Issue No. 498 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting features a new book with 10 “brain rules,” including this one: “Power is like fire. It can cook your food or burn your house down.” And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies), click here for over 500 book reviews, and click here for the Mastering Mistake-Making webpage. (See Mistake #23 below.)
The author of Brain Rules cannonballs into the leadership pool—and his one-two punch is noteworthy.
What’s Your Leadership Style: Empathy or Toughness?
What’s not to love about a developmental molecular biologist—a brain guy—who is gutsy enough to write a chapter on leadership!Dr. John Medina, an affiliate professor of bioengineering at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, has authored numerous “Brain Rules” books (read my 2008 review)—and this new one may be his best yet (just released on Nov. 23): Brain Rules for Work: The Science of Thinking Smarter in the Office and at Home. He writes:
“I admit I’m hesitant to write about leadership. And the biggest reason is that I’m a chicken. It takes chutzpah to address a subject with so many uncontrolled variables. I’m not sure that I or my chosen field of study are up to the task. Noted business guru Peter Drucker seems ready to wave a white flag too. Says he: “The only definition of a leader is someone who has followers.”
While Medina appreciates Drucker’s “simplicity but not his explanatory power,” the author cannonballs into the leadership pool—and his one-two punch is noteworthy. His leadership Brain Rule: “Leaders need a whole lot of empathy and a little willingness to be tough.”
And get this! To explain his leadership thesis, he cites a study, “A Dual Model of Leadership and Hierarchy: Evolutionary Synthesis”—about the continuum between the Dominance style of leadership and the Prestige style of leadership. To illustrate, he includes scenes from the lovable holiday movie, A Christmas Story. (How’s that for perfect timing this week!) Watch this scene from the movie:
View the epic battle: Ralphie vs. Skut Farkus in A Christmas Story (3 min.).
What’s your leadership style: empathy or toughness? Dr. Medina says the difference between Prestige and Dominance “comes down to leading with forearms versus foreheads.” (I think Medina could do stand-up comedy!)
DOMINANCE STYLE. “People on this side of the pool obviously derive their power from an asymmetrical distribution of strengths. The strength can be physical—like Farkus’s ability to overpower weaker boys. The asymmetry can be coalitional too, the ability to compel toadies to do the bidding of the leader. This style is mostly leadership by coercion, exploiting combustible mixtures of anger, fear, and distress to maintain control.”
Medina cautions that “Joseph Stalin was a leader whose use of dominating tactics showed the extreme side of this leadership style.” Dominance leaders frequently offer loyalty programs with rewards, but they’re “not good at sustaining long-term productivity.” They “can make life miserable for subordinates…and often do.”
PRESTIGE STYLE. “To understand what alternatives exist, we have to swim over to the other side of the Dual Model pool, under the sign marked ‘prestige.’” To illustrate this style, Medina turns to the mother’s style in A Christmas Story.
In the hilarious scene when Ralphie’s younger brother, Randy, won’t eat his meat loaf and mashed potatoes for his father (“I’ll get that kid to eat. Where’s my screwdriver and plumber’s helper? I’ll open up his mouth and shove it in.”), Mom comes to the rescue with her “Prestige” leadership style. (View the 2-minute clip here.)
“Mom had knowledge about what it would take to get her little boy to eat his food, which she implemented—and it didn’t involve a screwdriver. Some would call this wisdom.”
Dr. Medina explains, “Prestige leaders posses the skills and knowledge necessary to understand the relational ecologies of the people they lead. To motivate their followers, prestige leaders identify what makes them tick, then use this insight to accomplish their goals.” He adds, “Dominance leaders tend to command; prestige leaders prefer to influence.” (Hmmm. To find out what makes your team members tick, maybe a refresher on the “3 Powerful S’s: Strengths, Social Styles, and Spiritual Gifts” might be helpful? See Mistakes #16, #17, and #18 in Mastering Mistake-Making.)
Short pause for a rabbit hole! I’m a reader, not a listener, so this may shock my regular eNews readers. For this book, I double-dipped and LISTENED to the audio book narrated by Dr. Medina (often witty) and then, later, underlined memorable one-liners and sections in my hardback book. This may be a new lifelong learning methodology for me. Apparently, you can teach an old dog new tricks!
Honest. I didn’t plan to focus on the leadership brain rule when I read/listened to this book—because there is so, so much more on “the science of thinking smarter at the office and at home.” Nine more rules and dozens of insights, including:
1) MEDINA GRUMP FACTOR. Read why one of Medina’s business clients labeled the author’s skepticism about “what research says (and doesn’t say) about the complexities of human conduct” as the “Medina Grump Factor.” His response: “There’s a lot of high-fructose nonsense out there, especially in the realm of self-help advice.”
2) POST-COVID? Dr. Medina is warning “clients about relying too heavily on people looking at behavioral crystal balls to predict the future of work beyond COVID-19. If past is prologue, most people will get it wrong anyway.”
3) TEAMS BRAIN RULE. “Teams are more productive, but only if you have the right people.” He begins this chapter with the boss in the Dilbert cartoon “announcing the team’s less-than-stellar performance.” Dilbert’s boss: “I only brought one teamwork award mug, so you’ll have to take turns drinking from it.” (Or…you could buy a Demotivators® poster from Despair, Inc. that reads: “TEAMS: Together we can do the work of one.”)
