‘If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.’

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

We seem to be obsessed with leadership. Leadership programs abound, and if you have a few spare minutes to catch up on some reading, as of April 2015 Amazon.com listed 132 976 books on the subject, up from 107 326 when I looked at about the same time in 2014.

What is leadership? It is something we observe in others and sometimes in ourselves. We find security in following the vision of a leader who we perceive has our best interests at heart.

Leadership programs have traditionally focused on goal directives, technology and expertise. But the new, emerging leadership is people focused, because it is people who drive business performance and success through common values, beliefs and desires. Self-directed leadership is about understanding what motivates and drives us. It provides meaning for what we do, so we can focus on what is required and get on with it. As Ken Blanchard says, ‘Real leadership happens when you are not there’.

‘What makes a good leader?’ is the question most frequently asked, along with ‘What do we need to ensure leaders develop the skillsets needed to provide effective leadership?’

Findings from social cognitive neuroscience can help answer these questions by showing the what, and the how appropriate to the modern workplace.

What makes a good leader?

What has neuroscience shown us about leadership?

• We can use the understanding of our brain's natural plasticity to create those habits and thinking patterns that boost emotional intelligence and foster an open mindset.
• We can foster our social intelligence to gain a greater understanding of others who may have a different perspective or viewpoint.
• We can ensure that our brain is as fit and healthy as possible by adopting a healthy lifestyle so we are mentally prepared to make important decisions and solve problems quickly and easily.

In other words, exceptional leaders can be created through incorporating understandings from the brain science that help us develop a brain that is fit, flexible and agile.

A number of desirable characteristics are talked about as prerequisites for good leadership. Which ones do you value most?

Start by listing the five leaders you most admire and then determine what leadership characteristics or values they hold in common. These might include being a good listener, an effective communicator, a person of high integrity and trust, or a good role model.

Then ask yourself the following questions:

1. Do these apply to me and/or the person I currently work for?
2. Which values or characteristics do I want to be recognised for?
3. Should leaders be recognised for their technical ability and results, or their social skills?

Yes, number three is a trick question, because the answer is preferably both.

Matt Lieberman, in his book Social, describes the findings of a survey undertaken by David Rock from the Neuroleadership Institute and Management Research Group that reveals fewer than 1 per cent of leaders were rated as being high on goal focus and social skills. Rock builds on previous work by leadership experts Zenger and Folkman, who showed how that 1 per cent will be perceived as great leaders by 72 per cent of their employees, compared with 14 per cent for results (goal) focused leaders and 12 per cent for social focused leaders.

Great leaders develop the capacity to alternate rapidly between analytical and social thought.

Because leadership can be learned, the solution is to provide a program that enhances capability in both thinking patterns. In addition, because we live in such a fast-paced world, being able to demonstrate this agility fast is paramount to leadership effectiveness in the modern workplace.

Laying a foundation for the future

Anyone in a position of leadership knows their tenure is limited. What matters is to develop an appropriate succession plan by recognising the potential in those who will follow, mentoring and guiding them, and knowing when the time has come for them to step up to their new position.

It's like being a parent. We look after our children, nurture them, keep them healthy and propel them towards adulthood. Great parenting is about making yourself redundant, so when your child leaves home or starts their first job, they are prepared to move into the big wide world. Your job is done.

Of course, neither parenting nor leadership is always easy, and one of the hardest things is knowing when the right time to let go is. When our son was about five, we bought him his first bicycle. It was bright red and he delighted in learning to ride. At first this took a lot of encouragement and support, and he relied heavily on his training wheels. After a little while, the time came to take the training wheels off and let him ride on his own. We were all a little apprehensive, but with one helpful shove, he was off, peddling furiously, proud as punch, and he didn't look back.

Avoiding the seagulls

Good leaders know that by encouraging others to develop new skills and areas of expertise for themselves, those people too will reach the time when their training wheels can come off, when they can step up. Unfortunately, not all leaders have this skillset. Some feel threatened by the prospect of being displaced and adopt a defensive approach that may not always be to the benefit of those they serve.

Dr Bob Nelson, who works in the area of motivation and management, describes the type of leader or manager who abdicates this responsibility as a ‘seagull’.

