E27 The Future of Leadership
In this episode of 12 Geniuses, host Don MacPherson and Dr. Robert Eichinger discuss the latest in neuroleadership and what the leaders of the future will look like. They dive into the importance of EQ, mindfulness, and how technology will change the way we approach leadership. They also discuss virtual management, developing emotional intelligence, confirmation bias, and how to build psychological safety.
Season Three of the podcast is dedicated to exploring the future and how life is sure to change over the next decade. This episode provides insight into the future of leadership and guidance for how to better understand that future.
Dr. Robert Eichinger is an expert in leadership with over five decades of experience. He is co-founder of TeamTelligent and has authored over 50 books, articles, software products, and other intellectual property around the topic of talent management and succession planning.
Don MacPherson:
In a world as complex and uncertain as ours is today, the need for capable leadership within our companies, institutions, and governments is more important than ever. And guess what? The need for capable leadership is only going to increase.
Hello, this is Don MacPherson, your host of 12 Geniuses. For 25 years, I have been helping organizations and the leaders who run them improve performance. That experience pales in comparison to today's guest. Dr. Robert Eichinger is a leadership expert who has been coaching executives for more than 50 years. For the last 10, he has been studying neuroleadership. And as he shares in this conversation, the key to unlocking the great leaders of tomorrow will come from understanding our brains, practicing mindfulness, and building emotional competence.
Dr. Eichinger, welcome to 12 Geniuses.
Dr. Eichinger:
Yes.
Don:
I should say welcome back.
Dr. Eichinger:
Yes.
Don:
Yet again, you were in the first episode in season one, and we talked about leadership, the brain, managing change, managing lasting change. And maybe you could start the interview out by talking about what you've been learning the last 10 years, particularly around the brain and leadership.
Dr. Eichinger:
As you know, I've pretty much spent full time on studying what is called neuroleadership. And what that is, is taking a look at research being done on the brain and relating it to what leaders and managers and supervisors need to do. I remain pretty excited that there can be significant improvements in the quality of management leadership if some of these principles from brain science move over into leadership development and leadership coaching. My coaching has changed because I now do coaching with the brain in mind, rather than what I did for 30 years, which was coaching, not paying any attention to what the brain was doing. I think my coaching efficacy, the degree to which I can impact an executive or a manager has increased significantly because now I'm beginning to understand what happens inside the brain when a dysfunctional behavior is rendered by a leader.
We're beginning to see the brain research seep into corporate America. Lots of the larger companies have mindfulness training as part of their university curriculum inside their companies. And secular mindfulness is getting pretty significant. So, I think the movement is growing, the science is getting better every day, and I have a lot of hope for what it can do for individual leaders and managers there, and for mankind, as far as that's concerned.
Don:
You've been at this for 50 years, and the first 40 years of your career, you were not focused on the brain. What techniques or what training were you doing during that period to help leaders improve?
Dr. Eichinger:
The two most coached leadership behaviors are lack of listening skills, and the second one is conflict management. For 30 years, I dealt with the outside of the leader's body. That is my coaching and my suggestions for development had to do with external behaviors that I could see. If I dealt with an executive who had a listening skills issue, I would talk about not interrupting people who are speaking and asking questions to expand, and to listen to understand and all of the common things we do. But now that you understand why an executive doesn't listen, it turns out that the developmental protocol is different. So, we know that we pick executives partly on a characteristic.
In the positive sense, we would say we pick action-oriented people, but the other way to say that is impatient people. So, the typical executive has, in their personality profile or their style, being impatient. We also know that executives are terminally busy and that they have very short periods of time to listen to people on an unscheduled basis. So, now that I know that executives are interrupting subordinates and making them feel bad and get disengaged from the team, I now know that I need to work with the executive on impatience, not on listening behavior.
So, I also have noticed, since I've sort of made that switch, that my efficacy or the percent of time that I was effective in bringing about change has greatly increased in the last decade. But when I now talk and coach with executives, and I talk to them about how their brain operates, it gives them an additional tool to be more considerate of others in team meetings and exchanges in the hallway, in the elevator. The other thing is a very powerful thing called a mindset. One of the simplest things about the brain is that the brain has a series of mindsets that determine how they react to things in the world. The typical executive mindset is that the only purpose I have for listening is to learn something I don't know or learn something I need to do my job.
