At its core, neuroleadership represents the fusion of neuroscience and effective leadership, revealing how brain function influences decision making processes. This approach aims to intertwine the knowledge of neuroscience with everyday leadership practices, providing a spectrum of solutions that align with innate brain functionality and allowing leaders to react thoughtfully rather than instinctively. The concept was first introduced in 2005 in the Harvard Business Review and later developed by David Rock and Jeffrey Swartz in their seminal article The Neuroscience of Leadership.

There continues to be healthy skepticism about what value scientific brain data adds to what are already commonly held beliefs in leadership. However, in this edition, we'll break down how neuroleadership models & frameworks can be used in everyday situations to solve practical problems, by fostering psychological safety & avoiding negative behaviors.

This psychological framework serves as a mnemonic for remembering five key social domains that drive human behavior: Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness, and Fairness. These domains activate either the primary reward or primary threat circuitry of the brain, with threats to these areas triggering responses similar to threats to one's life.

This is another significant framework, it stands for Certainty, Autonomy, Meaning, Progress, and Social Inclusion. This model identifies the most essential brain cravings that all people share, providing leaders with a blueprint for addressing foundational human needs. The CAMPS approach enables leaders to treat each person as a unique individual while anticipating and addressing universal human needs that drive motivation and engagement.

In November 2017, Splunk leadership recognized a clear distance bias - the brain's tendency to overvalue input from people at San Francisco headquarters while undervaluing contributions from their 30+ global locations. This bias manifested in subtle ways, such as forgetting to ask remote participants for their thoughts, or more problematically, actively ignoring those who weren't physically present.

Splunk partnered with the NeuroLeadership Institute to implement the DECIDE solution, designed to help teams label and mitigate biases for smarter decision making. Over 10 months, more than 3,500 managers participated in a four week program involving social, distributed learning rooted in memory science to maximize “stickiness” in the brain. The results proved remarkable: 97% of participants acknowledged that bias influences their decisions, 85% use bias mitigation strategies at least once per week, and 80% feel confident about mitigating bias going forward. The cultural shift was evident as teammates began deferring to remote colleagues before taking input from the room.

The SCARF & CAMPS models are primarily helpful for us to put into words how people feel, and to guide us on how to foster positive feelings & avoid unwanted negative ones. Here are a few practical ways to go about it:

These simple methods when practiced daily & adopted into your leadership style will create an organic focus & positivity around business outcomes, personal wellbeing & self growth.