Loud, aggressive birds, seagulls swoop in periodically, make a big noise, stir everyone up and then fly off, often leaving a big pile of you-know-what behind. Seagull managers and leaders are a menace because they deprive their staff of the opportunity to develop their potential. They also deprive the organisation of the next generation of potential leaders.

This is all about status. Some choose to demonstrate their status by reminding people who they are and making a lot of noise. Some, if they see themselves as beleaguered and needing to fend off status threat, may choose to respond in a threatening or belligerent manner.

Bringing out the best in others

Leaders and mentors often know intuitively how to bring out the best in other people. They can of course also learn and develop these skills using what is understood from the social cognitive neuroscience.

There are five strategies that can be employed here.

Listen

In our fragmented and highly distracting world, giving another person our complete and undivided attention has become a challenge. We are all so busy thinking about what we want to add to a conversation that we stop listening to what is actually being said. Practising stepping back, inviting someone to speak out fully without interruption or judgement, has two major benefits. First, the person delivering the message feels fully heard, which is very empowering. Second, the receiver actually hears the whole message without the usual filters, which deepens their understanding.

Great leaders listen more and speak less.

Speak

Choice of language has an enormous impact on how a message is received. Choosing our words carefully, thinking before we speak, is essential to avoid the classic ‘foot in mouth’ syndrome. We have all probably made those horrible gaffes: like asking a woman when her baby is due, when she's just put on a little weight; or saying something dreadfully insensitive, like the former BP CEO Tony Hayward who in the aftermath of the deadly 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill complained, ‘There's no one who wants this over more than I do. I would like my life back’. Ouch.

Reflect

Busy CEOs and leaders need the time to pause and reflect, to think about their thinking. This metacognition allows us to consider and compare, to promote dialogue and broaden perspective. In our busy daily lives, time for reflection promotes responsive rather than reactive thought.

Inquire

Staying curious is not just good for creativity and collaboration; it opens up new possibilities through the insights gained and promotes change in our thinking and our behaviour.

Connect

As any salesperson will advise, connection is all about the follow-up, which deepens and gives more meaning to our relationships. Great leaders understand they have to be seen and heard to establish trust, relatedness and empathy. They manifest their credentials for leadership by demonstrating through their behaviour that they are leaders worth following.

The ones in the wings

We tend to think of a leader as the head of an organisation, such as the CEO or business owner, but in reality an organisation or business will have many leaders. They may not be on the payroll for their leadership, but their behaviour and attitude defines them as such. These are the people who spot a potential problem and head it off before it can build from a summer storm to a Category 5 cyclone. They are the ones who notice that a coworker's performance or behaviour is a little off and check in to ask if everything is okay.

Leaders see the need for things to get done.

My friend and colleague Graeme Cowan is a leader in building resilience, mental wellbeing and performance. His own experience of severe depression while a senior executive transformed his attitude to how companies deal with adversity. A large part of his work today is in promoting the RUOK concept. This is critical work because the incidence of mental illness — depression, anxiety and psychosis — is escalating in our society. Depression is now the second leading cause of workplace disability worldwide.

We are human beings who connect, and we demonstrate our understanding of each other through our interpersonal interactions. Leadership is all about acting with humanity, because at the end of the day that's what counts.

Once more, with meaning

Feeling engaged with the task before us, and being motivated to do it well, is what gives meaning and purpose to what we do. It comes from our sense of ‘belonging’.

One of the worst jobs I ever had was in data entry. My daily task was to sit in front of a computer, sifting through files, picking out the appropriate details, coding them and entering them into a database. It was mind-blowingly boring. After a couple of weeks I was ready to commit hara-kiri or pull my toenails out one by one rather than face yet more tedious hours glued to the computer screen and that never-ending stack of files.

Why was it so awful? Because I ascribed little value to the work I was doing.

I consider myself incredibly blessed that over the course of my working career I have for the vast majority of time found myself doing work I absolutely love. This has to be a good thing, because we spend an extraordinary amount of our life as adults working to earn a salary that pays the bills, feeds the kids and keeps a roof over our heads. I recognise too that for some of us there isn't always a choice in the work we do. We can be in a job we loathe with people we dislike, but have to do it because there simply is no option B.

Identifying what it is that keeps us motivated is derived from the perspective we take. This is illustrated perfectly by the story of the three stonemasons.