And my current script for executives is that actually listening is for the benefit of the person who's talking. That the reason I pay you extra to be a leader is to leverage people. In order to leverage people, you have to have and apply EQ skills. And in order to be EQ smart, you have to understand the people around you. And listening is, in some small part, learning something new and different, but because I promoted you, because you were the best in the group, you most likely know everything you need to know. On the other hand, you need to learn about your people. So, you need to listen to them and how they think, and how they sequence things, and how they apply a logic. That's a mindset. And you can change mindsets in the brain. Mindset management is now a technique that I use that comes from brain science.
Don:
We hear about fixed mindset or growth mindset. Is that what you're talking about when you're talking about mindset management?
Dr. Eichinger:
In the leadership world, the most recent mind shifts have been gender equality in management in the boardroom. The same thing happened to us with the gay community, which is now much different in the country. The entire country has shifted a mindset. Interview bias is a mindset issue. And so, in order for the brain to be efficient, it uses a number of mindsets in order to run its behavior. One of the fastest ways to bring about behavior change is not practicing new behavior; it's changing mindset.
Don:
You've talked about EQ, and I think most people who are listening to this have an understanding of EQ, but maybe you could share your definition of EQ so we're all on the same page here.
Dr. Eichinger:
EQ starts with knowing yourself so that you can use your portfolio of skills the best you can. And you can't be successful unless you understand the person you're working with. That brings another mindset of management, which is managing individuals differently. I think every executive would agree that people are, to some extent, different. On the other hand, managers and leaders like to say I treat everyone the same. And they say that very proudly as a moral ethical statement. But from a behavior standpoint, if you are really a legacy EQ people leader, you'd have to act differently with different people. You'd have to meet the shareholder or stakeholder, or vendor, or employee where they're at — not where you're at.
So, that's a mindset thing. And we've been teaching that now for about five years. And you can actually watch people's faces when they come up against that concept the first time, saying, “You can't be you all the time.” If what you mean by that is that you talk to everyone the same, you use the same pace, you use the same sequence. If you're known as a tough interrogator, you do that with everyone. Well, you have two employees that are very hypersensitive, high maintenance, but they have phenomenal work skills that you need, say, you probably shouldn't use that technique with them. So, managing people differently cannot be done without EQ.
Don:
The theme of this season is the future of, and we're talking about the future of leadership. What do you see the next 10 years being like for leaders? What will successful leaders in the 2020s be doing?
Dr. Eichinger:
What has shifted significantly is local to global. So, very few executives, and when I began an executive would have his or her hands full if they had the eastern part of the United States. Well, there are very few people in leadership jobs in major corporations that don't have a global job. So, the particular VUCA that's changing is global markets, and global regulations, and global economic systems, and global political systems. So, that's pretty complex. And then, the remoteness, when I started, there wasn't anybody that I ever ran up against in a company that didn't have a closed office. And now, we're in cube farms. The research on cube farms say that they're good for one third of the employee population and very bad for one third of the population.
So, one third of the population tend to be introverts; they tend to be distracted quite easily, and they have trouble in cube farm settings. And then remote management is probably the new piece. I'm always amazed when I watch virtual teams, and I have been at those teams at a time where the team has not met each other face to face. Well, we know that 50% of the content of communication is nonverbal. If you are 13 hours off the clock, you're not going to do a lot of face-to-face conference calls because one of the two of the parties is going to be 3:00 in the morning. So, it's sort of hard to understand how I could learn about my colleagues if I meet them once a year at an offsite.
And I think that virtual reality is going to help that because I think we're going to see 3D conference capability where we're literally sitting across the table from each other in a visual world that seems that we're in the same room. So, I think that might be temporary, but right now, I'm beginning to see virtual management as not working as well.
Don:
In our first interview, season one, episode one, you said that cognitively, the executive of the future is going to need to be okay and strong on an EQ perspective. How much of EQ is an eight? How much is learned during our upbringing and how much do we develop as adults?
