Leadership Done Differently with Neuroscience
Leadership expert Blaz Marolt, drawing from his background at the US Military Academy at West Point and years of cross-industry experience, has a fascinating approach to leadership development through neuroscience. His insights reveal that understanding how our brains work isn’t just academic curiosity — it’s the key to unlocking more authentic, effective leadership.
Your Brain on Leadership: The Survival Imperative
“The brain’s main goal is survival,” Marolt explains, and this fundamental truth shapes everything about how we lead. When we understand that our leadership responses are deeply rooted in neurological patterns developed over millions of years of evolution, we can begin to work with our biology rather than against it.
This isn’t about excusing poor leadership behavior — it’s about understanding the underlying mechanisms so we can consciously choose better responses.
The Four Leadership Brains Within Your Brain
Marolt identifies four distinct areas of the brain that influence leadership style, each with its own characteristics and tendencies:
The Prefrontal Brain: Your Strategic Command Center
This is where higher-order thinking happens — planning, decision-making, and complex problem-solving. Leaders operating primarily from this area tend to be analytical and forward-thinking.
The Neocortex (“New Olympic”): Your Style Powerhouse
This region houses eight distinct leadership styles that Marolt has identified:
The Thinking Styles:
The Strategist: Masters of long-term vision and systematic planning
The Innovator: Natural creators who thrive on generating new ideas
The Philosopher: Deep thinkers who excel at conceptual frameworks
The Feeling Styles:
The Animator: Charismatic leaders who energize and inspire teams
The Participative: Collaborative leaders who build consensus
The Supportive: Nurturing leaders who prioritize team well-being
The Action Styles:
The Administrator: Detail-oriented leaders who excel at execution
The Competitive: Results-driven leaders who push for excellence
The Limbic (“Paralympic”) Brain: Your Emotional Controller
This area governs emotional responses and includes styles that can be particularly challenging:
Dominant: Leaders who control through authority and intimidation
Submissive: Leaders who avoid conflict and defer to others
Dominant-Submissive: Perhaps the most dangerous combination, switching between aggressive control and passive avoidance
Marolt warns that dominant and dominant-submissive styles can be particularly destructive to organizational culture, creating environments of fear and unpredictability.
The Reptilian Brain: Your Survival Processor
When stress hits, this ancient part of our brain takes over, triggering three primary responses:
Fight: Becoming aggressive or confrontational
Flight: Avoiding or escaping the situation
Freeze: Becoming paralyzed or indecisive
Understanding these responses is crucial because they often hijack our best leadership intentions during high-pressure moments.
Breaking the Stress Cycle: Practical Neuroscience
When team members or colleagues are in stress mode, Marolt offers concrete strategies to help them return to a more productive state:
Listen actively without immediately jumping to solutions
Offer concrete, actionable solutions when appropriate
Stay factual rather than emotional in your communication
These techniques work because they address the neurological needs of a stressed brain, helping it move from survival mode back to higher-order thinking.
Discovering Your Authentic Leadership Style
Authenticity isn’t just a buzzword — it’s a neurological imperative. Marolt suggests three key methods for discovering your genuine leadership style:
Self-Reflection: Regular introspection about your natural responses and preferences Trusted Feedback: Seeking honest input from colleagues who know you well Alignment Check: Ensuring your thoughts, emotions, and instincts are working in harmony
When leaders operate from their authentic style, they experience less cognitive dissonance and can sustain high performance without burnout.
Leadership vs. Management: A Neurological Distinction
Marolt draws a crucial distinction that many organizations miss:
Management is primarily a left-brain function focused on organizing tasks, resources, and systems. It’s logical, systematic, and process-oriented.
Leadership engages emotional intelligence and what Marolt calls “positive manipulation” — the ability to influence others’ emotional states in beneficial ways. This requires understanding and working with the full spectrum of human neurology.
The most effective leaders seamlessly integrate both functions, knowing when to manage systems and when to lead people.
The Power of Informal Leadership
Perhaps most intriguingly, Marolt emphasizes that formal authority (your title) and actual leadership influence (your impact) are neurologically distinct.
Informal leadership — the kind that builds genuine trust and influence — operates through different neural pathways than formal authority. This explains why some people can lead effectively without formal titles, while others struggle to lead despite having significant positional power.
Putting Neuroscience to Work
The implications of Marolt’s work extend far beyond theoretical understanding. When leaders grasp these neurological principles, they can:
Adapt their communication style to match their team’s neurological state
Recognize their own stress responses before they derail important decisions
Develop authentic leadership approaches that feel natural and sustainable
Build more resilient teams by understanding how stress affects group dynamics
The Future of Leadership Development
As our understanding of neuroscience deepens, leadership development is shifting from generic skill-building to personalized approaches based on individual neurological patterns. This isn’t about putting people in boxes — it’s about understanding the unique wiring that makes each leader effective.
Marolt’s work suggests that the future belongs to leaders who understand not just what to do, but why their brains are wired to do it. By working with our neurology rather than against it, we can develop leadership approaches that are both more effective and more sustainable.