Capstone Presentation 2023 UCO emotionally intelligent leadership.pptx

2023 MPA capstone emotionally intelligent leadership

1. Emotionally intelligent leadership How an understanding of neuroscience promotes equity in the workplace Molly Ooten University of Central Oklahoma Capstone Fall 2022

2. Introduction Emotional intelligence in leadership Dealing with interpersonal conflict in the workplace How to support your employees to do their best work in a way that’s backed by brain science Especially important for marginalized and minority populations Gender/sexuality and disability

3. Neuroscience Limbic system: amygdala, hypothalamus, other structures related to emotion, fear, memory Primal in nature; evolutionarily developed to protect us Reactions here are automatic Prefrontal cortex (aka frontal lobe): center of executive functioning and consciousness Logic, reasoning, judgment, language; the ”higher” functions of the brain Reactions here are intentional or within our control The relationship between the limbic system and the prefrontal cortex is crucial for self-regulation and improved social relationships. People who have experienced trauma may have decreased connectivity between their primal structures and conscious structures

4. Neuroscience ( cont ) Measurements of empathy, leadership style, and trauma are all possible fMRI most common, may also use analysis of resting EEG Functional MRI is a scan of the brain while it’s doing a target task Resting EEG is a measurement of electrical activity patterns in the brain at rest ACEs study found that adversity in childhood creates higher risk for a variety of long-term health conditions Adversity gets stored improperly and creates automatic reactions that were meant to protect the child, but in adulthood those reactions may not be appropriate or productive If you were yelled at as a child, you probably learned coping strategies Fight, flight, freeze, fawn Hyperarousal (chronic or temporary) Emotional regulation requires frontal lobe involvement, but in many situations, we weren’t taught how to engage our frontal lobe during stress

5. Take the aces quiz

6. Trauma vs. adversity Adversity is the negative event itself Adverse Childhood Events Everyone experiences adversity, but all of us have different levels of external support and internal knowledge on how to re-regulate after an adverse event Children’s brains are more vulnerable Resilience Trauma happens when we don’t have the resources to process adversity properly The Body Keeps the Score Your body may react unconsciously in ways that you’ve defined as personality traits Think about a coworker or friend who is just “naturally” aggressive or confrontational What reactions do you have that are more automatic than intentional?

7. Continuum of arousal What state is it most often in? What helps you downregulate from alarm to calm? What might happen if you were in alarm or fear for an extended period of time?

8. Integration Seigel and Bryson write in their book The Whole Brain Child that integration requires the different functional regions of the brain (left hemisphere vs. right hemisphere, long-term memory vs. short-term memory, primitive vs. conscious) to work well together as a whole (2012). It is not the suppression or elimination of primal function that we should aim for, but rather INTEGRATION with the higher functions of the brain Awareness is key: Self-Leadership first

9.   “ In psychological terms, instinctive reactions to threat and subsequent regulatory responses are often referred to as bottom-up and top-down processes, respectively. The interplay between these two processes is exemplified by the following example: upon encountering a snake at a zoo, an initial reaction is driven by its appearance (i.e., bottom-up saliency), but the response is then implicitly controlled by the determination that the snake presents no immediate danger because it is behind a sheet of Plexiglas (i.e., top-down control). Of course, the context is critical since the same snake encountered in a field would evoke an initial freezing response followed by a very different type of top-down control in the form of running (or screaming in some cases). Thus, interactions between bottom-up and top-down processes will determine the adaptiveness of behavior is in a given situation.” (Kim, et al., 2011, p.403-404)

10. Leadership style Transformational Individualized consideration, inspiration/charisma, intellectual stimulation Leadership style could be measured on resting EEG Transactional Authoritarian or passive Lack of direction or aggressive leadership tactics may trigger unconscious protective responses It FEELS to the employee’s primal system like an experience they’ve had before, whether or not they are conscious of the similarity Trait-based vs. Learned Becoming aware of how the brain stores and processes adversity can be learned Does this mean that transformational leaders demonstrate higher levels of connectivity between primal and conscious structures? *Need more research

11. Impact on diversity Marginalized groups are more likely to have stored trauma ACES scores are higher Gender and sexuality Women are more likely to be devalued because of their emotional reactions Gender neutral vs. Gender inclusive LGBTQIA+ identifiers who experience discrimination are at a higher risk for reactive behaviors Essentialism: Don’t assume Soft skills vs. hard skills Disability Includes short-term disability (anything that interferes with work function) Neurodiversity (autism, ADHD, etc ) Social model vs. human variation model

12. Conclusions Leaders may promote a healthier workforce by recognizing that a brain that is not constantly working from a place of primal reaction is a brain that is better able to access executive functioning skills and higher-level processing It may be helpful for a leader to incorporate direct learning of neuroscience and stress (adversity) response by the ever-adaptable human brain and body in the entire organization. If all members of the organization have access to this information, it is more likely that co-workers and leaders will be able to develop a shared language for what an employee (or leader) may need at any given moment RESILIENCE: the brain has capacity to heal

13. Functional leadership strategies C onsistency/predictability of reactions M aintaining open dialogue H andling conflict M onitoring behavioral cues L eader self-awareness Providing direct education to the organization

14. The end Wishing you a balanced brain and a fabulous rest of your weekend