Dr. Eichinger:
50 years of research pretty much says it's 50-50. 50% of what you are as an adult is based on the throw of the dice and how your genetics were put together, and then 50% is nurture. That depends upon what skill you're talking about. It ranges from about 70-30 either way, depending upon what the characteristic is. What we know about all skills used at the executive level is that it helps to have a genetic predisposition to being good. Then you have to have the opportunity, you have to have the motivation, then you have to put into practice. If I'm not good at something and I put in 10,000 hours of practice, I'll probably be okay. Does it build skill? Sure, it does. But I mean, if I have 100 IQ and I want to be a nuclear physicist, you probably can learn all sorts of stuff. But I doubt if you're going to be significant in the field of nuclear physics if your brain isn't wired that way.
Don:
When you think out over the next decade, how do you believe organizations are going to be structured, and how will that structure change?
Dr. Eichinger:
I think a lot of businesses are being broken up into pieces and parts that are being redistributed around the globe. So, the idea of a big corporate headquarters with thousands of people in the parking lot in a hierarchical organization probably isn't going to work. We have seen the flattening of organizations. There used to be about seven levels when I began in the corporate world, and now we're sort of down to four. So, we've cut out a lot of intermediate step levels. From a leadership development standpoint that's not so good because you have to make bigger jumps. We have eliminated a lot of developmental half steps for leadership development.
The other thing that's happening is that leadership is happening earlier. When I was with PepsiCo, I was in charge of basically what would be called human analytics today, but the average age of becoming an executive was 46 in Pepsi. And I had reason to be back there a few months ago, and it's now down to about 38. One of my colleagues works for Google, and she said there is nobody 48 at Google. She has meetings with people with very impressive titles, making pretty large decisions, and there's nobody in the room over 35. What's interesting about that, Don, is that IQ and being analytical and doing critical thinking is not age dependent.
It is experience and knowledge dependent, which is now, because of the internet, almost anyone has access to any question they want to ask. What is age related is EQ. You can't learn EQ out of a book. I can learn logistics out of a book. I can learn financial analysis out of a book. I can't really learn managing people. That's experiential based. And what the research says is that, of the arrows in the executive quiver, the last one to develop is EQ.
Don:
When you think about technologies or tools that are going to aid leader development in the future, what comes to mind?
Dr. Eichinger:
Part of the correlation of executive effectiveness has to do with physical and mental health. So, a percentage of success in the executive suite has to do with endurance and resourcefulness and persistence. A lot of that has to do with good sleep and good dietary practices, good exercise routines. I have half a medical watch and it has changed my mindset on watching those things on my own. We are beginning to get mindfulness applications on mobile and on watches. For instance, I envision, and I know this is in development, there's going to be a mood indicator on your watch. And you can set it either for vibration or you can set it for color. So, when the watch, with its four sensors, determines that you are in an emotional state, it'll either vibrate or it'll flash pink. What that means is don't say anything more, don't make a decision. Take a deep breath, you're not in control. That would have a phenomenal impact.
Don:
So, that's not leader development; that's leadership. That’s really a powerful tool for just enhancing effective leadership.
Dr. Eichinger:
Or I could train you. Again, the two things I've spent most of my career helping executives with is listening skills and conflict management. In conflict management, that has a high probability of triggering your emotional system. Well, in order to remain in my supercomputer mode, I'd need to know when my behavior's more driven by my emotional system than my cognitive system. Well, I could just look at my watch and maybe it'll have a 10-point scale or something, an analog scale, and it says I'm in an eight, meaning that I'm frustrated, I'm anxious, I'm mad. So, I either shouldn't continue this or I need to stand back and relax, and take a breath, and ask the person to talk, or do something differently.
And my guess is the watch is going to tell you what to do. I think emotional management is going to be technology-based. That I think has a big impact on quality of supervisor, manager, and leader.
Don:
Creativity and innovation are coveted more than ever.
Dr. Eichinger:
Yep.
Don:
What are the ways in which leaders can effectively create cultures that foster innovation?
Dr. Eichinger:
Well, that all has to do with safety.
Don:
Psychological safety?
