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The Inner Workings of the Executive Brain

New Research Shows the Best Business Minds Make Decisions Very Differently Than We Thought

Viktor Koen

Take much of what you know about how the best executives make decisions. Now, forget it.

For instance, we all "know" that tight deadlines lead to inspiration. Except they often don't. Instead, they typically are counterproductive—making people less creative precisely when they need to be. Or most of us assume that when we try to solve problems, we're drawing on the logical parts of our brains. But, in fact, great strategists seem to draw on the emotional and intuitive parts of their brain much more.

These are some of the insights coming from the world of neuroimaging, where scientists use sophisticated machines to map what's going on inside the brain when people do jobs or ponder problems. The work is still in its early stages, but even now it offers an extraordinary opportunity that wasn't possible before.

Researchers can now see how people's brains react to a situation—a process that, obviously, the subjects themselves can't see, let alone explain. That promises to provide a much clearer view of how leaders make good choices, and how other people can learn to follow their example.

Here's a closer look at some of the discoveries researchers have made.

Want Innovation? Be Wary of Deadlines

We often think a deadline can help us shake off inertia and focus on getting a job done. But the brain research suggests precisely the opposite is true. A deadline, instead, more often limits our thinking and can lead to much worse decision making.


Richard Boyatzis—along with colleague Anthony Jack and others—has found that a tight deadline increases people's urgency and stress levels. These people show more activity in the brain's "task positive" network, which we use for problem solving. But it's not the part of the brain that comes up with original ideas.

"The research shows us that the more stressful a deadline is, the less open you are to other ways of approaching the problem," says Dr. Boyatzis, a professor in the departments of organizational behavior, psychology and cognitive science at Case Western Reserve University. "The very moments when in organizations we want people to think outside the box, they can't even see the box."

For example, an IT manager being pushed to launch a new software product quickly might rush to get all the bugs fixed. With less pressure, he or she might have taken a step back, asked why all those problems were cropping up in the first place, and come up with a completely different approach to writing the code that worked more smoothly and didn't produce the glitches.

Does that mean companies should get rid of deadlines? In most cases, that's not realistic. So Srini Pillay, an assistant clinical professor at Harvard Medical School and founder of the coaching firm NeuroBusiness Group, suggests that companies help employees reduce stress and access the creative parts of the brain even when they're under pressure.

One such technique is learning to let the mind wander, with exercises like meditation. In that mental state, the creative part of the brain tends to be active. "When people hit a wall in their thinking, in general they start thinking harder," says Dr. Pillay. "What the neuroscience research tells us is that it's more important to think differently."

Big Unknowns Lead to Bad Choices

The ticking clock of a deadline isn't the only kind of pressure that makes for bad decisions. So does uncertainty, such as feeling that your job or your company's future is under threat.


Dr. Pillay cites a study that discovered that feelings of uncertainty activated brain centers associated with anxiety and disgust, and that such concerns naturally lead to certain kinds of decisions. "In times of uncertainty," he says, "you start acting out of that sense of doom and gloom."

The problem, he says, is that the study also showed that 75% of people in uncertain situations erroneously predicted that bad things would happen. So the reactions and decisions that were made based on fear and anxiety could turn out to be exactly the wrong moves.

Let's say a company is having a rough time navigating the weak economy. A manager who's mired in doom-and-gloom thinking might be too pessimistic to hire new staff or invest in new equipment. But those might be exactly the moves the company needs to gain ground on competitors.

Given that uncertainty is a hallmark of many modern workplaces, the solution lies not in trying to avoid it, but in learning to accept it. "It's important to be aware that your response is likely to be an exaggeration," Dr. Pillay says.

Dr. Pillay recently coached executives at a large energy company on making decisions amid uncertainty, and focused on helping them understand that no decision is final—if circumstances change, you can always re-evaluate it later. That can take the pressure off, he says, and free people to act. Simply being aware of your tendency to embrace doom-and-gloom thinking in uncertain situations, and consciously countering it by reframing an issue in more positive terms, can also be effective.

