This is Your Brain on Power

Leadership

“Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Unfortunately, that statement from British historian Lord Acton is not entirely false.

How power impacts our brains is the subject of The Power Paradox: How We Gain and Lose Influence, written by UC Berkeley Professor Dacher Keltner. At Berkeley’s Social Interaction Laboratory, Keltner and his students explored how power reduces our inhibitions and weakens our social awareness.

“What we’ve learned,” says Keltner, “is that when we feel powerful, the empathy regions of the brain disengage. We suddenly become impulsive, we behave inappropriately, we are more likely to swear, and we generally lose touch with other people.” Keltner’s lab students dub this the Cookie Monster effect.

Thus, the paradox. The skills we need to gain power and effectively lead others – like social intelligence and empathy – are the very ones we are likely to lose when we achieve power.

So, does power corrupt? Yes and no.

“One of the things we’ve learned from studying the science of power,” states Keltner, is that it “tends to amplify our pre-existing tendencies.” In effect, power reveals.

Power reveals

Consider the effects of power on the late U.S. President, Richard Milhous Nixon. Long before Nixon left the White House as an unindicted coconspirator in the Watergate scandal, he was a highly paranoid conspiracy theorist. His attempts to break an imaginary conspiracy led him to launch a conspiracy that broke him, and, ultimately, cost him the presidency.

Nixon’s words, “I am not a crook,” and “When the president does it, that means it is not illegal,” forever cloud the political zeitgeist of the 1970s. The pall of Watergate overshadowed Nixon’s foreign and domestic achievements even until his death in 1994. Nixon died not famous but infamous, an icon of the power paradox.

Keltner finds that examples of the fall from power like Nixon’s resignation may lead us to believe that the abuse of power is inevitable. But the power paradox is more complex.

Keltner writes, “It is not human nature to abuse power. Power is a dopamine high. Every time we experience power, we find ourselves at a moment, a fork in the road . . . we can act in ways that lead us to enjoy enduring power, or we can be seduced by the self-indulgent possibilities that power occasions. Which path you take matters enormously.”

What will you do with power?

In his classic work The Prince, Machiavelli concluded that a person should use any means necessary in order to acquire and protect power. Yet, the rise of countless leaders like Nixon who subscribed to the Machiavellian model show that tactics like coercion and manipulation inevitably lead to their fall.

Keltner writes, “Society has changed dramatically since Machiavelli’s Renaissance Florence in ways that require us to move beyond outdated notions of power.” He suggests that we broaden our definition of power as the capacity to make a difference in the world, to find our purpose – the specific difference in the world that we are best suited to make – and bring it to fruition.

To overcome the power paradox, Keltner recommends a fivefold path to stay in check with what matters most:

1. Be aware of your feelings of power. Be mindful of the dopamine high associated with power. Keep yourself grounded by reminding yourself of your higher purpose.
2. Practice humility. Power is a gift, not a right. Don’t get caught up in your own press.
3. Stay focused on others, and give. Our ability to make a difference in the world will grow exponentially when we give to others, and help others be givers.
4. Practice respect. People with their self-respect intact are unified behind the purpose and values of the society, and are committed to the success of the society over personal success.
5. Change the psychological context of powerlessness. Use your position to create opportunities that empower those without power. Call into question elements of society that devalue others.

In short, Keltner challenges us to answer the question, “What will you do with your power?” Will you be corrupted by it, or use it to make a positive impact on the world? The choice is yours.

Interested in overcoming the power paradox for yourself or your team? Check out our Leadership Development services or email me at info@executiveexcellence.com directly to set-up a free 30 minute consultation.

10 Goals for the Boss as Coach by Michael J. Coffey, MA

Leadership

This week’s post was written by my friend and Center for Executive Excellence Senior Executive Consultant, Michael Coffey. Michael actually trained me in how to be a more effective leader before Center for Executive Excellence was founded. There are few people who I trust with delivering results for our clients than Michael. He balances humor and humility with listening and learning to help our clients grow themselves and their team. – Sheri Nasim

Most managers are good technicians. They focus on the pragmatic planning and organizing to get the hands-on work accomplished through their teams.

Yet, many managers have deficiencies in “soft skills” – how to communicate, listen and empathize with those around them. There are important differences between managing and leading people. Leading others effectively requires a mastery of the soft skills necessary to inspire people to work at their full potential and take part in something bigger than themselves.