Dr. Eichinger:
Psychological safety. There's a substantial difference between creativity and innovation. That is the personality profile and skill set of somebody who's creative is substantially different than somebody who's good at innovation. So, innovation is a skill set, meaning to move an idea through a bureaucratic maze to get a product or service out into the marketplace. Well, very few highly creative people can do that. So, Einstein couldn't do that; Edison couldn't do that; Elon Musk is having a problem doing that. Highly creative people are not good at structured, process-based, patience, influence skills, charisma. So, creativity; there are people who are highly creative like Jobs, or Elon Musk, and people like that. And they need an environment where there is no negative ramification to a dumb idea.
And that whoever is the innovative implementer needs to have listening skills. Meaning, however dumb it sounds to me so far, I'm going to listen to this whole thing, I'm going to ask questions to make absolutely sure I know what this idea is. And I may not even render a judgment. I may just thank them for that information and move on. Creativity and innovation are extremely important, but it's not the same person.
Don:
That's a really important distinction, and thank you for making that distinction, because you're absolutely right; the person who comes up with the idea is not necessarily the person who helps navigate it through the organization. One or two things that you would recommend in order to create that environment of psychological safety.
Dr. Eichinger:
Well, the first thing is to know that however this happened, there is a small portion of the population that are truly creative. So, the first skill set is to find and isolate creative people. The second thing is to remember; creative people need to travel; they need to be in diverse places.
Don:
Stimulation.
Dr. Eichinger:
Stimulation to that particular brain skill they have that is making distant associations that most people don't. So, the butterfly wing in Mexico moving the climate eventually, that's what creative people understand. Then you have to give them a supervisor who has the managing people differently. We also know some interesting things about creativity in the brain that is the aha phenomenon. All of us have had that. And that means that we solved a problem or we traded something special. It turns out, in brain scans, that the brain goes through the aha experience before you're aware of the aha experience. That the brain has a motivation to be creative and to solve problems. And it knows, our brain knows it's gotten something before your work. So, you actually have the second aha. The first aha is the brain says, “I think I've solved this problem.”
The other thing is, we all know this, but you solve problems when you're sleeping, and it means that the brain doesn't shut down when the somatic sleep occurs. And the brain's problem solving and stuff keeps going. It might even have a dream where it lays out the characteristics and the problem, and it actually solves it through dreaming. And what we know in creativity is that you should never have a meeting where you have two hours and you need to have something creative come out of the group. The data says you should talk about the issue, talk about possible solutions for an hour, and then you need to go walk around the building, or play ping pong, or go eat a hamburger, because during that time, your brain, with less bias than your awareness has, will work on that problem. And then you come back and say, “Okay, what does your brain think?”
Don:
It's remarkable. I've said this before and I'll say it again. I don't think I've ever had a good idea sitting in my office. A good creative idea. All of that stuff happens when I'm driving, in the shower, waking up first thing in the morning, and having dreamed about it. In the past, we've talked about negativity bias and I believe you've stated that it's a four to one ratio. Does that mean that we think four negative thoughts for every one positive thought that we have?
Dr. Eichinger:
There's a number of ways you can field strip that. The brain has a purpose just like your kidney or liver or spleen. And what the brain's purpose is, is to seek out pleasure and avoid harm. And the brain has been designed to be over vigilant. It sees potential harm where there actually isn’t. the scanning capability of the brain is about a three to one negative to positive tool because it sees snakes where, in fact, they're branches. It sees spiders which turn out to be just a dark spot on the wall.
So the brain has been designed to be hypervigilant to keep us out of trouble. In the other way of looking at that, as you look through people's situations and problems, the brain tends to lean on the negative side. That's where the, you mentioned earlier, growth mindset comes from. Growth mindset is purposefully and intentionally looking for the positives. That's not what the brain normally does. It does not have a growth mindset. When we were cave people, it was a little bit simpler because we were looking for saber tooth tigers. But now it has to do with people. A lot of people are hesitant to meet new people and are afraid that people might hurt them. And the brain is constantly looking for things that are going to harm me in the workplace. So, a boss talking a little louder when he or she talks to me, the brain immediately is going to conclude that they don't like me or there's something wrong with me. Or that may not be the case.