A man saw three stonemasons working together busily and asked each in turn what he was doing. The first stonemason replied, ‘I turn big rocks into smaller rocks’. He was task orientated. The second stonemason said, ‘I am feeding my family’. He was career orientated. The third stonemason said, ‘I am building a cathedral’. He was working to a calling.

Perspective of purpose provides us with the why behind what we do, and it's not necessarily about the money. When we are working to our strengths and enjoying a strong sense of job satisfaction, we feel more fulfilled and this can lead to:

• greater commitment to our employer or organisation
• less inclination to leave our position or job
• fewer days absent or sick
• a greater willingness to work discretionary hours (that is, without pay)
• more faith or trust in management
• more initiative
• greater team effectiveness.

I have heard Generation Ys and Millennials criticised for their unwillingness to put in the hard yards and their inflated sense of entitlement. That has not been my observation, by the way! The vast majority of the Gen Ys and Millennials I have met are highly engaged, passionate and hardworking. They demonstrate a high level of social awareness too.

This is also what the iOpener Institute found in a study that revealed Gen Ys are drawn to do work that has a strong economic or social purpose. They are not primarily motivated by incremental pay rises (though happy to accept them, if offered!).

In other words, job fulfilment wins hands down over financial reward. And this has been shown to be true cross-generationally.

Our work doesn't have to be highbrow, Nobel Prize–winning or especially different for us as individuals to find meaning. How many people do you know who may not have the best job in the world but nonetheless love it and are passionate about their role? This can include what others might consider dismissively as menial work.

In the TV program Undercover Boss, a CEO or manager masquerades as a new recruit in the company. The purpose is to discover not only what some of the staff think about their job, but how they interact with colleagues and what keeps them working in what could appear to be demanding, difficult or unpleasant work.

What makes the program so interesting is the genuine pride so many of these workers take in their work. This pride is what makes a workplace more efficient and productive and a happier place to work in. Their happiness is accompanied by a can-do attitude and a certainty, not just in their own ability, but of support from management if asked for.

It doesn't take much, but it's more than just knowing a staff member's name (which is a good place to start, by the way!). It's about showing a genuine interest in the person themselves through active enquiry, asking questions such as ‘How is it all going?’ and ‘Is there anything I can help you with?’

One of the most consistent complaints I hear from employees talking about their boss or manager is, ‘They know nothing about me’. Worse still is the comment, ‘They never give me any positive feedback — I'm only ever told what I've done wrong.’

If leaders genuinely want to see higher levels of engagement in their staff, it starts with helping them to see the bigger picture: tapping into the strengths and shared values to engage hearts and heads.

Organisational learning can play an important role here. Leaders and organisations can increase the value and capacity of their existing staff by reinvigorating effective learning programs to target individual career plans and performance goals.

Building self-leadership

The gentle art of self-directed leadership is just that; it's an imprecise art, a mental discipline of conscious choice.

We make innumerable decisions in life. Some will be good, some will be terrific and some will be plain dumb or wrong. What matters is that we direct our progress towards self-improvement and self-development. This involves change and, as we know, change can be tricky.

The status quo, as my mentor (and the founder of Thought Leaders Global) Matt Church advises, is the enemy of leadership. We have to keep moving to develop the mental flexibility and agility required to adapt and lift our game.

Checking in with our thinking starts with noticing when we are operating on autopilot. So much of our thinking as well as our behaviour is switched permanently to automatic mode, so we forget to press pause and ask, Is this my normal mental script? Am I open to new ideas or ways of doing things? Do I think well in difficult circumstances?

Self-awareness is the first step towards greater self-directed leadership.

It requires acknowledgement that we may not be operating in the best way, permission to be wrong and an action plan for change, with a starting date. It's about staying accountable to ourselves and others, and staying true to our own values.

There is no perfect leader, no ideal recipe for leadership. Leadership comes from a willingness to stand up and be counted, to do what you see needs doing, to be accountable for your actions and to lead others by initiating change.

It may be true that ‘too many cooks spoil the broth’, but creating a culture of leadership within organisations promotes business health and longevity.

It was while studying the neuroscience of leadership that I came to understand more clearly how human behaviour is based on ensuring we stay safe by minimising threat and maximising reward. By learning to recognise and act on the threats we identify in ourselves, we can develop the skillset of self-directed leadership. This can be translated into improving the quality of all our communication and interactions with others.