Good Thinkers Look Past Facts

Everybody is aware of the classic—and revered—image of the hardheaded decision maker, who cuts through nonessentials and goes after cold facts. But researchers are finding the truth is much more complex: The best leaders seem to lean on their emotions much more than logic.

Roderick Gilkey, a professor of management and associate professor of psychiatry at Emory University, conducted a study with colleagues to look at what happens when executives are making strategic decisions. They gave a group of midcareer executives a set of management scenarios and asked for their analysis and recommendations, then scanned their brains using functional magnetic resonance imaging while they completed the tasks.

They expected to see a lot of activity in the prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain known for its involvement in things like planning and logical reasoning. There was activity there, but different areas of the brain were dominant—those involved in social and emotional thinking. And the more adept strategic thinkers in the group displayed much higher levels of activity in these areas.

"The potential conclusion is that people who are good at strategy are better at sensing or feeling their way through strategies, rather than relying only on logic and being rational," says David Rock, director of the research organization NeuroLeadership Institute.

For example, the average manager tasked with improving a business's profit margins might embark on a cost-cutting program including layoffs, and would dismiss any emotional reaction as weakness. A good strategic thinker would pay attention to those emotions and think through the full, long-term impact of the cuts on things like employee morale, retention and productivity. The result might be a different way of improving profitability.

The research ties in with findings from other neuroimaging studies, showing that social and analytical thinking make use of very different areas of the brain, and that social thinking plays a more important role than previously thought. In other words, having a good capacity to look at a problem through other people's eyes is just as important as being able to analyze the facts.

An average leader, for instance, trying to execute a controversial new strategy might assume that it's enough to tell the team what needs to happen, without recognizing that they may feel their status has been attacked by being left out of the discussions. An exceptional leader would instinctively recognize the need to get everyone on board and not simply present a fiat.

"When you're making a decision in an organization, you also need to think about people and their reactions," says Dr. Rock. "A lot of the strategies that go wrong are because managers haven't thought through what happens when this hits people."

The problem is that most people don't switch very effectively between the social and analytical modes of thinking. "Our brain is certainly capable of switching back and forth, but we don't actually do it that much. When we get into a particular mind-set, it tends to be reinforcing," says Matthew Lieberman, professor of psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles.

He says that simple reminders can help. If you're in a meeting, for example, and know that you tend to get caught up in numbers and analysis, you could have prompts in your notes reminding you to take the social temperature of the room at regular intervals.

Leaders Should Stay Positive

Another area of research goes beyond decision making and looks at how good leaders inspire others—from looking at both the leaders and those they are leading. The secret seems to be the carrot rather than the stick.

Dr. Boyatzis and others have done brain scans looking at what happens when people recall their interactions with an effective leader. The patterns were very similar to those found in another study in which people were given positive coaching. Areas of the brain involved in social thinking were activated, along with areas associated with positive emotions.

The best leaders, it seems, are good at motivating people with things like encouragement, praise and rewards—thereby creating a strong emotional bond and sense of purpose among employees.

"We still have this lingering thought that you have to be negative and tough to get things done, when the data says that's just not true at a very basic human level," Dr. Boyatzis says. "It's not to do with gender or cultural differences or anything else. It has to do with how your brain is wired."

Meanwhile, other researchers are investigating the inner workings of the leaders themselves. David Waldman, a management professor at Arizona State University, has worked with Pierre Balthazard and other colleagues to do brain-imaging studies on corporate executives, entrepreneurs and army officers. Their aim is to find out how electrical brain functioning differs in effective and not-so-effective leaders.

One of their findings has to do with inspirational leadership—the ability to articulate a vision that inspires people and makes them buy into your strategy. Not only can these people see the big picture, but they can put that picture into clear words and impart it to others.

Crucially, researchers have found that those abilities are closely tied to connections between certain parts of the brain. Good leaders seem to make those connections naturally, while less effective ones don't.

