Over the past decade, as an executive consultant and coach for dozens of the world's largest and most innovative companies, I've watched my clients spend millions with Big Five consulting firms to implement change management or leadership (Figure I.1) development initiatives. Many months later, these consulting firms delivered comprehensive and detailed Lean and Six Sigma roadmaps to a glorious future based on the latest management trends. That was the easy part. The hard part was inspiring individuals on each functional team to willingly grab the keys and drive toward the destination on the map.

A change management or leadership development roadmap outlines what we should do to get somewhere, but rarely does it address how we'll get there. Moreover, it does not usually articulate why we should go there in the first place. The real why is not about perceived problems we need to rectify, it's about defining purpose and passion, which far transcends a simple mission statement. The how is not really about the individual process steps we will take to get there, it's about how we'll convince our teams to go there enthusiastically. The what is not only about a comprehensive process to drive more efficiency, it's about the foundational leadership principles the organization and its leaders embrace.

With a sincere desire to make a difference in our organization, many of us have hired consultants or read great leadership books written by excellent authors. We started following the advice of these experts and perhaps we made some progress. Then we started taking one step forward and two steps back. Why?

It's because we have lives and brains. Our lives often get in the way of our brains and vice versa. We're juggling kids, soccer games, piano lessons, PTA meetings, volunteer organizations, social engagements, and the demands of our profession. We're hammering out emails to San Francisco or Beijing at 2 A.M. We want to start adopting that new leadership habit, but our busy lives make it nearly impossible to retrain our brain. Vanquishing our dusty old habits to adopt shiny new ones seems like an impossible task. How do we solve this problem?

The 7 Secrets of Neuron Leadership provides simple and clear answers to this pervasive question. This book offers startling new ways to train our brain by allowing us to better understand how our minds work considering recent neuroscientific discoveries. It also provides insights from dozens of top military commanders who have led small teams in some of the most demanding and dangerous environments imaginable. Many are now CEOs or senior executives with large firms. Finally, this book reveals ancient wisdom passed down from the Greeks that can help us understand how to lead teams with passion, compassion, and love.

Most other leadership books focus on the latest skills, practices, and habits. These are important, but they are primarily outward‐reflective qualities. The best leaders understand that you can't judge a book by its cover. The true quality of a book is found on its pages, not on its jacket. It's not enough to act like a leader. When we strip away the surface‐level veneer that we display to the world, we must also embody the inner qualities of a leader down to the core of our being. While The 7 Secrets of Neuron Leadership does offer unique perspectives to improve our outward capabilities and skill sets, this book is primarily designed to help us better understand why leadership is an inside job.

In his book, Intelligent Leadership: What You Need to Know to Unlock Your Full Potential, John Mattone describes three key elements to successful leadership:

1. Capability: This refers to a leader's present skills and competencies that can be developed, nourished, and enhanced.
2. Commitment: This is about the motivational factors that drive leaders including passion, desire, motivation, and zeal.
3. Connectedness: Internally, great leaders are aligned with a set of values and character elements that drive success. Externally, they are aligned and connected to the mission values and goals of the organization.

Again, while this book does touch upon leadership Capability, it primarily focuses on the “inside” qualities of Commitment and Connectedness, but from an entirely new perspective.

WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?

Worldwide, bad leadership is costing organizations over one trillion dollars each year.

A Gallup poll conducted in 2015 revealed that about 50 percent of the adults surveyed left a job to get away from a manager. A similar Gallup study of more than 1 million U.S. workers found that the number one reason people quit their jobs is poor leadership.

In the 2013 Gallup State of the American Workplace study, researchers stunned U.S. firms by revealing that only one‐third of workers are engaged in their jobs, leaving more than two‐thirds who are completely or partially disengaged. The estimated cost to U.S. firms is over $500 billion each year in lost productivity and revenue. Given that only 48 percent of Americans have a full‐time job, and only one‐third are engaged, that means only 16 percent of the U.S. population is actively engaged in full‐time work.

Gallup studies have concluded that work groups with bad leaders are 50 percent less productive and 44 percent less profitable than well‐managed teams. A Barna Group study found that two in five Americans rank their boss as “bad,” and just one in five assigns only positive attributes. They also discovered that 90 percent of Americans believe the nation is facing a crisis of leadership.

