LEC FINAL PRJ.docx - u201cNeurosciences in Businessu201d...

4/23/2019
“ Neurosciences in
Business”
Neurosciences in
Leadership
Course: Leadership Ethics & Change
Submitted by:
Tariq Amir Larik
(ID # 20279)
Submitted to:
Sir Shiraz Ahmed

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April 23, 2019
NEUROSCIENCE AND LEADERSHIP
Neuroscience is defined as a study of the nervous system behind biological processes that occur
in the brain when a human thinks or acts. Applied neuroscience research is believed to be an
effective solution to help the transformation of people and organization because the brain is the
master of control that integrates the entire body system including the main components of heart
and gut. The leader is also a master of control within the organization. A leader can control other
people's brains by managing their own brains, thus the followers’ brains can tune-in with the
leader's brain. When the brain of leader and followers are aligned, the leader and followers will
synergize effectively to achieve the shared goals (Swart, Chisholm, & Brown, 2015) . The most
valuable kind of leadership behavior, Transformational Leadership has attracted the attention of
many scholars in the field of neurology as the intermediary of social and organizational reform
(Bass, 1985) . This kind of leadership emphasizes how exceptionally effective leaders interact
with followers in a manner that inspires them to higher levels of performance and commitment to
their organizations. And in this way leaders can interact well with employees (Bass, B. M. &
Bass, R., 2009) . This interaction is mainly realized through building strong beliefs, values and
vision of communication. Besides, leaders will express individual consideration about
employees’ development needs and encourage them to think creatively in problem-solving by
intellectual stimulation (Bass & Avolio, 1994) .
Neurological Leadership Research on Individual Differences of
Transformational Leadership
Research on individual differences of Transformational Leadership can be categorized into two
types. This paper will introduce it in this chapter.
Theoretical Model
The most asked question in theoretical construction of neurological leadership is: between
leadership behavior and brain activity, which one is antecedent variable and which one is
consequence variable? After a systematic literature review, the writer finds that brain activity
may be antecedent variable of leadership behavior while certain behavior or stimulation may also

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April 23, 2019
lead to some form of brain activity. Waldman et al. (2011) summarized the theoretical
development of neurological leadership, sorting out two types of causality model ( Figure 1 )
(Waldman, Balthazard, & Peterson, 2011). The research based on model 1 explains cerebral basis
of different leadership behavior through imaging brain activity in its resting state. It assumes that
there are lasting and stable brain activity or structure. This kind of research is actually trait-based
research of leadership; On the other hand, the research based on model 2 explains the impact of