Order this hilarious poster from Despair, Inc.
4) HOME OFFICE. Medina offers very practical ideas (based on brain research) on how to be productive in your home office, including: Zoom “staring matches,” procrastination, and how to create a showrunner’s agenda to improve online meetings. His chapter summaries include memorable bullet points and the specific brain rule for each, plus “What to do next Monday” insights.
5) THE BUSINESS OFFICE BRAIN RULE. “The brain developed in the great outdoors. The organ still thinks it lives there.” Wow. This chapter changed my thinking—and should be a must-read for everyone, especially my friends and colleagues serving in Christian camps and outdoor ministries.
6) CREATIVITY BRAIN RULE. “Failure should be an option—as long as you learn from it.” Three cheers for mistake-making and this: “I’m going to begin this chapter by asking you to think of as many new uses as you can for a brick.” Brilliant! And this from tech columnist Michael S. Malone: “Outsiders think of Silicon Valley as a success, but it is, in truth, a graveyard. Failure is Silicon Valley’s greatest strength.”
Don’t skip any chapters, especially the Brain Rule on Presentations. “Capture your audience’s emotion, and you will have their attention (at least for ten minutes).” I read and listened to this chapter twice—before facilitating a half-day training session last month. Yikes! To remind you how emotions trigger your brain, Medina begins with “one of the most iconic advertisements of all time.” View Mean Joe Green’s Coke commercial. It won most ad awards in 1979 including the Clio.
By the way, Medina also wrote Brain Rules for Aging Well. I do plan to read and review (and listen to) that book down the road—once I’m old enough!
To order from Amazon, click on the title for Brain Rules for Work: The Science of Thinking Smarter in the Office and at Home, by John Medina. Are you a listener? Listen to the book on Libro.fm (8 hours, 36 minutes). And thanks to Pear Press for a review copy and Libro.fm for the audio version.
BOOK AUDIO
YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) In Dr. Medina’s chapter on conflict bias, he highlights the compelling presentation made by Fred Rogers (Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood) at a senate hearing on PBS funding in 1969. The $20 million subsidy was facing the axe. (View the 7-minute video here.) “The magic in the room became palpable. His gentle kindness and emotional steadiness spread across the assembly as if Rogers were their pastor, and the Senate chambers his church.” Suggestion: watch this at your next staff meeting and facilitate a conversation on what happened in that hearing—and why.
2) The Conflict/Bias Brain Rule reads: “Conflicts can be resolved by changing your thought life. It helps to have a pencil.” Fascinating! Dr. Medina also cautions, “Be wary of any HR training programs that claim to eliminate bias.” OK…team. Who will read and report on this chapter next week?
This will get your attention! “CEOs, on average, have the lowest EQ scores in the workplace.” Authors Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves add, “Considering the mountain of literature about EQ, you’d think corporate executives would be pretty smart about it.” (See Mistake #23 in Mastering Mistake-Making.)
Mistake #23 of 25: Being Overconfident in My Bag of Tricks
Insights from Mastering Mistake-Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—And What I Learned
John’s Mistake #23: “I was sailing along in my leadership career, overly confident that my ‘bag of tricks’ would serve me in every leadership situation. I had a lot to learn.”
John writes, “Without outside help and coaching, I would have continued my dysfunctional ways—to the detriment of my working relationships. Leading in a vacuum, without honest feedback, was a big mistake. What I learned at the Center for Creative Leadership [which included assessments from John’s direct reports and board chair]—was certainly one of the top 10 experiences in my life.”
For Mistake #23, John recommends this book and assessment:
• Emotional Intelligence 2.0 (The World’s Most Popular Emotional Intelligence Test), by Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves (read John's review)
______________________________________________________________________________________
"MISTAKES ARE LIKE TUITION." Read the blog by Dr. Richard (Rick) Goossen, Chairman of The Entrepreneurial Leaders Organization (The ELO Network), "Have You Mastered the Craft of Making Mistakes?" And listen to George P. Wood's interview with John Pearson, "“How to Make Mistakes Well” on the Influence Podcast. And, if you missed John's half-day board seminar on Nov. 18, 2021, hosted by The Barnabas Group/Orange County, “The 4 Big Mistakes to Avoid With Your Nonprofit Board – How Leaders Enrich Their Ministry Results Through God-Honoring Governance," you can now order the 107-page workbook on Amazon. Click here.
JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Need help with Brain Rule #6 on Presentations? “Capture your audience’s emotion, and you will have their attention (for at least ten minutes)." Contact Pearpod Media (Design, Digital, Marketing, Social).
Your Weekly Staff Meeting is emailed free one to three times a month to subscribers. We do not accept any form of compensation from authors or publishers for book reviews. As an Amazon Associate, we earn Amazon gift cards from qualifying purchases. As a Libro.fm Affiliate, we earn credits. PRIVACY POLICY: Typepad, Inc. hosts John Pearson's Buckets Blog. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform for Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews. By clicking (above) to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy policy here.
Comments