[2] Leaders are born, not made. Or at least so goes the conventional wisdom. But a growing field called “neuroleadership” aims to change all of that by applying brain training techniques, originally designed to help make better soldiers, to help less gifted business leaders become better, or even help good leaders become great.
Chris Berka, the CEO and co-founder of California-based Advanced Brain Monitoring (ABM), which makes electroencephalography (EEG) caps that monitor the brain’s electrical activity, has been working with the military for several years on neuroscience-oriented technologies that can help enhance soldiers’ cognitive functions. “The military has embraced all of this work,” says Berka, whose company has received funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), as well as the Army and Navy, for work on a variety of military-funded devices, including a monitor designed to alert Marines to fatigue and “brain goggles,” that help detect when the subconscious brain has detected a possible threat.
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As part of the project, which also looked at the brain patterns of successful military leaders, Berka met David Waldman, a professor at Arizona State University’s Carey School of Business and Pierre Balthazard, now the dean of the School of Business at St Bonaventure University in New York State. Together, they decided to take the military work and apply it to the business world. “The military needs their leaders to be extremely adaptable, flexible, creative, ethical and moral, as well as being able to deal with a variety of global environments,” says Berka. “It’s exactly the same issues that the business schools have been studying.”
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Now, Berka, Waldman, and Balthazard are working with colleagues at the Esade Business School in Barcelona, Spain, to identify brain signals that are linked to successful business leadership traits.
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At present, the work is focusing on identifying the mental states of effective leaders, but the researchers hope soon to move toward intervention. “I think we’re getting very close … to being able the change the brains of leaders, to change the wiring, if you will, in a positive direction, to help make them better leaders,” says Waldman. “That’s going to happen within the next couple of years.”
Neurofeedback for business leaders might work roughly the same way as it would for a marksman; the user, equipped with an EEG cap and some sort of haptic feedback mechanism, would engage in whatever activity was beign worked on, such as a problem solving exercise. Real-time feedback would alert the user when their brain states reflect optimal leadership qualities, such as empathy or attention.
Of course, one question the researchers face is whether business leaders would be interested in, let alone be willing to pay, to be outfitted with EEG caps and participate in these neurofeedback sessions. But it would hardly be unprecedented: private companies are already offering neurofeedback as therapy for everything from pain management to attention deficit disorders, and high-paid executive have been known to opt for extreme options that give them an edge, even taking prescription “smart” drugs like Adderall to improve their mental acuity.
Waldman believes, similarly, that neurofeedback represents a potential huge market. “If people try to do a little accounting, there is an amazing amount of money spent in in North America, on leadership development, everything from executive coaching to motivational speakers, to something called 360-degree feedback; billions of dollars are spent on this,” says Waldman. “But very little has been done up until to now in terms of neuroscience applications to this problem.”
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