I have been tortured by this concept for years.
For me, it goes beyond any management theory, or teaching. It’s more important than a firm’s results, financial OR technical.
This is about emotional intelligence, about human values, and about the future of any organization or company. I doubt any company can reach sustainability without social intelligence.
But on the other hand, you can’t manage a company without rules, discipline, sanction, and we often have claims about abuse on our working places, and cases of incompetent managers that drive the company very high… thus lack any human or social value.
I gave this subject thorough thoughts, and it was part of my most furious frustrations for a long period. And I’m talking years.
Untill I read an article on the Harvard Business Review site, from a neuro-scientist with 15 years experience that was obsessed with the matter, and who published his analysis.
I was actually trying to figure out something that was not only beyond my sphere of intelligence and competence, but a subject that was turning nuts more than one specialist!!
One of his conclusions?
Read this:
“These two (brain hemisphere) networks function like a neural seesaw. In countless neuroimaging studies, the more one of these networks got more active, the more the other one got quieter. Although there are some exceptions, in general, engaging in one of the kinds of thinking makes it harder to engage in the other kind. Its safe to say that in business, analytical thinking has historically been the coin of the realm — making it harder to recognize the social issues that significantly affect productivity and profits. Moreover, employees are much more likely to be promoted to leadership positions because of their technical prowess. We are thus promoting people who may lack the social skills to make the most of their teams and not giving them the training they need to thrive once promoted.”
Matthew Lieberman, PhD, in “Should Leaders Focus on Results, or on People?”
Being promoted for your technical prowess doesn’t mean you’ll be successful leading your teams. Moreover, it may be harder to have your colleagues follow you if you lack “social richness”.
And that’s the point that always bothered me.
Although you cannot imagine leaders that lack technical skills for a given field succeed in their missions, it’s hard to expect people to follow you without bringing along social values, empathy, and more general notions of team behavior. And it is even more doubtful to expect your success.
Reading this article is an enlightment. I can now rest my case.
Thank you, Doctor Lieberman.
Follow the video on TedX:
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