The TRAICE™ model

The TRAICE™ model can be used as a blueprint to help shift behaviours in a positive and enduring way. It shows us how to minimise the social pain of rejection and maximise our capacity to build strong cohesive groups.

TRAICE stands for:

Trust

Respect

Autonomy

Impartiality

Clarity

Empathy.

Trust

When we are with someone we trust, we feel safe. The brain is in a more relaxed state and open to deeper, more meaningful conversations. We don't hold back on sharing information. We smile and interact more. We like to contribute and look out for and protect the ‘trustees’ in our tribe.

Trust does not develop overnight. It takes time because, as we have discussed, our default way of thinking is to assume that anything new in our environment (whether a person or a situation) presents a threat until proven otherwise.

We build trust through the behaviour we demonstrate that others observe. It requires consistency and effort on our part but is rewarded by loyalty.

We can lose trust in a moment through a careless remark or thoughtless action, and once lost it is sometimes irretrievable.

Business leaders who draw a high level of trust will enjoy a lower staff turnover (reduced costs) and an increased profit margin through greater employee contribution. Staff who feel trusted get on with their job and do it well, report higher levels of job satisfaction, take fewer days' sick leave and are happier overall. It becomes a win–win.

Respect

Aretha was not whistling Dixie. Respect is how we perceive our status or ranking compared with others. We might not like admitting it but we live in a hierarchical society, where everyone has a place in the pecking order of life.

Respect matters because losing it means we can no longer command control of a situation. Loss of respect diminishes our self-confidence and self-esteem. How does it make you feel when you realise your position has been challenged? Not very good, right? We can inadvertently threaten someone's rank or position through our choice of language, spoken or otherwise.

You may experience disrespect when you are not acknowledged by your boss in the morning, or you are not invited to a team meeting, or you witness an ‘eye roll’ when you are explaining your point of view to a colleague.

Maintaining self-respect and valuing others is the key.

Autonomy

Do you like being told what to do? Me neither. In fact, I've yet to meet anyone over the age of two who enjoys being directed in what they do and how they do it. Yet micromanagement is rife in many workplaces, to the detriment of the business. It stifles innovation and leads to demoralisation and disengagement.

‘Don't tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.’

George S. Patton, Jr

Having a sense that we are self-directed and have choices not only feels important to us; it affects our health and wellbeing. Providing people with choices, no matter how big or small, real or perceived, matters a great deal.

Studies have shown that the loss of autonomy associated with moving into a nursing home has a very strong link to how long a person will live.

Seeking out opportunities to enhance autonomy for ourselves and others boosts our motivation to rise to a challenge.

Impartiality

If I have $10, and after agreeing to split that money with you I give you $5, you will probably see that as fair. But what if I gave you only 50 cents? Still fair? Well I did give you something, didn't I?

Work by Tabibnia and Lieberman has shown that a perception of unfairness activates an area of the brain called the insula. Remember the last time you felt cheated by something. Remember that really bad smell your dog created? That response of unfairness (or stink) is felt as a deep visceral or gut reaction. We wrinkle up our noses in disgust!

Conversely, being treated fairly lights up the brain's reward centre, including the ventral striatum, orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC) and amygdala.

Our perception of fairness is individual and unique. What you find upsetting may not faze another person. Our mental state plays an important role too. If we are already feeling a little emotional, unhappy or fragile we are more at risk of negative perceptions that can colour our interpretation of another person's intentions towards us.

A sense of fair play is critical to our physical wellbeing too. Operating in an environment where you feel unfairly criticised or micromanaged can increase your risk of coronary heart disease by 30 per cent. Unfair treatment, whether real or perceived, is a valid health consideration!

We can boost fairness by being transparent in all our interpersonal transactions. Rewarding on merit rather than social advantage would seem like a no-brainer, but the old boys' network is still alive and well in many workplaces. Favouritism can quickly sour relationships for those perceiving themselves as less favoured, leading to distrust and silo thinking.

Consistency in behaviour matters. If as a boss you are always seen to be firm but fair, your chance of successfully introducing an unpopular work policy without causing discord or resentment is much higher than if you have been seen to be inconsistent or biased or as condoning workplace bullying.

Techniques for managing unfairness include:

• reframing our perception of the incident
• choosing to look for what we can learn from the event and how to manage it differently next time
• changing our perspective by focusing on what rewards us and gives us pleasure, such as our family and friends.

