Our brains are instinctually built to protect us; it’s primary job function is to constantly and unconsciously scan the environment for threat. In doing so, we make judgments regarding safety. Is that food edible? Is that person going to hurt me?
Eons ago, identifying or not identifying a danger could be life-threatening. Today we still have these threat systems in our brain and we need them to help us live – to react fast to press the brake in the car to prevent a crash, for instance. These perceived threatening situations drive our behavior (our choices based on our perceptions). Sometimes we fight. Sometimes we flee. Sometimes we freeze. Sometimes we avoid or deny. As leaders, we need to understand our own threat situations and how we express that energy as well as recognize threat in others.
Leaders need to notice the emotional climates in their body at the time they experience them. I have an exercise called Emotional Inventory where I ask leaders to record their emotions twice an hour – as awareness is the first step to strategic expression. Once you are comfortable in knowing the feeling of emotional threat, take notice of the triggers (both internal and external) and when they occur. In order to effectively communicate, you need to be fully aware of your triggers and your emotional states in order to choose how to execute or not execute that feeling. It’s a leader’s responsibility to have cognitive control of one’s threat or uncontrolled energy will show up in your decisions. Remember, those that follow you are always watching and learning from your choices.
In your work with others, you need to be able to recognize when others are in threat states. As their leader you need to make smart language decisions, both verbally and non-verbally, to not add threat and provoke an increase in cortisol – the threat (increased arousal) brain chemical. Brain research shows that stress damages to our ability to make smart decisions and interact with one another. A leader’s job is to create an environment that forwards people not one that causes negative stress.
Furthermore, research shows us that social threat is even more upsetting than a physical threat. Dr. David Rock, Founder of the NeuroLeadership Institute and creator of the SCARF brain model, helps us understand the social power in this question he poses audiences, “Which causes you more stress, getting a bruise on your upper arm from bumping into a wall or from a person using their fist and bruising your upper arm? The answer is a person; it’s much harder for us to get the social infraction off the mind.” Our socialness is part of our humanness.
In summary, leaders, I charge you with increased emotional awareness and increased responsibility of your language as to not create threat in yourself and in others. Remember your constituency is following your lead.
Rock, David. (2009). Your Brain at Work. HarperCollins Publishers. New York.
Successful Business Communication 