Now Dr. Waldman and his colleagues are trying to apply that knowledge by training people to access those regions of the brain. The process involves neurofeedback, a technique that trains the brain to learn new processes. A computer monitors people's brain patterns as they observe activity on a screen, such as a movie. Then the computer gives people positive or negative reinforcement.

If the people aren't displaying the desired brain patterns, for example, the screen they're watching may go fuzzy. When they do display the right brain patterns, it becomes sharp again. Gradually, people's brains learn to follow the patterns that are positively reinforced.

The theory is that by the end of the training, people's brains will access those visionary-leadership areas naturally—and, with any luck, make it easier for them to inspire people more easily.

"We are right on the cusp of being able to assist leaders to rewire their own brains through neurofeedback," says Dr. Waldman. "It's based on a lot of research, and the idea is to identify patterns of brain activity that are reflective of a better leader, then give direct computer training to help people develop those patterns for themselves."

He says the technique is already being used in other fields, such as treating attention-deficit disorder. But neurofeedback still needs more research before researchers can be sure it will work in developing leadership ability. Even if it does, it will most likely need to be used in conjunction with more traditional techniques, such as coaching.

"We think this could be something that becomes an important part of the arsenal of techniques in leadership development," he says.


DAVID PASS subscriber


If it can be rewired for leadership, it can also be rewired for submissiveness, suggestion, sociopathic insensitivity , or other nefarious purposes.  How long before TV programs are subliminally rewarding us for a desired behavior (or are they already)?

Frank Anderson
Frank Anderson subscriber

If these vastly overpaid execs are so smart, why do their companies tend to perform so poorly on an operating basis?

JZ Bingham
JZ Bingham subscriber

If "re-wiring" leaders were possible, I nominate the entire United State Government for mandatory neuro-feedback. [it's probably not covered under Obamacare, but that's okay, since they're all exempt, anyway.]

Jeff Fitzsimmons
Jeff Fitzsimmons profilePrivateuser

I am a neuroscientist with 20 plus years of experience imaging the brain with fMRI and other evaluation methods. This article is loaded with half truths and ridiculous predictions. We are no closer to understanding how the brain works than the cave men were. Modern imaging technology has given us a unique view of some neural processes but it will be decades before any definitive statements can be made much less "neuro programming" of our thought processes. Executives are likely no different than anyone else based on the evidence. They are sadly subject to all the same errors as the average person, they just get more attention and usually more compensation.

Linda Galindo
Linda Galindo subscriber

"We are right on the cusp of being able to assist leaders to rewire their own brains through neurofeedback," says Dr. Waldman. I think this is pretty interesting and I know a lot of executives who would benefit from stopping their auto-response, unproductive patterns and become aware of ways to rewire that. Will they take the time to do so? Remains to be seen. But there is no question there is a lot of room for leadership to be "developed."

Manuel Malagon-Fajar
Manuel Malagon-Fajar userprofilePrivate

«Peter Cook: Yes, well, ah, the idea for the Frog and Peach came to me in the bath.
A great number of things come to me in the bath, mainly sort of mosquitoes and adders, but in this case a rather stupendous idea. I suddenly thought, as I was scrubbing my back with a loofah, I thought, "Where can a young couple, who are having an evening out, not too much money, and they want to have a decent meal, you know, a decent frog and a nice bit of peach, where can they go and get it?" And answer came there none. And so I had this idea of starting a restaurant specializing in these frogs legs and, er, peaches, and on this premise I built this restaurant.»

Manuel Malagon-Fajar
Manuel Malagon-Fajar userprofilePrivate

"A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week." General George Patton, US Army.

Manuel Malagon-Fajar
Manuel Malagon-Fajar userprofilePrivate

This article falls short on explaining how individuals learn to cope in high stress situations: firefighters, policemen, military, doctors &c. —training in emergencies, drills &c &c. The fact is that stress can be a stimulus to creativity once individuals learn to factor its influence in their endeavours. Although you can never neglect the importance of bathtub creativity:


& that folks is the reason why there's "art" in every human endeavour.

