Can leadership abilities be detected in brain scans?

Whilst the debate about the root of good leadership is engaging an increasingly larger number of HR professionals, business leaders and academics, and is becoming the more and more passionate in a bid to ultimately find out whether leadership is an inborn quality or can be actually learned, scientists are investigating whereas it is rather a cerebral feature.

Differently from those who sustain that leadership can be learned, the advocates of the idea that leadership is an inborn feature contend that genuine leaders owe this ability to their “innate traits” and that individuals not having received this natural gift cannot gain leadership abilities by learning. Whether the scientists’ belief which leadership abilities relate to a “biological factor” should prove to be true, the theory that leadership is an innate aptitude may sensibly gain ground vis-à-vis that sustaining that leadership can be learned.
 

It is difficult to say whether in the not-too-distant future head-hunters will make their decisions about the recruitment of senior managers and executives on the basis of the applicant brain scans, rather than of their CVs and interviews. Nonetheless, the pioneering study conducted by the Reading University, regardless of the results it will produce and albeit it is too early to deem it promising, seems to be if anything really interesting.

The investigation is conducted by Dr Money, of Henley Business School, who outlines the aims and objectives of the investigation: "We hope to look at how leaders from different sectors make decisions, what actually leads people to move from making good to bad decisions, what goes on in people's minds and how they make those choices" (Money, 2010).

The launch of the investigation has seen protagonist Sir John Madejski, a leading British business leader, who after having been prepared by a team of scientists was gently wheeled into a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scan, where he spent 45 minutes. During this period of time Sir Madejski was not indeed just passively waiting for the machine to perform its scan activities, but was asked to complete a number of exercises implying decision-making activities in the presence of Professor Saddy of the Reading's Centre for Integrative Neuroscience and Neurodynamics.
 

Sir Madejski was basically asked to make some financial decisions, which were confirmed pressing the buttons of a special keypad placed inside the MRI scanner. "In this case", explains Professor Saddy (2010), "what he is being asked to do is make a judgement about whether given a certain set of information a short-term reward would be better than a long-term reward." Whilst Sir Madejski was performing his decision-making activity into the scan, his brain activity was measured by the cutting-edge £1m MRI scanner.

The investigation carried out with the help of Sir Madejski is not clearly enough to reach reliable conclusions; he was in fact the first volunteer available to start the experiment and was so enthusiastic as to promise to support the study encouraging other leading businessmen to “lend” their brains to the University for scanning purposes. In order to gather significant information the experiment needs to be obviously replicated several times. Neuroscientists, psychologists and management experts at Reading University aim at this moment in time at examining more in particular the brains of the business chief executives and of the senior executives of different industries like voluntary organisations and the military.

 

 

Dr Money (2010), who suggests to treat the experiment with some caution for the moment, especially as for what concerns the immediate results of the study, stresses the importance of conducting a significant number of experiments before reaching a conclusion: "It's way too early, we can't look at one person's brain and conclude too much. What we can do is look at different groups, say military and business leaders, and compare leadership education within those different groups."

 

 

 

Using technology to understand what makes a good leader is not actually a completely new technique. For decades organisations across the globe have used psychometric tests to select candidates, habitually for senior management positions, and to try and find out what behind a good leader.

 

 

Psychometric, nonetheless, is considered by many as a controversial science and has as such supporters and detractors. Saville (2010), who belongs to the former group, claims that such a technique dates back to the techniques used by Samuel Pepys to select naval officers and contends that psychometric tests make a valuable contribution to the process of selecting the right candidate for the appropriate position: "You still find interviewers who judge people on the first minute of an interview", he says, "all we are doing is reducing the odds of choosing the wrong person. It's science versus sentiment."



It is indeed sorely impossible to say today whether it is realistic believing that there is a chance that the recruitment industry, which already uses psychometric tests, will have the option to resort to brain scans or other technological means in the future. Virginia Eastman head-hunter with Heidrick and Struggles, who recruits candidates for senior roles in global media organisations, for instance, appears to be rather sceptical. She claims that new technologies are helping to make the process of communicating with and assessing suitable leaders more rapid but she adds: "Our whole profession is built on one thing, the consensus that we all know what good looks like, and that we make that judgement. No machine can replace that" (Eastman, 2010).

