A Wake Forest University researcher and four colleagues have determined that measurements of activity in the prefrontal cortex of the brain can help to assess a person's potential for leadership.
"This study represents a fusion of the leadership and neuroscience fields, and this fusion can revolutionize approaches to assessing and developing leaders," says Professor Sean Hannah, the Wilson Chair at the Schools of Business at Wake Forest.
Hannah is lead author of a new paper in the Journal of Applied Psychology titled, "The Psychological and Neurological Bases of Leader Self-Complexity and Effects on Adaptive Decision-Making." The paper will appear in the May 2013 issue of the journal.
Co-authors include Pierre Balthazard, dean of the School of Business at Saint Bonaventure University; David A. Waldman, professor of business at Arizona State University; Peter L. Jennings, of the Center for the Army Profession and Ethic at West Point; and Robert W. Thatcher of the University of South Florida.
The researchers went to a U.S. Army base in the Eastern United States and tested 103 young military leaders between the ranks of officer cadet and major. They administered both psychological tests and neurological tests to the soldiers. The psychological exams were designed to assess leadership. For the brain tests, subjects had brain activity measured by quantitative electroencephalogram (qEEG) electrodes attached to 19 areas of the scalp.
Their aim was to measure levels of leadership self-complexity (LSC) which is considered critical for leader effectiveness. LSC is defined as the "interface" between the traits and behaviors that leaders exhibit and the cognitive structures that enable leaders to construct a sophisticated understanding of situations.
One hypothesis was that leaders with higher levels of neurological LSC, as measured by less connectivity in the front lobes of the brain's alpha range, would demonstrate higher levels of adaptive decision making. They found that to be the case.
"Neuroscience can take us into the heretofore neglected 'black box' of leadership," says study co-author Pierre Balthazard.
Adds David Waltham, "Once we have validated neurological profiles or norms for effective leadership, it may be possible to use neuro-feedback techniques, such as those that have already been used successfully with elite athletes, concert musicians and financial traders, to help develop better leaders."
Findings show that leaders who are more complex demonstrate greater adaptability when facing novel, ill-defined and changing leadership situations.
"We found leader complexity to be enabled by both the mind--the complexity of leaders' self-concepts--and the brain, the neuro-scientific basis for complex leadership, says Wake Forest's Hannah. "Neuroimaging based on EEG showed that the brain networks in the frontal and prefrontal lobes of more complex leaders – areas of the brain associated with the self, executive and memory functions, and complex cognitive processes – are more differentiated in more complex leaders."
"Further, individuals who have developed richer and more elaborate self-concepts as leaders were found to be more complex and adaptable. These findings have important implications for identifying and developing leaders who can lead effectively in today's changing, dynamic, and often volatile organizational contexts."
This paper is the latest in this research team's collaboration to employ neuroscience to study effective leadership. The team previously published a 2012 paper in the Leadership Quarterly which identified unique brain functioning in leaders who are seen by their followers as inspirational and charismatic.
Journal
Journal of Applied Psychology