While many aspects involving the complexity of our brains are still unsolved puzzles (Figure 2.1), Dr. Paul D. MacLean, a renowned neuroscientist, postulated that humans don't have just one brain; we have three. He shared this theory with the world in his 1990 book The Triune Brain in Evolution. The late MacLean believed that each of our three brains evolved over time and formed three layers, like the layers of a cake, one atop the other. He served as the director of the Laboratory of Brain Evolution and Behavior in Poolesville, Maryland, and commented that our three brains work like three interconnected biological computers, and they each have their own intelligence, subjectivity, and sense of time, space, and memory.¹

Some leading neuroscientists agree with MacLean while others do not. For example, Dr. German Garcia‐Fresco is the director of the Adaptive Neuroscience Research Institute in West Hollywood, California. He has a PhD in molecular neurobiology from the University of North Carolina. He and his colleagues (also PhDs) published a paper titled “Neuroscience of Selling” wherein they refer to three brains—rational, emotional, and reptilian. Said Dr. Garcia‐Fresco, “I agree that it's not exclusive, but for the most part, the human brain can be divided into three areas. The neocortex is more rational, or logical, and involved with reasoning and high‐order thinking. The reptilian brain is the oldest part evolutionarily. It is more instinctual and consists of the brain stem and cerebellum. The limbic system or middle brain is where we find the hippocampus and amygdala, which produce most of our emotional chemicals and neurotransmitters.”

In contrast to Garcia‐Fresco and other neuroscientists, Dr. Paul Zak, a neuroeconomics expert with a PhD in economics, along with a few other neuroscientists, disagree with MacLean and argue that the human brain is a more unified system that is diverse in structure, connection, and function. While this is true, the MacLean camp PhDs point out that certain areas of our brain produce various chemicals and/or are more involved than other areas with respect to emotional, instinctual, or logical thought processes and responses.

Said Dr. Garcia‐Fresco, “There will always be controversy as the science is still maturing, but I think it is best to align with the science that is best supported and the least disputed.”

One could spend the next decade getting into the weeds and argue about which neurons fire at specific intervals in different regions of the brain, but I think we are safe to simplify things by assuming that Aristotle's observations were fairly accurate. Persuasion is a vital leadership ingredient, and to persuade we need to appeal to someone emotionally (pathos), instinctually (ethos), and logically (logos). Dr. Zak and Dr. Garcia‐Fresco concur that Aristotle was fairly accurate in his Persuasion Model conclusions.

For the purposes of simplification, we'll use the diagram shown in Figure 2.2 that refers to three parts of our brain, but I concede that many different areas may be involved rather than only three.

EMOTIONAL BRAIN

The limbic system, or the paleomammalian brain as neurobiologists call it, is comprised of the hippocampus, hypothalamus, and the amygdala. Again, some experts disagree that this part of our brain is “more emotional,” however, leading neuroscientists state that the amygdala is a critical center for coordinating behavioral, autonomic, and endocrine responses to environmental stimuli, especially those with emotional content.

This part of our head is involved with our emotions, love, excitement, heart rate, blood pressure, sweat glands, appetite, sexual desires, and the desire to seek pleasure and avoid pain. Areas in our limbic system are stimulated by mild electrical currents that invoke a myriad of emotions including love, which is influenced by a neuropeptide hormone called oxytocin that is produced in the hypothalamus. For women, oxytocin is released during labor and breastfeeding, and during sex with a mate. For men, it's also released during sex, but far more so when there is a close bond, such as in a loving relationship. One study, published in 2012, noted that oxytocin levels are higher in lovers as compared to single individuals, and remains highest during the first six months of a relationship.

In a later chapter, we'll learn how to stimulate someone's oxytocin level to not only keep those love fires burning throughout a long‐term relationship, but also how to inspire others to love your brand and trust you as a leader.