Jan Cullinane
Jan Cullinane user

Behavioral Economics is a fascinating field that, through experimentation, has found that much of how we think we think isn't how we really think. If you look into the studies on very large bonuses, you'll see that this, too, inhibits performance.

Jan Cullinane, author, The Single Woman's Guide to Retirement

Kay Sieverding
Kay Sieverding user

MIT has a great program called Undergraduate Research Opportunities. They pay even freshman to work with professors and grad students. When I participated, I was assigned a subject to research; the student's function was research not gofer. This was great for creating confidence. When I am around people w big resumes, I just remember that in the past I came up w good original ideas that big resumes I was working with at the time missed. Sometimes I even think "I think I can".

I knew someone who graduated from MIT w a bachelor's only. MIT got a patent on his thesis (on artificial skin) which had both his name and his thesis advisors. A few years after he graduated, MIT sent him a small royalty check. This guy went on to do extremely creative work in a field he hadn't even studied that was dominated by doctorates. He told me he got his idea from the physical world. It resulted in a $100 million per year product, the first conductive adhesive.

Edward Behnke
Edward Behnke subscriber

People are remarkably keyed in to fair play, as a leader you must be certain that all participants are hurt and helped the same. Even if you are on the winning side a sense of fair play will eventually dominate and the one sided leader will be rejected by all, as we all know the tides will turn. A leader is defined as a person who feels both sides and is fair. Leaders are rare, most rate success on implementing their ideas not finding a fair compromise. - these folks are in fact failures, not leaders.

Kay Sieverding
Kay Sieverding user

My father was a creative engineer. He said he solved problems by going to sleep in the bathtub.

What works for me is to flood my brain with information about the subject without trying to do much writing. Then I wake up in the morning with an idea.

I create a long draft. Then I save that as "outtakes" "subject". Then I create a file called "shorter" "subject". Sometimes I do that several times. Every time I can get away from it and come back it will get better. If I don't have time to get away from it, even changing form like going from a screen version to a printed version will help if I feel free to write on it and throw it away.

Felix Mahoney
Felix Mahoney subscriber

By the time an issue-- a "problem"-- gets to an executive, it's not just a single issue. It is boxes inside boxes inside boxes. The solution to one box is simple...until the next box gets opened. Then the over-thinking begins, the search for "granularity" and the inevitable paralysis that comes from "not enough facts."

One of the boxes that never gets opened is the box called time. As time goes on, as decisions get delayed, the problem mutates.

Sometimes the best thing to do is to define which of the boxes is the real issue, the one that is the strategic issue, the one box that contains the others.

But most executives today are mired in operational thinking, mired in points of view akin to accounting and number crunching. But nearly always, the issue is about people,

Richard Widdifield
Richard Widdifield

"...learning to let the mind wander, with exercises like meditation." Got to laugh. Letting the mind wander is not meditation.

Richard Beers
Richard Beers subscriberprofilePrivate

Similar to views expressed by economist/psychologist Daniel Kahneman in 2011's 'Thinking, Fast and Slow', which explored decision making patterns and, specifically, that the mind intuits first, then narrows choices, then decides based upon facts. Or, that facts are often used to evaluate the outcomes of intuition. While many could dismiss such things as academic and not relevant in the practical world, they are in fact disruptive in many ways.

Think business intelligence systems and processes that we all interact more each day. They are structured to drive increasing amounts of information at decision makers, under the belief that 'more, faster' is better. But the mind wants context and landscape first around which to logically (or emotionally!) develop and evaluate options around which to position data.

Is it possible that 'Big, Fast, Real time' data can lead to increasingly poorer decisions?

Makes one think..............

David Rosenberg
David Rosenberg subscriber

After smoking was banned in our building, I found that I did my best thinking and problem solving (other than when sound asleep) out strolling and puffing on a cigarette. And yes I have woken up with answers to knotty problems that had been hovering around my subconscious for days.

