Leading other people through complex change processes, transforming a group of employees into a high-performing team, or affecting positive cultural change through an organisation – these are common but challenging tasks for those with formal or informal leadership responsibilities.
Key insights from neuroscience can be very helpful to unpack the hidden mechanism and processes behind human motivation and decision-making – and this has highly practical applications for effective leadership behaviours. These mechanism, or social triggers, can be summarised in the SCARF model developed by David Rock.
Before we dive into these behaviours, it is important to understand two key neuroscientific principles:
Avoid danger, seek reward. The brain is governed by an overarching organising principle which can be summarised as “minimise danger, maximise reward1”. This principle also guides our social behaviour and how we interact with and respond to others.
Social rejection literally causes pain. Social rejection triggers a very similar neural response in the brain as physical pain1. In both cases, a part of the brain called anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is activated. The ACC is involved in pain processing, particular the distressing or “suffering” part of pain. These insights demonstrate clearly that social interactions directly shape neurological and physiological reactions, which makes the brain a profoundly social organ.
The amygdala – part of the brain’s limbic system (the emotional centre; also called the mammalian brain) – also plays a key role in these processes. Being particularly sensitive to potential threats in the environment, the amygdala is ready to instantly prepare the body and brain for fight or flight whenever a negative or dangerous stimulus is detected. However, what the amygdala classifies as “danger” is not always the same as what our rational, logical brain would put into this category. For example, the amygdala doesn’t make any meaningful differentiation between a bear running towards you and the frown on your manager’s face in a performance meeting or dealing with job insecurity. These situations can all trigger the same fear response.
When the amygdala is firing, it’s all about survival mode: your heart rate and pulse increase, blood is diverted to your outer extremities so you can run or fight, and – immensely unhelpful in many social situations – our capacity for clear thought and prudent decision-making is significantly diminished. In the logic of the amygdala, survival situations are not the right time for self-reflection or devising well-structured plans. Instead, they call for urgent and decisive action which may involve a display of anger and counterthreats (fight), running out of the room or hanging up on someone (flight). Again, this all makes sense when being chased by a bear, but it is usually not very helpful in our complex modern world where we encounter much less physical than psychological threats, many of them in the workplace.
As a leader, one of the key messages is this: your team members won’t be able to perform well or be engaged with their work when they do not feel safe or are experiencing negative emotions (e.g. anger, frustration, confusion, sadness, social exclusion). To enable creativity, innovation, learning, astute decision-making and skilful problem-solving in others, your leadership behaviours need to make your team feel safe, supported and empowered.
Keep in mind that your actions and words have a huge impact on the emotional state of those in your care, and the set-up of the modern workplace makes it easy to unintentionally trigger someone’s amygdala into kicking off a performance-decreasing stress (fight or flight) response. Knowing about the five domains of the SCARF model (status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness and fairness) can help you reduce (unintentional) threats and increase the experience of rewards for others.
Let’s explore each of these domains and identify practical steps to create a performance-enhancing work environment:
Status
We are constantly assessing our relative importance to others – our place in the “pecking order”. When we perceive our own relative status as unfavourable compared to someone else’s (in other words: when we somehow feel “less than”), a threat response is triggered. In a work context, situations that clearly demonstrate an imbalance of power, e.g. performance reviews or receiving negative feedback (even when pre-empted with the nearly rhetorical question of “Can I give you some feedback?”) puts people in a vulnerable position and can inadvertently generate a status threat.
Don’t: Micro-managing, giving someone detailed instructions and making decisions that affect them without consultation, can trigger a status threat response. Public rankings of “best performing employees” – often used to boost performance and healthy competition – will automatically make those who do not make it into the top group feel undermined or not recognised for their efforts.
Do: Encourage people to reflect on their performance and give themselves feedback first. Help them to identify positive and negative impacts of their decisions and actions, but refrain from simply telling them what you thought was wrong with it. Give people (public) praise and acknowledge their efforts and skills. Further ways to raise people’s relative status is to ask them to open or chair a team meeting (if appropriate and they feel comfortable), and to involve them in important (or high-profile) projects and tasks.
