, Ariz.
Moods (as well as ideas and behaviors) can spread like illnesses among co-workers, due to a phenomenon called social contagion. Negative emotions "are more powerful than positive emotions in how they impact others,” McDowell explained. “And the emotions of the leader are more powerful than anyone else in the room."
She said this is why emotional intelligence is especially important for leaders: to be able to manage the emotions they display to others.
In her session, "Neuroleadership: Leading With the Brain in Mind," McDowell focused her advanced training in neuroleadership on ways to manage workplace stressors (like workload, people issues and work-life balance) that lead to employee disengagement. With disengagement as high as 35-70 percent, depending on the survey, it’s clear to McDowell that “we're not doing something right in terms of leading the 21st century worker.”
Turning this trend around is important on many levels, including the bottom line. Aon Hewitt has found that “increasing engagement 5 percent can equate to a 3 percent lift in revenue the subsequent year,” she reported.
Another people concept McDowell introduced was "in group and out group thinking," or having an us vs. them mentality.
Encourage staff to think of all their co-workers, not just those in their own department or work group, in terms of "we," she suggested. This in group thinking fosters empathy toward each other, a willingness to cut people slack, and the combined power to change and accomplish great things.
"Our brains are wired to be social, and acceptance in a group matters more than money,” McDowell noted. In fact, social and physical pain produce similar brain responses.
Moving from “they” to “we” takes perseverance but many of the steps she recommended are simple, things we’ve heard all our lives like “Don't leave anyone out."
All it takes is to "find two things in common with someone, and you switch from out group to in group thinking," she said. “Be nice and build relatedness for yourself and others on your team so everyone thinks about ‘we’ instead of ‘they.’”
Mary Auestad Arnold is CUES’ VP/publications and social media.
