Cultivating Leaders: How Men and Women Can Use the Power of the Brain to Effectively Lead Together

By Peter J. Dean Ph.D.

PETER J. DEAN, Ph.D. is the head of Leaders By Design, the men’s leadership development and executive coaching division of The Leader’s Edge. With over 40 years of national and international experience, Peter bases his executive coaching and consulting work on current research and best practices in the field of leadership development. Leaders By Design helps executives recognize and understand the intricacies inherent in global leadership and dealing with diverse cultures and sub-cultures.

Peter worked in Europe and Asia for 8 years and has lectured, consulted and coached in 14 countries. He is a prolific author whose articles have frequently been published in a variety of news outlets and he has also authored 11 books in his career including: Leadership for Everyone (McGraw-Hill, 2005); and his most recent book, The Bully-Proof Workplace: Essential Strategies, Tips and Scripts for Dealing with the Office Sociopath (McGraw-Hill, 2017), which he co-authored with his partner and spouse Molly Shepard.

He was a lecturer in Communication, Ethics and Leadership at The Wharton School and the Fels Center of Government both at The University of Pennsylvania. Peter held the O. Alfred Granum Chair in Management at The American College in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania and he has been on the faculty at Fordham University, University of Tennessee, Pennsylvania State University, and the University of Iowa.

Peter holds his PhD from the University of Iowa and a MS degree from the University of Pennsylvania. In 2018, Peter received an Applied Neuroscience Certificate on the Science of the Art of Coaching endorsed by ION, ICF and the Association for Coaching.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 11, 2020
• ISBN: 9781664130852

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Copyright © 2020 by Peter J. Dean, Ph.D. All rights reserved.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Rev. date: 10/08/2020

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CONTENTS

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1 A Primer on Brain Function and How It Relates to Leadership Skill

Chapter 2 The Brain’s Capacity to Process Emotions

Chapter 3 The Mind’s Interpretation of Information and Relationship to Emotions

Chapter 4 Personality Traits of a Leader

Chapter 5 The Temperament of a Leader (DISC)

Chapter 6 The Sexes: Differences and Similarities

Chapter 7 Leadership: Men and Women

Chapter 8 Power Check: Positional and Personal

Chapter 9 Unhealthy Ego Check: Avoid the Slippery Slope

Chapter 10 Ethics Check: Fundamentals Guiding Means and Ends

Chapter 11 Communication Check: Holding Authentic Conversations

Chapter 12 Success in Leadership

Epilogue

Previous Books by Peter J. Dean

Recommended Reading

Thought Leaders

About the Author

PREFACE

Leadership Lessons from Home

T HE LESSONS MY mother taught me about leadership begin with the personification of leadership from my father.

On December 8, 1941, the day after the December 7 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, both my grandfather, who joined World War I as well, and father enlisted together in the U.S. Marine Corps to help with the war effort and to stand up to negative aggression. My grandfather was assigned duty training troops in Rhode Island, while my grandmother got a job as a spot welder. My father was assigned a tour in the Pacific as a combat marine landing on three islands controlled by the Japanese. The war ended in 1945, and I was born on December 7, 1946. My father told tales of heroic leadership around the dinner table, and the stories often signified the leadership qualities of focused energy, taking initiative, decisiveness, driving to get things done, to name a few. As a young boy, his experience in World War II clearly showed certain qualities that were aligned with my understanding of leadership. You could say I was hooked on the topic of leadership from an early age. But my understanding of leadership would not be complete were it not for my mother, the other leader in my childhood home.

As a recognized and successful dress designer, she chose to accept the cultural pressure of the time to be a stay-at-home mom to manage and lead the five of us. It became clear to me that her experience shaped her as a leader too. My mom was like the HR person of the entire extended family, using very different qualities to be successful. I observed her time and time again engage people by giving them her full attention; listening without judgment; questioning and paraphrasing when she did not understand something fully; practicing empathy by truly seeing what the other person was saying; and showing intrinsic respect for the other person during the communication by focusing her full attention on them. Then she would speak with humor, insight, and a willingness to help. So I was blessed with role models of different aspects of leadership for which I am truly thankful. Both my parents taught me about servant leadership and how to stand up with confidence and grace. Both sets of leadership are needed today, and it is what this book is designed to do.

Peter J. Dean

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I N 2005, I merged my company, Leaders by Design with The Leaders Edge headed by Molly D. Shepard, who turned out to be not only my business partner but my life partner to whom I am married. It is a wonderful partnership on the business side as well. TLE focuses on issues for women in leadership and LBD focuses on issues for men in leadership. Also, over the last 15 years I have been fortunate to be a witness to working in a woman-owned company with virtually all women on staff.

I have learned and continue to learn many of the unique issues women have to face in the workplace from their point of view and have combined them with the experiences of men. I have tried to capture those lessons in this book that I trust will present insights on how men and women can work and lead together.

Along with Molly, who has successfully coached thousands of women, I want to acknowledge and thank the nearly 1,800 women executives over 12 years who have graduated from the unique and powerful year-long Executive leadership institute for women that we run in partnership with KPMG.

I would also like to acknowledge the following people at TLE/LBD who have shared their wisdom in many different ways. And, I am still learning, as I believe all men should consider reappraising their bias about women in the workplace.