Certainty
Our brains love familiarity and predictability. Uncertainty feels uncomfortable because it requires increased attention and information processing, which takes up a lot of mental resources. The brain is wired to conserve energy wherever possible and tends to revert to autopilot mode whenever possible to reduce cognitive load and enable multitasking. Not knowing what will happen next (e.g., during a workplace restructure or organisational change process) can feel extremely debilitating and can make it impossible for people to focus their attention on anything other than their threatened sense of certainty.
Don’t: Unpredictable behaviour by those in power (e.g. a moody or temperamental manager), patchy and unreliable communication, ill-defined or vague expectations, and unexplained meeting requests can all trigger a fear response.
Do: Help people understand your expectations around process and outcomes – the more specific, the better. Share relevant information openly and be transparent in your decision-making whenever you can. Help people break down large or complex goals into manageable chunks. Provide business plans, strategy papers and accurate maps of your organisation’s structure and key objectives so that people can gain clarity about both the status quo and the planned future.
Autonomy
Having a sense of control over actions and events is a basic human need. A perception of reduced autonomy increases the likelihood of a stress response in situations that would not be threatening if the individual had more decision-making latitude over their preferred course of action. This is why being micromanaged triggers a threat response in most people. It is important to note that concepts such as control and autonomy are matters of perception: Many people decide to leave corporate life and work for themselves because of an increased sense of freedom – even if this means longer hours and less income.
Don’t: Refrain from trying to control or monitor every detail of your team member’s work. Demonstrate trust in their ability and willingness to do the right thing (unless you have genuine reason to believe your trust is misplaced).
Do: Give people choice. Ask them for their input in decisions (especially those that will affect them) and invite feedback on work processes, team goals and results. Provide flexible work arrangements to the full amount that is possible without reducing quality or reliability of outcomes. Invite team members to share their tips and strategies for effective self-management and sustained productivity (e.g. when working from home). Delegate meaningful tasks and use them as growth opportunities – which involves delegating responsibility and judgement, not just tasks.
Relatedness
Positive, safe relationships are a fundamental human need – important for personal wellbeing and resilience as well as productive and healthy, fruitful collaboration in teams. When meeting someone new, our brains make a split-second “friend or foe” decision to categorise the person as either being “like us”, or as different and “not like us”. We automatically trust and like people who we perceive to be like us (e.g., in terms of social status, political affiliation, lifestyle) more than those that we mentally classify as different. Perceived “otherness” triggers a threat response in the brain, and we are less likely to share information or feel empathy for people in this category. A lack of social cohesion causes low levels of psychological safety in teams, ultimately reducing levels of engagement and performance, and playing a role in the development of organisational silos.
Don’t: Expecting that teams will just automatically “gel” and work productively together is short-sighted. Fostering trusting relationships and a sense of belonging takes time and requires repeated, intentional facilitation to allow and encourage people to discover shared experiences.
Do: Create opportunities for people to get to know each other on a personal level. Consider extra time in meetings for informal chats, organising social team get-togethers, opportunities for meaningful collaboration on projects, and peer-to-peer coaching or a “buddy” system for new or junior employees.
Fairness
Our brains have evolved to be very sensitive to suggestions of unfair treatment. When we believe that we are being treated unfairly, the insular cortex is activated – a brain region linked to strong emotions such as disgust, giving rise to anger and hostility and undermining trust.
Don’t: Make sure people do not perceive you as having different rules and expectations for various people. Treat everyone to the same values and hold others (and yourself!) accountable to the same standards. Few things are more infuriating to people – and more toxic for workplace cultures – than seeing management make challenging demands of people but enjoying high levels of freedom and “special rights” themselves.
Do: Setting clear expectations, transparency and a collaborative approach to decision-making increase perceived fairness. Make sure you regularly check in with each team member about their workload and what else is important to them. You may also consider asking the team to establish ground rules for acceptable behaviour in meetings and when collaborating on projects (e.g., ensuring that everyone has a chance to be heard and contribute, and that the work is distributed fairly).
Being aware of the five SCARF domains and their relationship to threat and reward responses in the brains of your employees and peers is key to effective leadership.
1 Kotter, J. P. (1999). John P. Kotter on what leaders really do. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. 2 Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2017). Self-determination theory: Basic psychological needs in motivation, development, and wellness. The Guilford Press