Company Blog

Fearless Leadership - Contributed by Kathryn Taylor, Pharmaceutical & Medical Professionals

Mergers, acquisitions, restructures, patent expiries!  As the pace of the healthcare industry rapidly increases, so does the need to engage staff throughout periods of change.  Katharine McLennan’s presentation at the AHRI Practice’s Day in March struck a cord as to how to improve motivation within our industry throughout these times.

Presenting on Fearless Leadership: The Neuroscience behind the phrase “leadership as a conscious choice”, Katharine (Executive General Manager, Talent and Business Unit Human Resources, Commonwealth Bank) tapped into the importance of awareness for leaders, of their choices and resulting impacts on employees.  Katharine provoked thought with the statement “leadership is a moment by moment conscious choice” going on to explain that fear is built into our nature and has an impact on all we do.  In essence, she outlined fear as “false evidence appearing real”, detailing experiences throughout our average day resulting in our brains entering “fight, flight or freeze” mode.  She explained we can better manage our response through a four part model around knowing what “triggers you” or others into fear and working towards “choosing rationally” within the limited space of 0.3 seconds we are offered during our brains processing.

In detailing the model she explained first you must “know your triggers”.  Referring to the four key parts of the brain, Katharine remarked what is key to rational choice is the limbic area which receives emotions and the pre-frontal cortex which is rational, able to process decision making in a calm manner.  Going on to outline what Daniel Goleman has named the “Amygdala Hijack”, we understand we can control our response to situations through awareness of our brains processing and improved mental fitness in responding to our triggers.  Katharine explains that as humans we are all impacted by the same factors each day, these are best identified as status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness and fairness.  With a resound of understanding Katharine draws on numerous office encounters to detail these aspects. 

Who has had issues resulting from not including someone in a meeting or project?  The employees’ reaction of unjust and lack of respect are reflected through their triggers of status, relatedness and fairness.  When bonus time arises employees react to perceived disparity, responding to their needs for fairness and status.  When announcing a restructure there is uproar to the transformation reflecting an alteration in certainty, status and autonomy.  While waiting for a colleague to complete part of a project, employees are faced with a lack of autonomy and certainty to deliver their role.  Each day employees compare titles, car spaces and positions all relating to their view of status.  Questioning how they fit into a meeting, project, team or situation they are reflecting on their relatedness to that event.  Katharine summarised that all five elements will cause an Amygdala Hijack unless we can recognise the situation and know how we will respond automatically, which is the second part of the model.

We have all seen the iceberg as a demonstration for leadership, but have we used it to compare our behavioural responses?  In this representation the tip of the iceberg is perceived behaviour, what is seen and so known often resulting in the three natural response behaviours of fight, flight or freeze.  The very base underneath is our subconscious core beliefs, these are our needs and experiences that shape us as individuals.  These core beliefs have impacts on our requirements for attention, autonomy and security.  Between the tip and very base is the area of conscious intention where we can control aspects of response or reaction based on what we know of ourselves and others.  Katharine reminded us to reflect on those hidden parts when responding to what is exposed.

The third step in the trigger model is to ensure you choose rationally, Katharine reminded us that “we do have a choice”.  This received an interesting reaction from the audience.  Choice is of course the challenge as we have the same responses over many years and so need to re-educate and train ourselves through repetition and a revised mental state.  Katharine gave the example of exercise.  How often do we avoid or make excuses for exercise?  She had recently retrained herself into a new yoga routine, discussing her procrastination at the start compared to her anticipation for it now.  The role of leaders is to recognise in the office environment very few things in our normal day will lead to life or death.  Our response can be to allow the Hijack to occur and become irrational, suppress it with a “stiff upper lip” or pause, allowing time to see and so assess the real FEAR for reappraisal.  She encouraged leaders to use that pause throughout the day to maintain and build the trust with their employees.  Emphasising the need for leaders to constantly build trust Katharine outlined Maister’s trusted adviser equation of trust, as follows, stressing that the “leader builds trust when choice is in effect”.

The followers perception of the leaders Credibility + Reliability + Intimacy
The followers Attitude to Trust

Katharine recognised “mind fitness” as most critical to achieving successful outcomes when challenging our beliefs and changing our natural responses, the final piece of the puzzle.  So what is mind fitness?  She explained “we are getting more unfit as a race” and so there has been an increase in depression and health issues, she believed there are more physical diseases as a result of our state of mind.  In explaining mind fitness Katharine explained four different brainwaves, beta (which does most of work), alpha (when we are daydreaming), theta (an out of the blue brainwave state, for example when you have a sudden idea in middle of night or REM sleep) and delta (which is a really slow state, where empathy and intuition occurs, this is where athletes play competitive sport).  So how can we train our brains and so improve mind fitness, spending more time in the “delta” zone?  Katharine encourages holistic fitness which incorporates education, stress management, spirituality, exercise, nutrition, connectedness and environment.

Reflecting on the four stages, know your triggers, know your reactions, choose rationally and mind fitness, Katharine concluded by posing the question “what is the meaning in your life”?  Encouraging people to see the opportunity and make their choice.

How is all this relevant to us in the healthcare industry? It is the reality of how many “trigger points” are prevalent in each day and so how many “choices” need to be made, another role in itself.  Working with highly educated professionals, engaged community groups and patient populations within expanding or multinational businesses we encourage employees’ innovation, creativity and flexibility.  To maximise their motivation and energy for work we need to ensure we “pause” and remember how rarely we are in those life and death situations.  We are there to educate, inform, instil and mentor these skills in all our employees in the hope that they embrace it and thrive as a result, forming the next generation of leaders.