 

 

According to Eastman (2010), albeit neuroscientists and psychologists believe that they can make a real contribution to the head-hunters’ understanding of what makes leaders effective, those whose job is to select leaders still believe it is more of an art, rather than a matter of technology. Notwithstanding, it is extremely important do not forgetting that, irrespective of the results technology will be able to yield, brain scans (provided that the final findings of the investigation conducted at the Reading University will prove to be successful) and similar tests should not be exclusively used to make the final decision.

 

 

 

Both the CIPD (2010) and the British Psychological Society (BPS, 2010) recommend that tests have not to be used in a judgmental, decisive mode. Torrington et al. (2008) stress the idea that the results produced by tests have to be used only to stimulate discussion with candidates and that every time recruiters use test methodologies, candidates should invariably receive feedback.

 

 

 

The CIPD (2010) warns that using the information provided by such types of tests to make final recruitment decisions may result in breaching some regulations (for instance, in the UK the 1998 Data Protection Act) so that these should only be used as part of a wider process where the indications received from the results of these tests can be backed by other sources. Yet, Ceci and Williams (2000) have warned of the risks related to the use of norm tables, pointing out that these change over time so that using old tests with old norms might very likely result to be deceptive.

All in all, tests and scans, provided that these may actually give significant information, should not be used to the detriment of the recruiter feelings, sensations and experience. Brain scans are likely to be extremely expensive whether it is necessary a £1 m machine to perform them. Yet, it is also very likely that the practitioners in charge of making the final reports might require time to submit these. It is hence improbable that recruiters may be able to effectually use these any time soon.

 

Longo, R., (2010), Can be leadership abilities detected in brain scans?, HR Professionals, Milan, [online].

Leadership Effectiveness

Although the need for, and the significance of, leadership are well known to business leaders, insofar as it can be argued that leadership is the quality these actively seek the most, this feature seems to be so uncommon as to be usually considered as a precious and rare asset. This could sway many management practitioners and academics into opting for the idea that, although leadership can in part be learned, the most relevant and valuable part of it is innate.

 

The specific, distinctive and genuine behaviour typical of a good leader is actually exhibited and can be thus genuinely identified under some particularly delicate or difficult circumstances. Leaders essentially show to have what it takes to be recognised and considered as true, legitimate leaders by the other individuals: during the unfolding of difficult situations, when prompted to carry out particularly tricky and complex tasks (such as leading change) or under unexpected circumstances when it is actually particularly hard, although not completely impossible, for an individual acting as a good leader only thanks to what this has learned in theory.

 

Under all of these circumstances, “feigning” and “pretending” to be a different person, with different traits and characteristics, would definitely turn to be a sorely awkward exercise for any individual. It is very likely that the real individual traits would thus emerge, revealing the real individual attitude and unveiling that this is actually different from what this pretends to be and to appear to be.

General Sun Tzu (孫子) in the Art of War (兵法), which dates back to some centuries B.C., formulated some suggestive and to some extent extreme definitions of leader (since the date in which the manuscript was written is still the object of controversy, we will place, as done by the eminent scholars who have studied his writing, Sun Tzu’s text in the category of “Authorship Unsettled”).

 

According to what are nowadays considered Sun Tzu’s estimates, the General defined a leader as the one in charge of creating “moral influence”, that is, to induce in individuals what causes these “to be in harmony with their leaders, so that they will accompany them in life and unto death without fear of mortal peril.”

Without a doubt, the attainment of such a difficult feat represented a truly ambitious challenge at the time and could explain why finding a good leader represented such an incredibly challenging feat. Albeit no organisation is nowadays asking a leader to be so remarkably “morally influent”, for employers finding good leaders today does not seem to be easier than it was for a general at that time.

 

Even more interesting is the definition of leader provided by the ancient text commentator Chang Yü (about whom not that much is actually known): “When one treats people with benevolence justice, and righteousness, and reposes confidence in them, the army will be united in mind and will be happy to serve their leaders. The book of Changes says: In happiness at overcoming difficulties, people forget the danger of death.”

 

Sun Tzu also claimed that qualities such as: wisdom, sincerity, humanity, courage and strictness, qualities considered of paramount importance also in present times, are absolutely necessary for effective leaders. These qualities were later defined by the Tang writer on military subjects Li Chuan as the five virtues of the general deserving to be referred to as “The Respected One.”

