Leaders Know Their Minds

Leaders Know Their Minds

Happy people get better insights when they are calm.


The key elements I have discovered that affect leadership and impact learning and the development of one’s full potential are:

1 We have a genetic default brain that has not really changed since Stone Age man. When we are born, our brain is essentially the same as a baby born 50,000 years ago.

2 The essence of leadership is about ‘change’….

3 The human brain has developed genetically at a much slower pace than society which provides a behavioural conflict. Genetically, how the brain works is all about the inter-relationships between energy, memory and neural wiring which defaults the brain to resist change, while at the same time, wanting to be creative.

4 There are three kinds of neural connections. Serial connections (like a row of Christmas tree lights) provide our IQ, instinct and learned habits. Associative connections are where bundles of brain cells connect with each other creating new intra-serial wiring — this provides for our emotional intelligence and conceptual thinking. Synchronous neural oscillations is where wave motions form in all the parts of a brain that relate to a particular event providing holistic thinking which ranges from the relative simplicity of understanding the totality of a coffee mug up to the high order of things such as the meaning of life.

5 Our default leadership style is ‘know everything and tell people what to do’. This is not effective in today’s world, not only because the brain resists being told what to do (it takes so much of the brain’s energy) but also because information (knowledge) is too abundant to be controlled by one person.

6 Any change is most effectively implemented by the individual having an insight and thus developing their own solution. The insight also uses up a lot of energy but it simultaneously releases adrenaline-like chemicals that sustain the energy.


7 Continued focus and attention keeps neural circuits open and stabilises the new neural connections (created by insights), thus becoming memorable and a new habit soon forms. This is typically how behavioural changes occur.

Om Namah Shivay