Don:
I'm going to deviate from the conversation that we've been having. Solving the world's problems like global warming, like cleaning the ocean, like having discussions around, is it ethical to de-extinct a species? I was just listening to a podcast about a scientist who wants to bring back the passenger pigeon, and then people have been talking about bringing back the wooly mammoth. And scientifically, they are really close to being able to do this, but it seems like that affects everybody on earth. These types of conversations seem like they need to have collaboration between governments. Will we get there, or how will we get there if we can?
Dr. Eichinger:
The real issue that we're having right now is, because of the internet, social media, at least in the United States — I can't speak for global because I haven't really done much travel in the last decade or so — but in the United States, the majority of the population couldn't tell the difference between a fact and a non-fact. That comes because of something called a confirmation bias in the brain. And the confirmation bias is that once I have made a decision, or I have taken a position, or I have created a belief, or I have an attitude, the brain, passed that point, looks for confirming information and rejects information that's against that belief. So, we now, in the United States, have two populations, neither one of which are dealing with facts. You go to climate change; I don't think there's a human being in the United States that doesn't think there's climate change.
There's been climate change forever. Don, where you and I are sitting, and I checked on this before we sat down, there was two miles of ice right where we're sitting. So, we must have had global warming 25,000 years ago because there isn't two miles of ice right now. The ice is up in the North Pole. So, yes, climate change. Now, what about the facts of humans causing climate change? That's a different issue. Or is there anything humans could do if we shut down all cars, killed all bovines so they don't burp anymore, and do all of the things people want to do, would that have any impact on the sun, which is what causes climate change? So, you search the internet for climate change and you've got two clicks you can make; one says there's evidence there is no climate change. As a matter of fact, we're getting colder.
And then the other one is the evidence says that this is the warmest we've ever been. Well, that's the one I'm going to click on if I believe in climate change. What the brain research says is that it takes more energy for the brain to change its viewpoint of an issue or to see something new or different or to be innovative. It takes more wattage; it takes more energy for me to change my mind. The brain does not like to do that. So, when it's done with an issue; we should or shouldn't have bike lanes, that's it. There is nothing in the editorial page that's going to change my mind. I have seen very few people, and if you look at the 50 talking heads on cable, you would think that the different channels live on different planets.
They couldn't agree that the sky was blue. I don't see how we're going to get anywhere. Now, mindfulness or Buddhism has, as a general purpose, acknowledgement of facts, and to not allow opinion, or attitudes, or unsupported beliefs to run your life. The Dalai Lama keeps saying that Buddhism is probably the only solution he sees to get countries together.
Don:
When you think about education of young people, what changes would you make in order to prepare them for future leadership positions?
Dr. Eichinger:
Well, I think teaching mindfulness in the school system is important. I think starting them on learning agility, being open. I mean, the thing we're talking about now is we've got an entire population of 300 million people who are now closed minded. The unfortunate thing about is they don't say, “Hi, my name is Bob. As you know, I'm closed-minded.” They think they're open-minded. So, 300 million people think they're open-minded when in fact the majority of them are closed-minded in our current political situation. Teaching the kids in growth mindset, learning agility and mindfulness, in addition to the three Rs, I think is important. Another interesting aspect of AI is there will probably be no real reason for college. If colleges are spending their time loading in data across the 10 different domains that I take courses in, if that's no longer going to be valued, it's going to be interesting to see what happens, particularly to graduate education. Now, there might be…
Don:
Graduate education, meaning master’s and PhD programs?
Dr. Eichinger:
MBAs in particular.
Don:
Yeah.
Dr. Eichinger:
The kids seem to be digital. And as you say, technology is going to be phenomenally critical as we go forward in VUCA. And the upcoming leaders are going to have, there's no option, they have to be technologically agile.
Don:
A couple follow up questions on that. When would you start the mindfulness education or training for young people? At what age?
Dr. Eichinger:
Home. Early childhood.
Don:
Before the age of five.
Dr. Eichinger:
Yep.
Don:
And how do you do that?
Dr. Eichinger:
It's just teaching self-awareness is the [crosstalk 0:33:17].
Don:
How you’re thinking, what you’re feeling?