Behaving with impartiality in all our interpersonal interactions can mean the difference between being accepted and listened to, or ignored. (As the boss you would probably prefer it wasn't the latter.)

Clarity

Clarity of thinking and understanding keeps our brain in a place of safety. At work this depends a great deal on how clear we are with the messages we communicate. Clarity provides certainty, and the brain likes familiarity and recognisable patterns. In an uncertain world, this can be difficult, but we can look to achieve it by removing ambiguity and being transparent about the intention of our messages.

If the traffic is snarled up or a flight delayed, being kept informed helps us to know what to expect. It's the same with memos and workplace announcements: sharing the relevant information allays fear. A powerful negative emotion, fear can easily send us into a rapid downward spiral unless the brakes are put on quickly through the provision of clarity and certainty.

Effective communicators recognise the importance of:

• being really clear on the message conveyed
• providing as much information as possible so the message is complete
• being transparent about the true meaning of the message
• repeating the message several times
• inviting discussion about the message.

The media and social commentators are expert at producing a provocative headline or screen grab to seize our attention without providing any detail. Sparking our interest to read a news bulletin or watch a TV program, headlines and on-screen announcements are hooks to draw us in. To make an important decision, however, we need to have the confidence we are being given access to all the relevant facts.

Empathy

If you're wondering why empathy needs to be regarded as a leadership quality, consider this: empathy and trust together form the basis for all successful relationships, and business is all about relationships.

Empathy is good for our health and wellbeing. It enhances tolerance and reduces self-interest.

We commonly sense and mirror the emotions of others. Have you ever noticed how two people speaking together will mirror each other's behaviour, from crossing their legs to clasping their hands behind their heads? This chameleon effect demonstrates commonality: ‘I get what you're saying’.

When we observe someone, say, picking up a cup of coffee, the mirror neurons in our brain fire off in the same way they would fire if we were doing it ourselves. This helps us to respond appropriately and extrapolate meaning from the cues available to us.

Being empathetic is not about being soft and pliant; it is a genuine reflection of understanding what someone might be experiencing or thinking. An empathetic leader will make hard decisions as needed, but from a place of humility and service. This softens the blow when announcing bad news and helps others remain resilient when coping with adversity.

Empathy matters to the bottom line because increasingly customers and staff expect greater personal recognition and satisfaction. Non-empathetic companies will find it harder to retain good staff who don't feel listened to or understood.

The caring professions have traditionally attracted those with naturally higher levels of empathy, but that doesn't mean empathy cannot not be learned. Indeed, some medical schools include empathy in their core curriculum. Telefonica Germany instituted an empathy training program that showed a 6 per cent increase in customer satisfaction in just six weeks.

A survey undertaken in 2015 in the UK identified LinkedIn, Microsoft and Audi as the top three empathetic companies based on the perspective of employees, customers and social media interactions. CEO Belinda Parmar from The Lady Geek summed up the new approach in a Harvard Business Review article aptly titled ‘Corporate Empathy Is Not an Oxymoron’.

The human brain is particularly good at social affiliation. Having a boss or a manager who we feel cares about us has been shown to matter far more than how much we earn.

There are always going to be those times when we have to interact with people we don't get on with. When it is your boss, it can be fraught with problems. Being open about the fact that you have different perspectives can mitigate the negativity that would otherwise interfere with a working relationship.

Building empathy starts with showing consideration for others. It can involve an interaction as simple as holding open a door for someone, offering up your seat on the bus or listening to someone's complaint about being kept waiting. It can mean offering an unexpected compliment or thanking someone for contributing to a conversation or for working hard, which adds to their sense of community and belonging.

Incorporating the TRAICE elements into every conversation or interaction helps us to better understand not just ourselves but others too.

Each of the keys outlined in this introduction to high-performance thinking can assist us to get better results from everything we do. While the temptation is to jump in and fix or smarten up how we operate our brain, taking the time to ensure we have a firm foundation, beginning with a fit and healthy brain, makes it far easier to then polish up operational and interpersonal skills.

Remembering we are human first, acknowledging our faults, our biases and daily challenges, helps keep us grounded in what matters. Putting the humanity back into our lives and workplace starts with self-leadership. Although placed as the last key in the book, it is perhaps the one that matters most, because self-leadership means we can look forward to our future with confidence and clarity, and with the certainty that we can continue to adapt and thrive.