A symptom of a typical manager is that they take a “task with consequences” approach to their work versus inspiring their team to work for a greater cause. Coaching managers away from the “task with consequences” approach and toward a “boss as coach” model helps bridge the soft skills gap and create alignment. It’s an approach that goes beyond the “what” and “how” and toward the “why” to help team members discover how their individual values and professional goals align.

Here are 10 goals for managers to work toward building their “boss as coach” soft skills:

1.    Articulate the organization’s vision, purpose, direction, strategies, major goals and actions.

2.    Involve/include team members to acquire understanding, connection, commitment, passion and ownership.

3.    Align team member goals, actions and expectations with those of the organization.

4.    Remove barriers and provide resources.

5.    Follow up and hold people accountable.

6.    Promote feedback, input and idea-sharing from team members.

7.    Challenge and inspire team members to stretch for greatness.

8.    Develop and grow people through meaningful work.

9.    Increase work/career satisfaction and personal fulfillment.

10.  Create a positive, productive community of team members who volunteer their best and fulfill their potential.

When the vision, mission and culture of an organization are in alignment with the individual’s values and professional goals, employees are more committed to the organization, more productive, and happier at their job.

Question: As a leader, how do you align individual goals to the organization’s big picture goals?

Michael J. Coffey, MA is a Senior Executive Consultant for Center for Executive Excellence who brings over 22 years of hands-on experience as a senior leader, certified executive coach, team facilitator, strategic organizational and talent development consultant, trainer, and entrepreneur.

Michael’s approach focuses on double-loop learning as you pursue leadership mastery, organizational and cultural transformation. Michael has authored numerous enterprise-wide leadership training programs, focusing on values alignment, servant leadership, managing people, and leading strategically.

3 Reasons Why You Should Procrastinate

Leadership

We’ve all been there. A project you committed to is due tomorrow. You know that, with concentrated effort, you could knock it out in a couple hours. Yet, somehow you manage to put it off.

Instead, you fill the time with busy work, things that could easily wait until next week. Or you indulge in completely unproductive things like scrolling through Facebook videos or checking out Google Street View caught-on-camera highlights.

If you’re guilty of procrastination tactics like these, take heart. According to New York Times bestselling author Adam Grant, procrastination is a virtue for creativity. In his book, Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World, Grant explains how procrastination encourages divergent thinking.

“Our first ideas, after all, are usually our most conventional,” Grant explains. “When you procrastinate, you’re more likely to let your mind wander.” Research shows that we have a better memory for incomplete tasks. When we finish a project, our brain files it away. But when it’s floating in limbo, our brains continue working it.

From writers like Aaron Sorkin (“You call it procrastinating. I call it thinking.”) to artists like Leonardo Di Vinci (took 16 years to complete the Mona Lisa), highly creative people spend most of the creative process in pre-production. Instead of thinking of procrastination as a vice, think of it as an essential part of creativity. Consider these three ways you can use procrastination to your advantage:

1. To exercise your idea muscles. Give yourself permission to build white space in your day. White space will allow you to reflect — to turn information into knowledge and knowledge into “a-ha” moments.

2. To find the power in the question. Good strategic thinkers know how to hit the ‘what if’ pause button. It forces you to step back and challenge current assumptions that prevent you from seeing breakthrough solutions.

3. To move from quantity to quality. While you don’t have the luxury to mull over every piece of text you write before you hit ‘send’, some ideas are worth polishing.

Let’s be honest. Chronic procrastination is not healthy. If you have excuses for letting most deadlines pass, that’s a bad habit you need to address and correct. But true insight takes time. The longer we allow our brains to work on ideas, the more insight we can gain. Don’t be afraid to harness the creative power of procrastination.

Question: When has procrastination helped you be more creative?

Driven by the premise that excellence is the result of aligning people, purpose and performance, Center for Executive Excellence facilitates training in leading self, leading teams and leading organizations. To learn more, subscribe to receive CEE News!

Triggered? Rewire Your Brain in 3 Easy Steps

Leadership

Power causes brain damage. If you’ve ever had a former friend get promoted then develop a case of colleague amnesia, you know this to be true. Or, if you saw the sorry, not sorry, congressional hearing of now-former Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf for failing to stop some 5,000 employees from setting up phony accounts for customers, you’ve seen it in living color.

