It hasn’t been the first time I have heard that someone was told they needed lead from their head and not from their heart. And yet, I was surprised that leaders are still giving this feedback.
What surprised me the most is the feedback wasn’t about balancing the two but rather excluding the heart in favor of the head. Not to mention it didn’t even include the other elements of wisdom we all have. To be clear, telling someone to just use their head and not their heart, is an outdated approach to say the least.
We have 3 brains; three sources of wisdom. The head, the heart and the gut gives us much needed information to make sound decisions. The head brings us analytical and cognitive wisdom. The heart brings emotional and affective wisdom. The gut brings us intuitive wisdom.
For three decades, research has been conducted on our use of our 3 brains. The Multiple Brain Preference Questionnaire (MBPQ) is a tool used to assess and research the use of our three brains. This tool essentially informs us of which brain we tend to lean into. Prior to this, the belief was that we only used our head to make decisions by analyzing the situation and using past experiences we may have had.
So how do you access these three brains? More to come on this.
For now, please, leaders, stop telling people to only use their heads because doing so says more about you than it does about them.
