Book researching neuroscience in leadership is global success

A professor is celebrating a triple whammy after his book discussing neuroscience in business leadership has been translated into several languages, updated for a new edition and provided the opportunity to appear at international conferences.

Establishing a new way of understanding leadership 

Alexandros Psychogios, Professor in International Human Resource Management at Birmingham City Business School, originally wrote and published Neuroscience for Leaders - Practical Insights to Successfully Lead People and Organizations in 2016.

The book - written with Nikolaos Dimitriadis - was recently renewed for a second edition, which Alexandros believes is down to its unique and highly needed subject matter.

“There are many leadership books, but most of them reproduce previous knowledge on that field,” Alexandros says. “This book attempts to establish a new way of understanding leadership as a complex social phenomenon.” 

Research with critical impact

Alexandros was inspired to create this research due to his own leadership and management background.

“Neuroscience provides a distinctive way to approach leadership as a behaviour,” he says. “I felt that the results could be robust and have a more critical impact.”

Furthermore, Alexandros felt that the more cognitive and scientific aspects of leadership are often overlooked.

“Neuroscience offers the opportunity to test biologically various leadership concepts and ideas,” he explains. “This book is revolutionary insofar as that it tries to scientifically support leadership behaviours that can bring results.”

The importance of emotion

The book has yielded some interesting and useful findings.

“Research shows that there is a higher neural synchronisation between leaders and their followers. In other words, a strong relationship between the leader and the follower is vital for the effectiveness of the leadership process,” Alexandros explains.

“Emotions also play a huge part. For example, if we see a leader react with fear, we tend to imitate this attitude, even if we haven’t experienced this situation first-hand ourselves.

“The book explains why we find uncertainty disrupting, and helps us to realise that reactions and emotions are normal. It can help leaders better understand their abilities, how to make decisions and how to stay motivated.”

International acclaim

Alexandros has been blown away by the positive and widespread reception the publication has received.

“Since the book has been published, we have accepted hundreds of proposals to speak about our findings and conduct training. It has been translated into Chinese and Japanese, and is currently being translated into Portuguese, Vietnamese and Greek.

“I’ve also written a number of articles, including a recent piece for Frontiers in Psychology.

“It’s also been accepted as main reading in various executive programmes about management and leadership, and has provided us with the opportunity to talk about our ideas in many conferences around the world.”

Neuroscience for Leaders: Practical Insights to Successfully Lead People and Organizations is out now.