Our limbic system (again, not exclusively) is involved with our attention span, imprints emotionally charged memories, and determines our valence—whether we feel positive, negative, or neutral about something. It also affects our salience—whether something grabs and holds our attention or stimulates our creativity. Our middle brain influences our value judgments, action rationalizations, and decisions about whether an idea or leadership vision is good or bad. Should we become psychologically unhealthy, this part of our brain can plunge us into the depths of depression, paranoia, and addiction.

The non‐MacLean camp disagrees that the limbic system is primarily responsible for more of our emotional responses, but they do concur that it's important for leaders to raise oxytocin to instill trust and love—including love for one's profession, company, vision, and leaders. They also agree with the biological fact that oxytocin is often referred to as the love hormone and has been dubbed the hug hormone or bliss hormone due to its effects on human behavior, most especially its role in love.

Oxytocin is obviously responsible for an emotional (loving) response, and it's produced in the limbic system. Therefore, I think it's safe to assume that when our goal is to stimulate an emotional “loving” or “trust” response, we are primarily lighting up the limbic.

Unless we're psychotic, we are all striving to be happy. Increasing our production of oxytocin makes this more readily possible. It also decreases our cortisol levels. This nasty hormone controls our instinctual fight or flight responses, which on a short‐term basis can save our life. On the flip side, long‐term cortisol production can be extremely detrimental to our health.

To illustrate, let's say that a subordinate found a unique way to royally tick you off. Maybe they accidentally deleted a critical file that took you weeks to create. What happens to your brain? Your cortisol level shoots through the roof. Your instinctual triggers scream at you to go all caveman and “fight” by ranting and raving and throwing things around your office. That's what you want to do, but your logical mind reminds you that doing so could get you fired, or at the very least, earn you the reputation of being a royal asshole.

So instead, you sit there at your desk and fume. Your face turns red, your fingers curl into your palms, your eyes bulge, and maybe a few flames shoot out your nose. That's what happens on the surface. Underneath your skin, your vagus nerve, which reaches from your brain stem down to your stomach and affects most of your major organs along the way, lights on fire. This nerve becomes inflamed by too much cortisol, the culprit responsible for almost every ailment known to humankind. Angering your vagus nerve with stress and inflammation is like poking a mean bulldog with a stick.

What's the antidote?

Oxytocin. This hormone is highly involved in creating love and life, but it's also a cortisol killer. That's why we feel so relaxed after sex. By the way, smoking a cigarette after an orgasm is a bad idea because it'll raise your cortisol levels.

Dopamine (Figure 2.3) is a neurotransmitter released by the hypothalamus, which is located in the limbic system. Both MacLean and non‐MacLean groups agree that dopamine is involved with memory, pain/pleasure responses, behavior, cognition, learning, moods, and more. It's released during pleasurable situations, such as the anticipation of or indulgence in something exciting, interesting, and fun—like having sex, eating a juicy hamburger, going on vacation, winning a contest, or completing an important goal. One can argue that dopamine is also involved in instinctual “fight or flight” situations, but let's assume that, for the most part, dopamine is an emotional “feel‐good” chemical. In simplistic terms, dopamine regulates how we behave.

Many other brain chemicals are involved with our emotions, but can we agree that two of the more important ones are directly related to love and pleasure? If so, dopamine and oxytocin are predominately produced in the limbic system, so can we nod our heads in agreement that the limbic system is more involved with emotional responses than other areas? If yes, then it's important to know that this part of our brain does not respond well to a communication style that is more logical and that employs lots of facts, figures, written copy, graphs, charts, and so on. Instead, pictures, video, audio, tactile, or olfactory (smell) stimuli will be more effective at eliciting an emotional response. To impact teams emotionally, leaders should therefore limit the use of spreadsheets and instead use more pictures, sounds, and vocal timbre.

