The Captain Class: A New Theory of Leadership

by Sam Walker

Since the discovery of mirror neurons, scientists have learned a great deal more about the nature of emotional “transfers” and just how quickly they can overtake us. In 2004, Science published an article based on the work of the University of Wisconsin neuroscientist Paul Whalen and his colleagues, who discovered that when it comes to looking at images that convey powerful emotions like fear, the human brain registers them and begins to buzz with activity in just seventeen milliseconds. Before we’re even aware that we’ve seen a fearful image, our brains are already processing it. Scientists still don’t know what happens inside the body after these triggers are pulled or whether there might be a connection to the way people perform physically. Yet dozens of experiments done under the umbrella of “emotional intelligence” have made one thing clear: Many effective leaders can—and do—use this subconscious system to manipulate the emotions of their followers. Daniel Goleman and another psychologist, Richard Boyatzis, writing on this subject in 2008, said they believe that great leaders are the ones “whose behavior powerfully leverages this system of brain interconnectedness.” One method for doing this is something scientists call surface acting. This occurs when a person puts on an expression, or takes some subtle action, to try to influence the people around them. Another method, described as deep acting, occurs when a person doesn’t pretend to feel something but alters their a...