Researchers from Eastern Kentucky University's Bachelor of Science in Occupational Safety program uncovered that workplace stress is costing U.S. firms $300 billion each year for healthcare and lost work days. They created an infographic showing that 77 percent of workers exhibit physical symptoms caused by work stress and 60 percent said they wanted a new career.

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) predicts that every time an organization has to replace a salaried employee, it costs between six and nine months of salary. The Center for American Progress (CAP) reports that for an educated executive, the cost is more like 213 percent of annual salary.

An infographic created by Inc. magazine is eye opening. The title reads: “The Real Productivity‐Killer: Jerks.” Inc. infers that bad bosses aren't just a pain, they're bad for business. Colorful graphics in this report disclose that 65 percent of employees would choose a better boss over a pay raise. Around one‐third confessed to dialing back their productivity due to poor leadership. The Inc. study concludes that it's not what bosses do that makes them bad, it's what they don't do.

The number one thing they don't do is inspire their teams. The number two thing they don't do is improve productivity—because they accept mediocrity. The number three thing is not providing a clear vision, and number four is not being a good team leader.

Many experts believe that bad leadership is often related to a bad culture. A survey conducted on 200,000 employees across 500 firms indicated that 71 percent of those organizations have mediocre to poor cultures.¹

Bad team leaders and mediocre cultures are not limited to the United States. The Chartered Institute of Management (CIM) found that almost half of all workers in Britain left at least one job solely because of a bad boss. In Australia, around two‐thirds of workers who responded to a CareerOne survey rated their leaders as either “horrible” or “average.”

Obviously, firms with bad leaders need to change, but so do many organizations with mostly good leaders. They need to change because everything around them is changing. They need to change because the difference between good leadership and great leadership could equate to tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars in profit.

Leaders who recognize the need to change, and are courageous enough to do so, can learn a great deal about leadership from three excellent sources of wisdom.

WHAT CAN LEADERS LEARN FROM NEUROSCIENTISTS?

The fastest supercomputer in the world is China's Tianhe‐2. This beast has 18,000 times more moxie than your Sony PlayStation® and is 400,000 times faster than an iPhone 7®, but it will never know sadness, kindness, or joy. It will never understand the meaning of hope, failure, or inspiration. And it will never feel happiness, fear, or love. It will never be able to lead or inspire teams because human beings aren't computers. Trying to lead people without a thorough understanding of how their brains work is like trying to become a golf pro without learning how to properly swing a club. Some leaders are naturally gifted and may do well, but rarely does someone make it to the pros without studying the science of the swing.

The science behind the “leadership swing” is called neuroscience.

Some of the world's top neuroscientists, many of whom are associated with leading institutions like Harvard University, have made startling discoveries in the last decade about the human brain. Some of these insights can help leaders dramatically improve employee morale, productivity, and retention. For example, increasing oxytocin can substantially enhance organizational trust and customer brand loyalty. Dozens of blue‐chip firms have also discovered that employing neuromarketing principles can offer marketers the equivalent of a flashlight and a roadmap into the decision‐making centers of a customer's brain.

WHAT CAN LEADERS LEARN FROM THE ANCIENT GREEKS?

The Greeks knew more about love and each other than we do. They promulgated the Enneagram personality profiler, which some believe is far more precise than Myers‐Briggs or similar systems. The modern world uses only one word for love; the ancient Greeks used seven. Each is directly related to and serves as a foundational element for the Seven Secrets of Neuron Leadership outlined in this book. For some readers, approaching leadership development from the perspective of “love” may seem a bit too touchy‐feely. After all, isn't this a business book? Shouldn't we be discussing the net net and the bottom line and quarterly business reviews?

For those who see a disconnect between business and the science of love—including an understanding of why employees love their jobs and customers love your brand—I recommend a great business book titled Conscious Capitalism, co‐written by John Mackey, the co‐founder of Whole Foods Market. In this popular book, Mackey explains why firms that have a passion and purpose, and aspire to make an impact rather than only money, often financially outperform competitors by a factor of eleven to one on Wall Street.

The bottom line is that the Greeks have a lot to teach us about the net net.

WHAT CAN LEADERS LEARN FROM MILITARY COMMANDERS?

Before John F. Kennedy was president of the United States, he was a naval officer and the skipper of Motor Torpedo boat PT‐109. He commanded a crew of two officers and 14 sailors. These brave men charged headlong toward enemy warships that carried orders of magnitude more firepower.