INSTINCTUAL BRAIN

The MacLean followers say this part of our brain includes the stem and cerebellum and is responsible for safety responses, harm avoidance, motor balance, and survival instincts. It is also responsible for involuntary actions such as heart rate and food digestion. The anti‐MacLeaners do not completely concur, but biologically both camps agree that the vagus nerve, discussed earlier, originates from the brainstem. MacLeaners note that the brainstem is located in the reptilian brain or R‐Complex. Also as we learned earlier, the vagus nerve is where the cortisol “antagonist” resides. Since this hormone controls our instinctual fight or flight responses, can we not agree that our “instinctual brain” includes our cortisol brain?

In Dr. Zak's excellent book, Trust Factor: The Science of Creating High Performance Companies, he states that “trust begets oxytocin” and “high levels of [chronic] stress inhibit the release of oxytocin.” While this chemical obviously belongs in the emotional bucket, it is also the antidote to our cortisol‐triggered instinctual fight or flight response. If we trust someone, we will not be instinctually inclined to run away or punch them in the nose. Who do we trust? Dr. Zak said, “Think of trust as the biological basis for the Golden Rule: if you treat me nice, my brain makes oxytocin, signaling that you are a person whom I want to be around, so I treat you nice in return.”

The fear of pain is also an instinctual trigger. Norepinephrine (Figure 2.4) is produced by the adrenal medulla, which is located in an adrenal gland atop our kidneys. Does that mean our reptilian brain is located in our kidneys? Not quite. Norepinephrine (noradrenaline) is released by our kidneys, but it affects a part of our brain called the locus coerules, which is located in the R‐Complex brainstem. So perhaps both the MacLean and non‐MacLean scientists are correct. Our instinctual adrenaline hormones are not exclusively located in our brainstem, but that part of our brain does have some dominion over the norepinephrine neurotransmitter.

While still disputed by some neuroscientists, MacLean postulated that the reptilian brain (R‐Complex) is the only part that most reptiles have. A snake, therefore, only acts out of instinctual self‐preservation. This is probably why lawyers are often called snakes, but I digress.

Experts call it the archipallium, primitive, or “basal brain.” Our instinctual brain (again, I'm referring to more than just the reptilian brainstem) is often obsessive/compulsive, rigid, paranoid, and ritualistic. It is crammed full of ancestral memories and, well, instincts. It drives us to keep repeating old behaviors over and over again because, if they kept us alive before, they will keep us alive again. Don't eat molded berries or that nasty yellow snow.

Our instinctual brain is always alert and never sleeps, which is why we can be instantly awakened by a potential threat, like someone trying to steal that candy bar we hid under our pillow. It's motivated by fear of loss, harm, or conflict, and is involved with aggression, dominance, and repetition. Here's another interesting fact: our instinctual brain does not respond well to the written word, numbers, statistics, or anything logical. It prefers sights, sounds, smells, and touch. If you're a leader, and you're trying to motivate your team to follow you, follow instructions, or follow their gut instincts, doing so with a presentation or speech filled with only a bunch of numbers may fail miserably.

In summary, our “instinctual brain” helps govern norepinephrine, an adrenaline neurotransmitter involved in fight or flight responses. In simplistic terms, it regulates how we think. This part of our brain also controls cortisol, which is the antithesis to oxytocin. We'll discover later when and how cortisol stimulation is desirable in certain situations, but for now it's important to note that encouraging oxytocin release will lead to happier and more trusting and productive workers. Robbing people of oxytocin and raising cortisol by using fear or other instinctual motivators will do just the opposite. Said Dr. Zak, “The science shows that fear‐based management is a losing proposition because people acclimate to fear quickly. Fear‐inducing leaders must ramp up threats to increase productivity, but there are only so many threats one can make.”

Going forward, when I discuss the “instinctual brain,” I am not referring exclusively to the reptilian brainstem, but to those parts of the brain that shoot us full of cortisol and norepinephrine and cause us to put on war paint or run for cover.

LOGICAL BRAIN

Our neocortex is the area of our brain that experts call the cerebrum, cortex, neopallium, neomammalian, superior, or rational brain. Why they need six names to define something defies logic, but this part of our brain is what separates us from the animals. Perhaps that's why we refer to animalistic individuals as “dogs.”