Dr. Eichinger:
Yeah. And thoughts and feelings are electrical events. So, the brain, as you know, is an electrical machine with some little lubrication with chemicals and hormones. But the things that are bothersome have to do; one of them is called ANTs, which is automatic negative thinking. All of us have an ANT program in our brain that prevent us from trying new things and preventing us from taking adventures. And then we also have something called TUTs, which is task-unrelated popup thoughts. Your brain is constantly feeding you things that it would like you to think about.
Don:
That's just so annoying.
Dr. Eichinger:
Well, it causes insomnia and it causes all sorts of things. But there's something called performing in the zone, which means that you are using a subset of your portfolio of skills in an extremely intense way. And athletes can play in the zone. Creative people can be in the zone, logistics people can be in the zone. So, I think all of that stuff, if you had mindful parents, when the kid gets into the tantrum behavior, which all of us struggle as parents to deal with.
Don:
I don't know what you're talking about.
Dr. Eichinger:
I know two of your children. I think that the earlier one begins to get control over your facilities, the better off you’re going to be. And it should start at home. If it doesn't start at home, it should start in preschool and kindergarten.
Don:
You talked about college being irrelevant, and I kind of agree with you, but I kind of don't agree with you, in that I think that there will be many platforms where learning can occur. But if college does continue, what is the value that it is going to break?
Dr. Eichinger:
Well, putting aside knowledge load.
Don:
Right. That's been the value that it's typically brought. When I think back to my experience, which is now 30 years past, I learned things. Certainly, I learned how to learn, which was great. Very different experience than what I experienced in high school. But I learned how to socialize and how to meet people and how to create relationships with different types of people. That's probably what I learned the most and what's been most useful for me during my professional career.
Dr. Eichinger:
There's a brain connection with college because what we know is that the brain doesn't finish developing until the early 20s. We know that younger people take risks that wouldn't take now. All of us in our youth have driven 110 miles an hour on a highway somewhere. We wouldn't do that today. We have jumped off cliffs that we wouldn't do today. So, the brain, in particular judgment and wisdom, does not get finished until early 20s. So, in a weird way, college is designed to keep them away from dangerous things. But kids do risky things and they don't have calibrating experiences. They don't have experience tapes.
College could be a place to have intentional, diverse activities, and travel abroad, and meeting people of other countries and other ethnic groups and ages, and whatever, that it becomes a place where you finish developing your brain with experience tapes and exemplars.
Don:
Tell us about TeamTelligent, your new company. What do you do and for whom are you doing it for?
Dr. Eichinger:
Well, I've spent 50 years basically helping people to become better managers and leaders. So, this is just a continuation of what I've always done. It's 50 years fresher than what I did 50 years ago. It has 50 years more research behind it. This is my last shot, and I'm trying to integrate neuroscience into the development of managers and leaders. So, this product, which is called KSA, stands for knowledge, skills and attributes in managers and leaders, is a product that is fresh, it's research-based, and it's beginning to bring neuroscience into the development of people. So, it isn't different than what I've done in the past, but it's fresh.
Don:
What's the product? Is it online training or is it…?
Dr. Eichinger:
It's everything.
Don:
Okay.
Dr. Eichinger:
It's 360; it's coaching; it's team development; It's one-on-one coaching; it's assessment; it's performance appraisal. It's everything.
Don:
Fantastic. And where can people find you or find out about TeamTelligent?
Dr. Eichinger:
TeamTelligent has… We have a website up and running. You can just type in TeamTelligent, and we'll be there.
Don:
Okay. Fantastic. And we'll put that in the show notes as well. Thank you, again, for being a guest.
Dr. Eichinger:
All right.
Don:
And thank you for being a genius.
Dr. Eichinger:
Thank you.
Don:
Thank you for listening to 12 Geniuses. Our next episode will be about the future of trust with Álvaro Marquez. Álvaro and his team at Method Collaborated with Hitachi on the Trust 2030 Project, which imagines how society might evolve over the next decade. Devin McGrath is our production assistant; Brian Bierbaum is our research and historical consultant; Toby, Tony, Jay, and the rest of the team at GL Productions in London make sure the sound and editing are phenomenal. To subscribe to 12 Geniuses, please go to 12geniuses.com. If you like what you hear, please give us a great rating on whatever platform you are using to listen to this.