Hi Reader,
There's been a number of people this week talking about the brain and leadership, how stress and sleep affect performance and focus, and how understanding this can change how we live and how we lead.
It strikes me this information is gold 🌟 and better still - we all know it already. The wisdom is right there inside all of us. Now brain science is backing it up, and great communicators are getting it out there.
Yet still there is a comment on Steven Bartlett's Top 9 lessons about the brain that "We should be teaching this in schools." I hear this from my clients too. And I agree. Perhaps we are, in some places. Are we? I was, in the early 2000s. My sister was teaching it in China at the same time. I went out to help her, and we brought the programme back to the UK.
But the fact that this comment is there suggests: we need to consider this, communicate it, and apply it more. Even as the world moves fast, it seems to take a while for the most important ideas to gain traction. Or be remembered and applied. This is a major part of my mission.
This week I published a short article in Business Cornwall, touching on the idea that leadership is less about pressure and more about presence, and how the science of the nervous system backs this up. (Eastern philosophy has been doing so for years too by the way.)
When I first started working in leadership development in the 1990s, “emotional intelligence” was still a new idea. I was called a "tree hugger" and a "woman" just for talking about it. Laughable. But serious.
Back then, it wasn’t obvious, at least in the corporate world, that how we feel and how we perform are deeply connected - strange as that may seem. What a massive hole in the "modern" world!
Now neuroscience is helping us understand something fundamental: our brains work best when we feel safe, rested, and calm.
Not complacent. Not passive.
Calm.
Pause. Think about it. Feel it.
After thirty years of talking about brain science with clients, groups, and organisations, I still find this both simple and incredibly profound. With very far-reaching potential implications.
The brain is not the obstacle. It’s the resource. It is not weak. But it is precise and powerful, so we'd better treat it with respect.
Here are three simple, easy questions to help you respect and immediately power up your own brain:
- When do you think most clearly?
- When do you feel most capable?
- When does life feel easier to handle?
You might find calm is closer than you think.
Thanks to Jake Wellings and Lucy Cox for their posts on positive leadership and vulnerability.
Please let me know your thoughts by hitting reply, or comment online. Links to my socials below.
Best wishes for now,
Adam
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