In this blog, I have been explaining the importance of stress reduction and developing more coherent brain function for achieving excellence in leadership. I am happy to find that very key message of my blog has been borne out concisely in a recent book “Excellence through Mind-Brain development“.
Excerpt of a review:
In Excellence through Mind-Brain Development: The Secrets of World-Class Performers, Dr Harald Harung and Dr Frederick Travis show that excellence in any profession or activity depends on the single variable of high mind-brain development. This research-based book explains how, with higher mind-brain development, knowledge and skills become more useful, relationships more enriching, and actions more effective. Using the experiences of top performers like David Lynch, Jerry Seinfeld, Pelé, Sir Roger Bannister, Billie Jean King, Sir Alex Ferguson and Stephen Covey, the authors show how people that excel have a much more orderly, restfully alert and economic brain.”
Link to a longer, compact review: Gower Publishing.
It is very valuable for the understanding of effective psychological performance that they have demonstrated a correlation between excellence and the quality of brain functioning – expressed by EEG coherence.
Most importantly they find that
“The factors normally thought to underlie high performance—education, age, practice and work experience, and incentives—have little or no effect on mind-brain development and therefore on the level of performance” (quote from the review of Gower Publ).
Comment
The conclusions from this research concur beautifully with the theme of this blog.
The importance of the quality of brain function for performance has been greatly underestimated so far. People have been appointed to important positions, even presidents without any consideration of their suitability from this viewpoint. In stead, as indicated here, top level CEOs, financial leaders etc have signs of important brain dysfunction with serious consequences.
This research confirms the message expressed here already 10 years ago (See Top leaders must be tested) that it is time for society as well as government and business to select leaders on scientific grounds and not on the basis of education and other factors of no importance for the quality of brain function.
On Selecting Presidential candidates
Considering the importance of such positions, it is evident that it is detrimental and potentially dangerous to the nation to elect a a president with brain dysfunction or an under performing brain.
This might be taken as as an antidemocratic or pro-elitistic standpoint.
However, democracy can be saved by establishing a requirement that a presidential candidate has to be tested for the quality of brain function, similarly as the testing used by Harung and Travis or suggested in my article “A test set for detection of Survival-Oriented-Behavior”
Stress, Mind and Leadership 