Tu Mu (A.D. 803 – 52) added to the Sun Tzu definition of leaders that “If wise, a commander is able to recognise changing circumstances and to act expediently. If sincere, his men will have no doubt of the certainty of rewards and punishments. If humane, he loves mankind, sympathises with others, and appreciates their industry and toil.”

 

The Art of War is a manuscript about war strategy containing several references to what Sun Tzu at the time, and other commentators later, considered being the necessary qualities and traits of a good, legitimate leader. Qualities and traits which are at large still of extreme contemporary significance and relevance. It would indeed seem that with the passing of the centuries little or nothing has changed to this extent; the traits and qualities making for a good leader have in fact invariably been considered basically the same.

 

These traits and their significance have been identified and recognized centuries and centuries ago; notwithstanding, finding genuinely good leaders can still nowadays be tantamount to the achievement of a remarkable, virtually impossible feat. The debate amongst business leaders, HR and management practitioners and academics about the root and source of leadership is therefore still rife. The reason why the debate has more recently focused on trying to determine whether leadership is an inborn quality or whether it can actually be learned is arguably due to the circumstance that this quality is sorely rare to find in nature and the results yielded by learning programmes are not totally persuasive. Yet, many of the most much-admired cases of leadership at global level refer to individuals who have certainly never attended training programmes.

 

The subject has attracted a constantly growing interest; insofar as the Kenexa Research Institute (KRI) has recently carried out a worldwide survey in order to better investigate the subject.

 

The study, entitled Exploring Leadership and Managerial Effectiveness, involved 29,000 employees across 21 countries and identified ten drivers of effective leadership. These drivers were identified on the basis of the qualities any give follower was expected to find and appreciate the most in a leader.

Global LEI Driver,

1. Elicit trust on the organization leadership,

2. Consider quality and improvement as top priorities,

3. Foster an open two-way communication,

4. Serves the interests of multiple stakeholders,

5. Recognizes employees providing outstanding customer service,

6. Take action on new ideas,

7. Motivates employees to work hard,

8. Has confidence in the organization future,

9. Recognizes productive employees,

10. Evaluates performance fairly.

 

As part of the research, the KRI created and applied a Leadership Effectiveness Index (LEI), which is comprised of five items:

 

Vision: Associated with senior management capability to give employees a clear picture of the direction the company is headed;

 

Ability: Intended as senior management ability to deal with the challenges faced by the business and its employees;

 

People: Intended as the senior management capability to let employees feel important to the success of the company;

 

Quality: Senior management is committed to providing high quality products and services to external customers;

 

Confidence: Based on the employee confidence in their company senior leaders.

 

Based on these indexes, China and India emerged as the countries where the most effective leaders are geographically located globally. The LEI score recorded by the UK, that is to say 47 percent, accounted for it finishing up in the 17^th position over the 21 countries surveyed, a remarkable 25 points behind India, which achieved the score of 72 percent (the global average score was 55 percent).



The study also investigated leadership effectiveness with regard to the different industries, revealing that high-tech manufacturing is the industry which can counts on the most effective leaders; it is followed by banking and financial services, retail, heavy/light manufacturing, healthcare services and government.

 

In the UK, rather in line with the global results, the most effective leaders are found in the manufacturing, healthcare and retail sectors; by contrast, the government and the financial services appear to be the sectors having the less effective leaders.

 

The KRI also identified five effective leadership macro drivers, based on the survey responses, describing the most inspiring behaviours expected by employees in order to consider their manager’s leadership style effective.

Leadership effectiveness Macro Drivers

Employees describe effective leaders as:

1. Inspiring trust and confidence,

2. Valuing quality and customer service,

3. Open and communicative,

4. Holding a multi-stakeholder perspective,

5. Holding managers accountable to be good managers.

 

Another interesting part of the study concerns the identification of the Leadership Effectiveness Priorities, which could be considered as somewhat of a framework which takes into account “vulnerability” and “strength” on the one hand and the “less important” and “more important” factors on the other hand.

 

Table 1

 

 

Kenexa also developed the Managerial Effectiveness Index (MEI) which is comprised of five items:

– Performance: Overall, I feel that my manager does a good job.

 

– Work Management: My manager does a good job “managing the work”: makes appropriate work assignments, setts priorities, schedules, etc.

 

– Inspiration: My manager is an outstanding leader.

 

– Trust: My manager keeps his/her commitments.

 

– People Management: My manager does a good job in terms of “people management.”