John Pound
John Pound subscriber

In terms of using "the whole brain" to make decisions, it helps to routinely activate that side of the brain one is not predisposed to use.

E.g. - left-brain or logical/analytical types can benefit by adopting a creative hobby; something that generates activity in the right side of the brain, where the spacial/creative/intuitive functions reside.

For right side types, forays into the analytical or left-brain can aid in structuring creativity into actionable plans.

Earl Jacksboro
Earl Jacksboro subscriber

"We are right on the cusp of being able to assist leaders to rewire their own brains through neurofeedback," Had to LOL at that one. Good leaders won't need rewiring. Poor leaders might benefit, but it's more likely they have simply been promoted to their level of incompetence and should be moved down a notch where they will do their best work. We do not need the ability to "rewire" somebody's brain, and I question the long term efficacy and value and of any such a program. What we really need are programs to accurately identify potential effective leaders, and then develop that natural talent. These researchers are a bunch of academic schemers with too much time on their hands with no clue as to the needs of large organizations.

Chen Sun
Chen Sun user

WSJ's community comment system truly ******. Constantly blanks out my writing, if I just click on the end of the comment. Fix it WSJ! ***** big time.

CARL SPETZLER subscriber

The research on the brain shows what goes on inside of our head -- but most significant decisions (after they are recognized) aren't just solved in our heads. We engage others, reach out for data and use analytics often over weeks.
As Herb Simon recognized, humans tend to satisfice -- that usually get's them only half of the value that they could get if they sought decision quality (DQ). The concepts and tools are known and taught in a free MOOC called DQ 101.

Stephen Keith
Stephen Keith user

I find a good, long, painful run does an excellent job at clarifying the mind. It shuts down every unnecessary mental thing and what is revealed is the core of whatever problem that is troubling me.

GARY FIELD subscriber

In 1978, Herbert A. Simon, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, won the Nobel Prize in economics for his work on managerial decision making within organizations. He pointed out that, contrary to economic theory, managers never made "optimal" decisions. They "satisficed"; that is, they searched decision alternatives until they found a "satisfactory" solution and chose that. The time taken to collect more information to render a "more optimal" solution is often a luxury managers (and organizations) can't afford.

Sometimes, teachers of management have relevant insights to offer.

Jeff Boone
Jeff Boone subscriber

The danger in conclusion from brain scans is precisely the point that we cannot really see into the cognitive processing of decision and choice. I do agree that emotional processing dominates effective leadership. But it requires emotional intelligence... defined as that capability to recognize and understand self and others' emotional impulses and their causes, effects and consequences.

People prone to high or low emotional processing, but lacking adequate capability to balance this and data/fact, will forever being making sub optimized decisions and will be prone to mistakes.

David Sprogis
David Sprogis user

Any zen practice is good for creative problem solving.
It's a good way to get in touch with your soul and, at the same time, have the occasional "ah ha" moment.

Susan Graim
Susan Graim subscriberprofilePrivate

I could mine this entire article for gold nuggets. But what catches my attention immediately is the brain-imaging studies on corporate executives, entrepreneurs and army officers by David Waldman and Pierre Balthazard. "One of their findings has to do with inspirational leadership – the ability to articulate a vision that inspires people and makes them buy into your strategy." Imagine that? After years of hearing that "inspiration" is too touchy-feely for corporate America, we have scientists contradicting that assumption. Kudos to Tiara executive women's coaching for knowing that intuitively.

Frank Anderson
Frank Anderson subscriber

Greed, avarice and cowardice are found prominently.

Brian Seel
Brian Seel subscriber

A lot of this makes sense. Deadlines tend to be self-imposed, artificial, and unimportant. The market doesn't give you a literal "deadline", just ask Blockbuster or scores of other companies that were beaten. But so many times you see companies rush to hit a fake deadline (usually tied to Wall Street) and they cut innovation or development of a product/idea short. It is illogical, which is good support that leaders are not always engaging their brains.