At times like these, you may wonder, “What was going through their head?” Research suggests that the better question may be: What wasn’t going through it? Historian Henry Adams described power as “a sort of tumor that ends by killing the victim’s sympathies.” According to research by Dacher Keltner, a psychology professor at UC Berkeley, that’s not far from the truth.

My friend and CEE Co-Founder, Dr. Tony Baron, and I flew to Berkeley in the fall of 2016 to pay a visit to Professor Keltner, who had just published a book called The Power Paradox. Using MRIs to study the brain, Keltner and his students found that when a person experiences power, the brain gets a little surge of dopamine — the neurotransmitter associated with pleasure, love, addiction, and psychotic behavior.

The paradox, Keltner found, is that dopamine can also suppress our ability to empathize. That’s not good news for the people we’re supposed to be leading. (Read more about Professor Keltner’s findings here.)

Dr. Baron and I also reviewed what Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence, refers to as the “amygdala hijack”. If you’ve ever experience road rage, you’re familiar with this phenomenon. Here’s a breakdown of why it happens.

Our brains are made up of three parts. The first and oldest is the brain stem. It’s responsible for the body’s basic operating functions like breathing and heartbeat. Next, comes the limbic system where the amygdalae are located. The amygdalae activate during times of stress. They are responsible for “fight or flight” responses that have kept us alive as since the days that cave men crossed paths with sabre-toothed tigers. Over the limbic system is the neocortex, which is responsible for logic and reason.

When the amygdalae are triggered by stress, they race into action. First, they signal the brain stem to release adrenaline and cortisol through the body. The heart beats faster, blood pressure rises, and breathing accelerates. Next, the amygdalae shut down the flow of blood to the neocortex, because using logic and reasoning could cause you to delay jumping into immediate action.

That’s the amygdala hijack. And though we’ve evolved from living in caves to condos, our brains don’t know the difference between a sabre tooth and a distracted driver. When someone cuts us off in traffic, we can lose the ability to reason. Our focus narrows, and all we can think is “I’m right and he’s wrong!”

We get triggered the same way when we are in a stressful meeting, or even when we replay memories of stressful events. Adrenaline and cortisol flood the body. What’s worse is that these stress hormones can stay in the body for up to 4 hours, which is why we may stay amped up long after the stressful situation has passed. There’s a term for that effect too – the amygdala hangover.

So, is there anything that we can do to avoid an amygdala hijack? Fortunately, yes.

1. Recognize when you are triggered.  If you get easily triggered at work, especially when you’re in meetings with the same people each week, this is an excellent opportunity to practice. You might start by going to the meeting, getting upset, staying upset for a day or two before you realize that you were triggered. The next week, you go to the meeting, get upset, and stay that way until you get home that evening before you recognize that you’ve been triggered. The next week, you’re in the meeting and you start to feel your chest tighten and your blood pressure rise just before you get upset. You still get upset, but you notice what’s happening in your body in the moment. Progress!

2. Fire up your neocortex. Once you can recognize that you are being triggered in the moment, you can move to Step 2. Thomas Jefferson once said that if you get mad, count to 10. If you get really mad, count to 100. This sounds simplistic, but it actually has the effect that you need to counter an amygdala hijack. When you count, you re-engage the neocortex that was shut off just seconds ago. Counting will give you the ability to re-access logic and will build the distance you need to see things more clearly.

3. Switch your attention. Take long, intentional breaths. Again, this sounds simplistic, but when you bring your attention repeatedly to each breath as you have it, you activate the parasympathetic system. That’s the part of your nervous system responsible for “rest and digest.” Taking deep, mindful breaths will have the net result of bringing you back into a calm state.

Recognize when you are triggered, reconnect with your neocortex, and take slow, deep breaths to find the path back to a calm state. Doing so over time, will form new neural pathways to re-take control of your brain.

Question: When was the last time you got upset? Did you blame others for your response, or did you recognize that you were triggered?

Driven by the premise that excellence is the result of aligning people, purpose and performance, Center for Executive Excellence facilitates training in leading self, leading teams and leading organizations. To learn more, subscribe to receive CEE News!