Have you noticed that in dangerous jobs, good bosses tend to have deep bonds with their workers? Whether it’s a captain and crew on a crab fishing boat in the Bering Sea, a platoon commander and his troops in Afghanistan, or a tree-cutting foreman and his team in the forest — people in dangerous working conditions sense they need to trust each other and their boss to survive.
As a manager, you may not be working on a fishing boat or in armed combat. But you need to motivate your people to get things done. Do you have that kind of bond? Or have you been taught to manage by objectives and metrics to monitor performance, and that bonding with your team members will be seen as a distraction at best or weakness at worst? Many have. Perhaps that’s why a recent survey found that more workers would trust a total stranger more than their own boss.
At the Neuroleadership Summit in New York City this October we jointly presented research and findings explaining why leaders should develop the capacity to build secure attachments and personal relationships. The productive manager in a complex, global workplace should be less like a football coach with a whistle around his neck and more like a belayer helping climbers reach the next goal. While it is true that companies with abundant resources can afford to use fear as a motivator and absorb the cost of more frequent hirings and firings, this approach frequently ends up being memorialized in case studies of failed leaders and shuttered businesses.
Let’s look at some of the reasons impersonal leadership fails. For George Kohlrieser — who has acted as police psychologist and hostage negotiator in addition to his role as a leadership professor and management consultant — the dynamics of hostage negotiation helped him learn that most of us are hostages at work in different ways, to emotions such as anxiety, fear, and ambition. To escape from these emotional hostage situations, each of us needs a secure base — a person, place, goal or object that provides a place of protection, gives a sense of comfort, and a source of energy.
This is important to managers because they need to motivate people to respond to changing circumstances and goals. When it comes to employees making change, they don’t resist change itself. They resist the pain of change and fear of the unknown that comes with it. This leads many employees to think more defensively, to hold back, and resist pursuing success and playing to win. In the workplace, leaders who show concern and interest in their employees’ lives and a predictable set of rules, create a healthy attachment that empowers others to embrace the risk of pursuing success.
Naomi Eisenberger’s research and that of other neuroscientists helps us understand why this makes sense. A lack of feeling connected with others creates pain — not only the discomfort of loneliness, but symptoms analogous to physical pain. In fact, some of the same brain regions that respond to physical pain also respond to “social pain” — the painful feelings associated with social rejection or loss. Naomi’s experiments at UCLA showed that taking Tylenol actually reduced “hurt feelings” — experiences of social isolation and rejection.
Feeling connected is intrinsically rewarding to the brain. That’s because our brains evolved to greatly value social attachment. Because human maturation takes so long compared to other species, social pain became a way to encourage us to stay socially attached to promote survival. If separation from a caregiver is a threat to survival, feeling hurt by separation may be an adaptation to prevent that.
No one is suggesting that managers should act or see themselves in a caregiving or paternalistic fashion; these insights help managers work with people’s strengths and tendencies, rather than against them. Isolating an employee with authoritative demands and intimidation triggers a sense of isolation, threat, fear. Then the brain slams the brakes on the prefrontal cortex and makes it harder for people to think productively.
Naomi’s research shows another positive side to developing secure attachments at work. Having support figures present during experiences of stress helps us stay more relaxed and reduces threat responses; strong bonds can help teams survive and thrive in crisis situations. Naomi’s experiments found that mild electric shocks gave far more discomfort to individuals if they had a stranger instead of a friend or partner present with them. Giving support is also psychologically rewarding to those who give it, generating a sense of reward and connection.
It’s a cliché that the gruff commander deeply trusted by his soldiers has a better chance of leading his team to survive a high-risk attack. Or that the crew of a boat that intuitively trusts their captain and follows her orders will make it through the storm. But it’s more than a cliché; it’s a useful human response to stress. As a manager of any enterprise, your own storm will come someday. You and your team will be tested — and you won’t have time to get to know each other. Explore the power of personal leadership now. We think you’ll like the results.
NAOMI EISENBERGER AND GEORGE KOHLRIESER
Naomi Eisenberger is an Assistant Professor of Social Psychology at UCLA. George Kohlrieser is an organizational and clinical psychologist, a professor of Leadership and Organizational Behaviour at The International Institute for Management Development (IMD), and consultant to global organizations around the world.
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