Here's a strange fact: Our neocortex takes up two‐thirds of our brain mass. In animals, it's just the opposite. Their neocortex is much smaller and has far fewer folds, which is indicative of less development and complexity. Remove the neocortex from a rat and it will act like a rat. Remove the neocortex from a man and he'll act like a vegetable. You can also accomplish that with a pint of tequila, so I've heard.

Our cortex is divided into two parts. This is where we get that famous left and right brain thing. The left cortex controls our right side and vice versa. As most of us know, our right brain is more artistic, musical, and abstract, while our left brain is more rational, verbal, and linear. The non‐MacLean dissenters do not agree that our neocortex reigns supreme over our logical inclinations; however, ScienceDaily states that our neocortex is involved with the higher functions of our brain, including spatial reasoning, sensory perception, conscious thought, the generation of motor commands, and language processing. Leading psychologists agree that our neocortex receives and stores information for decision making and is involved with abstract reasoning and judgment.

If we agree with the above definitions, then it stands to reason that the neocortex is more involved than other parts of our brain in processing logical information. Non‐MacLeaners point out that the neocortex is not the exclusive host of logical thought or action, but to keep things simple, when I refer to our “logical brain,” I concede that it may include areas beyond the frontal lobe. Regardless, persuading someone from a logical perspective is better achieved by using facts, figures, written words, research, graphs, and so forth that will appeal more to the logical brain. Pictures, video, and audio can help reinforce concepts, but they will be more effective at stirring emotions than gaining rational agreement.

Also, because of the way our brains are wired, we humans will respond three times more often to a potential threat (instinctual) than to a potential gain (emotional or logical); so stop dwelling on all those “value propositions” to motivate employees and customers and instead focus on instinctual consequences. Then, develop trust and raise oxytocin levels by helping people avoid pain.

OUR SUBCONSCIOUS MIND

Can we agree that leaders can't lead effectively without persuading? If your team is not persuaded to follow you, accomplish the goals, or buy into the vision, then your ability to lead will be greatly diminished. Aristotle has shown us that to persuade, we need to appeal to someone's emotional, instinctual, and logical “brains.” Many neuroscientists concur that the primary chemicals, hormones, functions, and so on, that trigger these three responses are conjured in or mostly affected by three parts of our brain.

Gerald Zaltman, a prominent neuroscientist from Harvard University, is the author or editor of over 20 books on various topics involving neuroscience. He stated that at least 95 percent of human cognition is subconscious, while our high‐order consciousness is only involved with about 5 percent of decision making.

The higher‐order consciousness he refers to is, predominately, the realm of our logical brain. In other words, we humans are allowing our emotions and instincts to dominate how we make decisions. We smell that new car leather and our logical brain, which is trying to warn us that we can't afford the car payment, is given only a 5 percent seat at the table.

Dr. Zak agrees with Zaltman that more than 95 percent of our decisions are ultimately made by our subconscious mind, which is usually not very logical. Therefore, we can't just win logical minds, we must also win emotional hearts and instinctual guts. To win someone's heart and gut, they must like and trust us, and to win their minds, they must believe our logic.

Zaltman patented some of his science under the term Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique (ZMET). By employing ZMET, he explored unconscious behavior using emotional response testing and metaphors to stimulate purchase scenarios. The objective was to create foundational advertising elements, such as images, for commercials. This work, combined with other discoveries made by Harvard researchers, led to an exciting new field called neuromarketing, a term coined in 2002 by researcher Ale Smidts.

The use of neuromarketing is expanding rapidly at Yahoo!, eBay, CBS, Google, PepsiCo, Ford Motor Co., Hyundai, Hewlett‐Packard, Frito‐Lay, Coca Cola, Procter & Gamble, and many other companies worldwide.