To the point on the unknown, the biggest problem of living in a data drenched society is that business leaders literally believe the data will leap off the page and give them an answer. It won't, facts illuminate the situation (you are in a coal mine, it is dark, the canary is dead) but they won't tell you what to do next. You have to make a decision, you have to take an intentional course of action (that ideally would be well thought out) in response to those facts.

And finally, on what I would say is the proper engagement of the social/emotional sectors of the brain. Most C-level leaders and their direct reports live in a world where facts are not available (those that are have been spun). In that world, your ability to judge the honesty, integrity, commitment, and soundness of logic in a human being standing before you (who BTW has spent their whole career training to spin you to get what they want) becomes your trade.

Milton Griggs
Milton Griggs subscriber

When you are a manager you manage people as well. There is a social and physiological aspect. Managers that are able to logically work though an inexact principle as the human emotional mind will have more success as a manager because they inspire their employees.

There have been countless examples of managers who know how to manage the production but had too many employee relationship issues to be successful. And countless examples of managers who where great at managing personnel but made horrible decisions about the process with equal failure.

James Sauter
James Sauter subscriber

James Sauter: At 87, following a very successful career I have been trying to understand why. Starting with my decision on career, how to prepare for it and how to make it happen. Where to go to school, what to study, what jobs to take, how to make decisions along the way. All the decisions were not the best but based on the results, almost always got the job done. You do not become a CEO otherwise.

Always the same process. Analyze the facts as quickly as possible, consult with associates if you are fortunate enough to have some capable and willing to really help and identify those whose support you need and show them the respect to get it. Nothing even close to that recommended in the article. The frequent reference to professors of management turned me off in a hurry. I have encountered manny of them and have yet find one that had a clue.

Greg Liautaud
Greg Liautaud subscriber

Sounds like academia has proven another preconceived notion.

Joseph Lyman
Joseph Lyman subscriber

@Richard Widdifield most meditation is calming the mind.  that said, calming the mind often permits it to become aware of aspects that had been obscured by the chaos which is normally our thinking process.

Leonard Lovallo
Leonard Lovallo subscriber

What you have to do is go to the comments page and write in the add a comment box at the bottom of the page. If you use the comments box at the end of the article all that **** that you are complaining about happens -Good luck getting WSJ to fix the flaws in their **** web site such as despite being logged in it will suddenly stick you behind the pay wall and you have to reload the site all over again or you are logged in, click on an article et voilà you are behind the pay wall and being asked to subscribe. Personally I believe WSJ hires tech people who graduated last in their class. I wrote them about this, they sent me to the help function -idiots.

Victor Cook
Victor Cook subscriber

I have the SAME exact problem.

And I agree completely with you, Leonard. The WSJ's site is incredibly sloppy, full of typos, and a nightmare when it comes to the web code.

The WSJ could be so much better than it is now, but that's a fact lost on the WSJ management.

Don Bosch
Don Bosch user

Indeed. Emotional decision making can be ethically disastrous (Petraeus) or globally calamitous (Hitler). These researchers seem less concerned with the dark side of such things.


You were referring to the academic who created this steaming pile, of course.

Chris Thomas
Chris Thomas subscriber

Couldn't agree more Brian, well said.

Byron Barksdale
Byron Barksdale subscriber

Regarding professors of management? "Those who can, do; those who can't, teach."

(Used to disparage teachers. From George Bernard Shaw's Man and Superman.) "Bob: I'm so discouraged. My writing teacher told me my novel is hopeless. Jane: Don't listen to her, Bob. Remember: those who can, do; those who can't, teach."

Joseph Lyman
Joseph Lyman subscriber

@Byron Barksdale really?

do the names W. Edwards Deming or Daniel Kahneman mean anything to you?  

i would suggest their contributions to the field of management are felt around the world.  

just sayin'

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