 

Also in the case of the MEI were identified ten drivers and six global Managerial Effectiveness Macro Drivers.

 

MEI drivers

1. Employees are treated fairly,

 

2. Performance is evaluated objectively,

 

3. Communication is open and two-way,

 

4. Employee ideas are endorsed,

 

5. Problems are addressed quickly,

 

6. Concern is shown for employee well-being,

 

7. Employees behave consistently with the organizational values,

 

8. Manager invests in employee development,

 

9. Recognition is provided,

 

10. Employees achieve their career goals.

 

Global Managerial Effectiveness Macro Drivers

Employees describe effective managers as:

– Fair,

 

– Communicative and involving,

 

– Problem solvers,

 

– Providing recognition,

 

– Employee-oriented,

 

– Supporting growth and development.

 

The Managerial Effectiveness Priorities identified by the study are shown in table 2:

 

Table 2

The findings of the investigation also revealed that the two key priorities for the development of a leader are the need to build trust and the need to be able and willing to engage in an open and honest two-way communication with individuals.

 

As claimed by the KRI Executive Director, Jack Wiley, some actions and behaviours, such as working ethically and with integrity, are particularly relevant for developing and eliciting leadership trust. “Direct reports need to feel safe enough to tell their leader the truth” so that the types of behaviour such as remaining approachable, being capable to listen and communicate openly are not just desirable, but essential requirements for a genuine leader and a good manager.

 

It can be maintained that, as suggested by Jack Wiley (2010), “any organisation can ultimately expand its pool of potential leaders by focusing on improving the skills of its managers. Managers should be encouraged to show empathy and to care about the careers of those in their team and their overall well-being.”
 

The KRI research also showed that leadership effectiveness is positively and significantly related to some important financial performance metrics for organisations such as Diluted Earnings per Share (DEPS) and Total Shareholder Return (TSR). Good and effective leadership also has a positive and substantial impact on employee engagement and on organisational creativity and innovation. “When employees rate their leaders as effective, our study shows that their employee engagement index score is 91 percent, whereas typically it is only 17 percent for employees who view their leaders as neutral or ineffective. In other words, employee engagement levels can be five times higher if your leaders are more effective” (Wiley, 2010).

The importance of good leaders to modern organisations is unquestionable. In contrast, what is debatable is that good and effective leaders could be made from scratch by means of learning programmes. These activities, and coaching in particular, can definitely help managers to understand the remarkable significance of other aspects of their work and prompt these to focus on the paramount importance of these qualities and behaviour. Notwithstanding, it is very unlikely that these programmes could actually genuinely and drastically change the attitudes and behaviour that a person has developed and consolidated throughout his/her life.

In order to achieve this result a longer and more structured and carefully developed plan of action would clearly be necessary. The Art of War is a book that all Chinese students not only read but even study during their education path and, although it is really unlikely that it could explain the good performance of Chinese managers as emerged in the KRI investigation, it should not be neglected that it is likely to make an impact in the personal and professional development of Chinese people.

 

Leadership is most likely an inborn quality, which in some cases spontaneously grows with the person, whereas in some other cases, although inborn, it might not reveal to be so naturally strong and needs hence to be nurtured throughout. In all of those cases in which there are by no means inborn leadership qualities and traits within an individual, the chances that this might develop effective leadership abilities by exclusively resorting to learning programmes are indeed remote, if any.

 

Longo, R., (2010), Leadership effectiveness, HR Professionals, Milan [online].

Is leadership an inborn quality or can it be actually learned?

Leadership can unquestionably be regarded as one of the topics which during the last decade have mostly attracted the interest of HR professionals and management practitioners. Amongst the different subjects related to leadership, identifying whether and what differences actually exist between leadership and management and determining whether leadership is an inborn quality or an ability which can be learned, definitely represent the arguments most passionately debated by HR professionals, managers and academics.

Over the years, have indeed been formulated hundreds of leadership definitions; amongst these, it is particularly interesting and self-explanatory that articulated by Henry S. Truman, who defined leadership as the “ability to get others to do what they don’t want to do and like it.” John Adair, who can be considered the leading British authority on the subject, maintained that “leadership, like all personal relations, always has something unknown, something mysterious about it.”

Leadership is indeed widely and unanimously considered as a crucial factor to long-term organisational success; notwithstanding, it apparently seems that there is a chronic shortage of this precious quality in the boardrooms of large and small organisations as well.

