Neuroleadership Research in Organization

As one of Management and Business faculty, SBM ITB is trying to advance its technology usage in searching for new findings. Neuro-science is one of the scientific studies of the nervous system which can assist us in business decision making. And by this consideration, SBM ITB held an event regarding this knowledge with the topic  “Neuroleadership Research in Organization” on 13 March 2020.

Neuro-science is looking for biological response which aims to create a strategic decision making, which in this case is used in leadership knowledge. There are many kinds of biological responses, such as brain waves, heart rate, sweat, and eye movements.

The speaker of this seminar is Sunu Widianto. He was a very good speaker to be invited since he had lots experience in leadership and organizational behavior. First, he explained about human’s system thinking. Technically, the way we think is divided into two. They are directed by the right or left sides of the brain. The right side of the brain tends to be more emphasizing on intuition, involuntary control, effortlessness, innate skills, speed and reflex while the left side of the brain tends to be more patience, concentration, construct thoughts, analytics, effort, and reason.

To know what side of the brain we usually use, Sunu invited us to do several tests. Which thumb is on top when our hands are clenched and which hand that used to be on the top when we fold our arms. If you get the right thumb which goes on top, then you are considered as left-sided brain, and if you get the right hand go above your arms, then you are also categorized as left-sided brain, it applies vice versa. Pak Sunu also had prepared an image that can be interpreted as a picture of a tiger and monkey. If we first see it as a monkey, then it explains us as the one who uses the right-side brain. On the contrary to that, if we catch the picture as a tiger, then it describes us as the one who tends to use the left-side brain. But, not everyone got the same result on the all test. And, it was reasonable since the majority of people use both sides of the brain.

Social cognitive is the study of processes in the human brain that allow people to understand others, understand themselves, and navigate the social world effectively. Sunu also explained  about the research result of the expert in relation with which brain-side is more effective to become a leader. Many of them said that the right hemisphere is largely responsible for imagination, creativity, visual imagery, and emotional response, all of which can potentially be tied to effective leadership. Many of them assume that left-brain dominant individuals are more rational and tend to be good planners instead of managers or leaders.

But, recent studies would seem to confirm the idea that both hemispheres of the brain may indeed be relevant to managerial effectiveness. On the other hand, we also believe that emerging evidence suggests that at least certain aspects of effective managerial behavior may be primarily relevant to particular hemispheres.

“Effective leader behavior is likely to reflect a combination of emotional control and understanding, reasoning skills, perspective or isight, communication skills, and so forth. It classified the theory as two things that are the brain activity and behavior stimuli. The leader behavior model is based on the idea that there is an inherent brain capacity or neurological structure that is relatively enduring or stable over time while behavior stimuli is a certain part of the leader which induces the brain activity,” Sunu said.