While neuroscientists and neuromarketers would like to believe that these discoveries are groundbreaking, Aristotle obviously had a glimpse of this concept when he created his Persuasion Model eons ago. Also, George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff, a Russian philosopher and teacher (of Greek descent, by the way), often referred to humans as “three‐brained beings.” One brain for the body (gut), one for the spirit (head), and one for the soul (heart). Plato referred to similar concepts, as did Kabbalah spiritual leaders.

Throughout human history, our observational science has far preceded our learned science. For centuries, we observed the stars and recorded what they did, but until our astronomical science caught up, we didn't understand why. Likewise, for centuries we have observed how humans act and think and make decisions, but until the advent of neuroscience, we didn't understand why.

Now we do.

INNIES AND OUTTIES

Few of us blink an eye when asked whether we or someone we know is introverted or extroverted. Research on this topic dates to the Myers‐Briggs Type Indicator of the 1940s. Today, around 2 million people each year take the test. Leading psychologists concur that introverts are not necessarily shy, but can become drained by social encounters and thus need to find time alone or with nature to recharge. Extroverts gain energy by interacting with others and can become drained by alone time or a simple walk in the woods. Extroverts often have a lot of friends, while introverts are more selective and prefer a few close relationships.

The ratio of introverts to extroverts is changing with generations. CPP (formerly Consulting Psychologists Press), publishers of the Myers‐Briggs assessments, reports that Baby Boomers, born before 1964, are roughly 50 percent extroverted; Generation Xers, born between 1965 and 1981, are 59 percent extroverted, while Millennials, born after 1981, are 62 percent extroverted.

There are varying degrees of introversion and extroversion, and some of us can cross the line upon occasion. However, if we take a hard look at our personality traits, we will discover that we tend to favor one side or the other most of the time. Why is this important?

During the 1940s, leadership researchers started analyzing the effects of introverted and extroverted managers, which led to research on specific leadership behaviors. They created two buckets in which these managers were dumped: You were either a task‐oriented or relationship‐oriented leader.

Task‐oriented leaders may be a bit more introverted and are focused on getting the job done, completing tasks, or achieving goals. These leaders exhibit modest concern for employee relationships and place more emphasis on achievements, organization, and structure. The upside is higher productivity, but at the cost of morale, which can eventually affect productivity. These leaders may seem a bit harsh or uncaring, but that's usually just their exterior demeanor and they often act this way to get results. Inside, most of them are just as much marshmallow as anyone.

Relationship‐oriented leaders may tend to be more extroverted and focus on people, relationships, teams, motivation, and support. They encourage collaboration and frequent communication, and emphasize employee well‐being and happiness. They understand that reducing workplace conflicts and stress can lead to higher productivity. The upside is higher morale and job satisfaction, but sometimes at the expense of productivity and profitability. Those who prefer task orientation might call these leaders “wimps,” but that's usually due to a differing perspective. Many relationship‐oriented leaders can make tough decisions and tackle rough seas with the best.

Which style is better? Management theorists from Ohio State University and the University of Michigan published a series of studies in the 1950s that sought to answer this question. They discovered that it really doesn't matter, and that either style can be successful depending upon the situation. This led to a new management approach called Situational Leadership, which I studied at length a few decades ago.

This approach recommends that leaders should use either style depending upon who you are leading and when. In other words, some people respond better to a Task‐oriented rather than a Relationship‐oriented style, and vice versa. This can also change depending upon the circumstances. For example, if the firm has a critical deadline, a Task style may be better. The problem with this approach is determining which style to use when and with whom, which can become confusing and almost impossible to memorize.

Perhaps it's time to introduce a new term called Neuron Leadership that encourages us to adjust our team leadership style to a person's situation based on their neuroscientific personality, demeanor, and psychological health. Also, to their role and responsibilities within a team unit. In the pages to follow, we'll explore this new concept in greater detail and uncover seven secrets to optimizing this approach.

In the next chapter, we'll see just how deep this rabbit hole goes, and find out how mysterious our minds really are.