As mentioned earlier, leadership has been and can be actually defined in many different ways; it is indeed sorely likely that the HR professionals and managers of any organization would be able to provide their own view and definition of leadership. Despite individuals at large know what good leadership really is, these are usually unable to identify the origin and source it stems from. This is basically why one of the most recurrent questions about leadership is whether leaders are born or made.

Professor Abraham Zaleznic (of Harvard University) avers that effective leadership is not preordained and that it can be thus learned by exposing individuals to a number of relevant experiences. Albeit recognizing that developing individuals’ leadership abilities definitely requires and takes time, Zaleznic also suggests that accurate and well-designed training programmes can actually help individuals to develop their leadership potential.

According to the CIPD, people vary in their capacity for leadership: “a few have an inborn capacity (although even born leaders need to develop their leadership abilities further), some have none.”

Regardless of the circumstance that a company already has the right people or needs to recruit them from the external environment, in order to elicit, nurture and develop individual leadership abilities employees have to be in any case trained. Adair identifies seven crucial characteristics of a successful leadership course; it should be “simple, practical, participative, varied, enjoyable, relevant and short.”

The first place where to start investigating the reason for a general lack of good leadership, especially whether instinctive, natural leadership would not emerge, should be the learning environment, that is to say where leadership is usually nurtured and developed. More importantly, it could be particularly interesting also investigating what leadership courses do not habitually teach individuals about leadership.

This paramount quality is clearly not centred on concepts and theories about systems, measurements, budgets, controls and budgets controls. Notwithstanding, as often as not leadership courses tend to be indeed concerned with these topics, whereas paying lip service to the qualities and abilities which are much more tightly related with leadership and which are as such necessary for an individual to gain the status of a truly, effective leader and help this to inspire other individuals by eliciting their motivation and offering them a clear-sighted vision of the business’ future.

The debates concerned with the identification of the differences existing between leadership and management traditionally lead to a number of ideas which can essentially be grouped into two main classes.

Are habitually defined leaders those who have followers, offer a vision and set direction,   facilitate decisions, are charismatic, use their heart, are proactive, influence others by selling, like striving, take risks and break the rules, use conflict, are concerned about what it is right, give credit and take the blame. By contrast, managers are supposed to have subordinates, seek objectives, plan details, make decisions, use their formal authority and their head, are reactive, persuade by telling, like action, minimize  risks, make and are compliant to rules, avoid conflict, are concerned of being right, take credit and blame the others.

Business leaders are usually trained in logic and analysis, which in general are not obviously useless capabilities, but an indispensable skill for an effective leader is that of being capable of applying “emotional intelligence”, that is to say the ability to discern when things are true or otherwise and to find out when individuals are truly inspired or are just routinely carrying out their tasks.

Leaders need to be able to manage their own and others emotions and need to have the appropriate skills to do it. In these cases, logic and analysis cannot really provide any help.

Adair states that managers appeal to people's rational thinking, whereas leaders appeal to people's emotions.

Indeed, especially within the organizational settings, individuals tend to avoid emotions, or rather, to control and feign these in that expressing emotions is considered “unprofessional” at large. Whereas, by contrast, it is much truer the contrary, that is, it is “unprofessional” to suppress emotion or express it inappropriately.

When all “this emotion stuff” remains unexplored and unresolved in leadership sessions and groups, it invariably produces long-term tensions and political battles.

Albeit it can be unquestionably averred that in many cases leadership emerges as an inborn and innate quality, it cannot be denied that leadership skills, like vision and inspiration, can be also learned by individuals. In order to actually achieve this aim, that is to say help individuals becoming good leader or help these improving their leadership abilities, leadership courses must be craftily planned and designed and should also be provided according to a bespoke mode, rather than  be bought off the shelf.

In many leadership training programmes, models of leadership are firstly discussed and subsequently followed by practical exercises that logically analyse situations where things went right and wrong, the so-called “leadership game.” This actually is a pleasant approach, but more often than not what are habitually taught in these cases are the elements which underpin leadership, not its essence.

An additional likely effectual method, arguably the most effective method, is to train good leadership by means of coaching. A good coach can in fact successfully help individuals to develop the skills necessary and most appropriate to their work situation and hence help these to build the competencies which are actually critical to improve their performance.

Longo, R., (2010), Is leadership an inborn quality or can it be actually learned?; HR Professionals, [online].