This is not leadership

We often feel that visibly strong leadership looks like the person who is in control of the room and who is the confident voice. A lot of leaders still cling to that model because it feels good, we all love feeling in control, it looks efficient and it feels like the fastest route to a decision. What recent neuroscience has proven is much more fascinating. Dominance is one of the most emotionally expensive habits you can have. 

What actually happens when one person in a group steps into the dominant role, is that the rest of the team’s brains, fall out of sync. Not metaphorically, not conceptually, but literally. Their neural activity stops aligning with each other’s, they stop processing information in a similar way to each other, they stop sharing the same mental map and attunement is lost. The dominant leaders need to control the conversation knocks everyone else off rhythm neurologically. 

Beau Sievers and his colleagues ran a study exploring how groups form shared understanding. Teams watched ambiguous stimuli, talked together, then watched again while inside an fMRI scanner. What mattered wasn’t the conversation itself, but how people behaved within the conversation. The more one person asserted themselves - speaking over others, challenging quickly, directing the flow of the discussion – even if they thought they were being helpful. The more the group’s neural synchrony dropped. We’ve all been in those meetings where you switch off and find yourself thinking about you’re eating for dinner. The impact is, people listen less, contribute less and disappear into their own thoughts.  

Synchronicity is a foundation of a high performing team. When a team’s brains are aligned, they share attention more easily, pick up subtle cues, and build on each other’s thoughts with far less friction. The conversation feels alive, energised, collaborative. There’s a sense of “we’re in this together,” even when they disagree. 

This is why dominance is so deceptive. It gives the illusion of clarity and compliance because no one is really paying attention anymore and they probably weren’t listening anymore to be able to agree or disagree. So what’s the alternative, it’s not passivity, it’s attunement. It’s leader holding an open space that invites others to speak. It’s a leader who asks more questions that offers solutions. They are attuned, picking up on those that are quieter. They track the energy in the room and listen intensely. The create, psychological safety where the team can disagree with respect.  

Leading a conversation in this way allows the group to reconnect, the conversation flows, ideas appear and true problem solving begins. When people leave these groups they talk about your leadership with respect.  

If your job is to shape the conditions in which others can do their best thinking, then keeping your team in sync is one of the most important things you can do and the science proves it. When we align, our minds align. This is humankind at its best. Working together to solve problems. It’s wired deeply in our conscious mind. That is true leadership.  

Reference: 
Sievers, B., Welker, C. A., Hasson, U., Kleinbaum, A. M., & Wheatley, T. (2024). Consensus-building conversation leads to neural alignment. Nature Communications, 15, Article 3936.