One fateful night, Kennedy's PT‐109 was accidentally sliced in two by a Japanese destroyer. Kennedy led his team by example. He towed a badly burned enlisted man for four hours to reach a nearby island, and encouraged his men to help each other through their difficult ordeal. They were stranded on the island for almost a week, surviving on only coconuts and Kennedy's strong leadership. Many say this near‐death experience helped to create one of the most iconic and inspirational leaders of our time. Those who have served in small military units understand that team leadership does not start with a catastrophe. It starts with comradery, respect, and teamwork.

In modern society, experts now agree that the bottom‐up and top‐down leadership models of the past are no longer effective. In today's fast‐paced, internationally diverse, and Internet‐driven society, we need an entirely new form of team leadership that empowers each person on the team to contribute as leaders in the most optimal way.

The best team leadership examples can be found in tight military units such as Special Forces, submarines, platoons, air squadrons, and PT boats. In this book, dozens of former generals, admirals, Navy SEAL officers, and other military commanders with expertise in team leadership, many of whom are now corporate executives, share fascinating stories and insights to help us solve expensive and pervasive leadership problems.

THE LONG GAME

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus once said, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river, and he's not the same man.” The speed of business today makes it impossible to stand still. The river of life will pass us by. To be successful leaders, we must continuously improve our knowledge and skills lest we become obsolete.

That said, if your only motivation to become a better team leader is to make more money, you bought the wrong book. Increased revenue and market share may well be the byproduct of improved leadership, but it should not be your only goal. This book is not a magical pair of slippers that can be clicked three times to find your way across a rainbow or to a pot of gold. It is not a get‐rich‐quick scheme or an instructional manual on how to bend the universe and everyone in it to your will. You will not consistently invoke positive change by manipulation, coercion, deceit, or force. People need to be inspired, not compelled.

Rather than focus outwardly on trying to change everyone else, great leaders seek to change themselves. They understand that we must first make the appropriate and wise changes to our life, to our reactions, to our expectations, to our attitudes, to our communication style, to our mind and heart, and to our leadership style. We can then see a magical change in us—and perhaps in everyone we lead.

It's obvious that our world is in desperate need of better leadership. My heartfelt desire is that the secrets revealed in this book will inspire, inform, and motivate you and others to lead us all toward a brighter and better future. If you agree to embark on this exciting journey, you must be open to new concepts, methodologies, sciences, viewpoints, teachings, and, of course, change. Your path will be lined with years of research, experience, and insights, as well as inspirational knowledge offered by dozens of military commanders, experts, philosophers, authors, executives, world leaders, and even poets.

One of these poets is the late Dr. James Kavanaugh. He was the bestselling author of more than a dozen books and the best friend of my late father, William J. Reed. Dr. Kavanaugh's widow, Cathy Kavanaugh, graciously granted permission for a few of her husband's writings and poems to be reprinted in this book.

Kavanaugh's books have touched the hearts of millions, starting with his first poetry book, There Are Men Too Gentle to Live Among Wolves. A dozen publishers turned down this inspirational book that eventually sold more than 1 million copies. Kavanaugh then wrote Search: A Guide for Those Who Dare to Ask of Life Everything Good and Beautiful, which launched a movement and a series of workshops based on his unique approach to introspection and self‐healing.

Dr. Kavanaugh once told me that a “searcher” must be prepared for a journey, not an overnight stay in a motel. He called this “the long game,” a philosophy that helps us view our profession, and our life's purpose, as a journey, not a temporary situation. We can't play a few holes, walk off the course, and expect miraculous changes to occur. Improving our team leadership skills requires playing all eighteen holes. In the next chapter, we'll tee off at the first hole and discover an ancient secret that many leaders have used to dramatically improve their game.

Grateful

Grateful for the sight

 of a single star,

Grateful for the memories

 salvaged from afar.

Grateful for this time of silent peace,

Grateful beyond all words

 when the mad echoes cease.

Grateful for deliverance

 from a private hell,

Grateful beyond

 what a human voice can tell.

Grateful for the wonder of human love.

Grateful for some strange guidance from above.

 Grateful for life.

Grateful for rebirth,

 Grateful forever to live joyously on the earth.

—Dr. James Kavanaugh, Laughing Down Lonely Canyons