Molly D. Shepard, MS, MSM, Founder and CEO, The Leaders Edge;

Monica Warner, MS, Vice President, Marketing and Operations;

Nila G. Betof, Ph.D. former Chief Operating Officer, The Leaders Edge;

Tracey L. Cantarutti, Ph.D, Regional Vice President, Mid West;

Elizabeth F. Reeder, MBA, PCC, Regional Vice President, New Jersey;

Mary Jane Reed, SPHR, Regional Vice President, Washington, DC;

Lisa S. Aronson, MBA, PCC, Vice President Quality and Delivery;

Jane E. Beale, Vice President, Program Quality;

Shelley Potente, MA, Executive Vice President, Client Relations;

Dominique SanGiovanni, Director, Communications and Digital Media;

Marybeth D. Renne, CMF, Senior Consultant;

Lisa Mathis, Senior Consultant;

Karen Coplan, Ph.D., Senior Consultant;

Elizabeth Reeves, MA, Senior Consultant;

Kim Karetsky, Senior Consultant;

Nancy Singer, PCC, Senior Consultant;

Whitney Siavelis, Senior Consultant;

Kaitlin Emery, Project Management and Client Relations Coordinator;

Cassie Gilmore, Senior Consultant;

Dr. Lisa Brooksgreaux, Senior Consultant;

and the very talented and resourceful Jane K. Stimmler.

INTRODUCTION

F INALLY, A BOOK for executive leaders, with an applied neuroscience understanding of how the brain and the mind deploy the full value of emotions for success in the workplace. We’ll explore knowing your emotions, understanding what in the environment triggers different emotions in the brain, and how the mind’s interpretation of those emotions effects our behavior. This knowledge will catapult an executive into a master class of leaders who know how to intelligently use the knowledge of emotions by understanding that men and women bring a different deployment of emotions in the workplace.

Since the 1970s, thanks to the research of the neurobiology, we have learned the value of the differing functions of the two hemispheres of the brain and how their balance gives a powerful emotional understanding. We have been informed about the brain differences of the hemispheres of women and men, how emotions are experienced in the brain, how they are perceived by the mind, and how they express themselves in behavior.

My approach is with this understanding. Yes, there are differences between the male and female brain. While there are differences, there is also so much the same about the male and female brain. Thus, this book will maintain a brain-based perspective on how to lead using the basic knowledge of the brain’s biology to help both men and women lead with each other.

This information is essential for top leaders in the workplace. They must know how to engage both hemispheres in the brain to optimize the exchange with others. Knowing the differences in the functioning of the brain in men and women has been given increasing attention over the years as more and more women comprise the workforce. Today’s master class of leaders must have the knowledge of interpersonal neurobiology.

CHAPTER ONE

A Primer on Brain Function and

How It Relates to Leadership Skill

P AUL BROWN AND Virginia Brown in their 2012 book entitled Neuropsychology for Coaches: Understanding the Basics speaks to the brain’s major work. It is to regulate bodily systems, assign different emotions to events perceived by the five senses that create meaning, and thereby make each of us unique. The brain uses its own private database of its collected experience to make sense in relation to others and itself. The brain’s potential for development comes from the brain ordering itself from data it receives from the five sense organs (touch, taste, sight, smell, and hearing). The brain each of us inherits automatically organizes heart rate, breath rate, digestion, waking state of consciousness, sleeping, and many other functions. We start out experiencing and learning from all the potential in the world and to grow and develop to our full potential. This learning from experience is called neuroplasticity . It is here that the brain develops with all new circuits. The uniqueness in each one of us starts to be developed with neuroplasticity and continues by choice for the duration of our lives.

The right hemisphere of the brain has a superiority when it comes to an understanding of emotion. If we operated without a right hemisphere, our left hemisphere would operate without being concerned about others and other’s feelings. The emotions related to bonding, autobiographical memories, and empathy are attended to by the right hemisphere as well. Also, the right hemisphere is responsible for "maintaining a coherent, continuous, and unified sense of self’ (Devinsky, 2000). It is the glue that binds the system together. The right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex is central to complex decision-making. The left hemisphere is related to competition, rivalry, or individual self-belief, says Ian McGilchrist in his book entitled The Master and His Emissary.

Emotion binds together virtually every type of information the brain can process. Facts are understood by the left hemisphere, while the right hemisphere experiences emotions and new information. The whole brain puts together both perspectives to make sense of the experience. Men and women can do both kinds of processing even though they can be conditioned to be more facts oriented or feelings oriented. Ideal will be an openness to both facts and feelings.

Evidence of this was found in a survey I completed over eleven years with over 1500 women and men that strongly suggested the women surpass men in five of seven leadership skills, including listening to learn, empathizing with others’ emotions, attending to others’ needs and aspirations, engaging with ethics for good ends, and responding to others with respectfulness—all of which lead with emotions. Men excelled in the areas of diagnosing, detailed and speedy decision-making, and speaking with specificity and cogency lead with facts. With women outperforming men in five of seven essentials of leadership, the question remains: why aren’t more women advancing to the top of leadership positions?

One possible answer is that men have a bias about having too much emotion in the workplace and they associate that bias with women. I have had male clients who have told me that after having children, women should be at home as they bring the emotions from home to work. One remedy could be learning more about the value of knowing and understanding emotions and how emotions influence the brain, mind, and habits at work. Instead of looking at this bias from just a psychology vantage point, let’s factor in neuroscience to present a different way of seeing and unlocking more potential.

In December 2013, Ragini Verma at the University of Pennsylvania published in the National Academy of Sciences that men connect interlaterally more than women, but women have stronger connections cross-laterally from left to right and back again. That means the left hemisphere of the brain will access the factual knowledge about leadership development and the right hemisphere