Research
says
cognitive
and non-
cognitive
brain areas
appear to
be better
integrated
among
successful
CEOs.
THE BIOLOGY OF SUCCESS
School analysis of male, large- company
CEOs in Sweden came to a conclusion that
has turned up again and again in the litera-
ture on corporate success: that executives
tend to score high on tests of intelligence
and “noncognitive” aptitude but that they
are by no means extraordinary.
“Although the traits of CEOs compare
favorably with the population, they are
hardly exceptional,” the authors of that
Harvard analysis write. “There are more
than one hundred times as many men in
managerial roles in the corporate sector
who have better trait combinations than
the median large-company CEO.”
That analysis, like many others, found
that a man’s noncognitive ability was more
closely tied to his odds of landing a lead-
ership role than was his IQ. Non cognitive
ability refers to a number of different qual-
ities, but some examples are cooperation,
self-control, a “growth mindset” and social
competence. In other words, CEOs tend
to be utility players—people with a range
of above-average skills rather than a single
standout ability.
“The most successful CEOs are what
some have called whole-brained,” says
Forbes, who has studied the neuroscience
of leadership. He says some of the research
in this field breaks down the brain’s cogni-
tive and noncognitive skills into four quad-
rants of activity that roughly map onto the
actual structure of the human brain. For
example, the lower-left quadrant is heav-
ily active during planning and organizing
tasks, while the lower-right fires up during
emotional or interpersonal activities. “The
four major brain sections identified in this
research appear to be better integrated and
accessible in CEOs than in other popula-
tions,” he says.
Research has tied other brain charac-
teristics to success—though context is
important. For example, there’s evidence
that people who tend to be risk-takers and
reward-seekers may be more likely to suc-
ceed as entrepreneurs. At the same time,
these behavioral tendencies also raise a
person’s risks for substance abuse and
addiction—or for a lack of fulfillment evenalready be wired for success.
The question becomes: How did this
come about? “People may be born with
some crude biological propensity toward
delayed gratification, but I think it’s much
more likely these behaviors are learned,”
says Ian Robertson, an emeritus professor
of psychology at Trinity College Institute
of Neuroscience in Dublin. This mixture of
“nature” and “nurture” likely shapes many
other aspects of an individual’s neurobi-
ology—including traits or tendencies that
lead to success.
Of course, success can be a slippery
phenomenon to define—mainly because
it’s so subjective. While for some, wealth
and power equate to success, others prize
close relationships and harder-to-measure
forms of personal fulfillment. Likewise,
nailing down the brain characteristics
that raise or lower a person’s odds of suc-
ceeding is a tricky task. But there are some
cognitive and psychological attributes—
such as motivation, focus, risk-taking and
resilience—that seem to promote success
across many spheres of human endeavor.
And most of these, at least to an extent, can
be improved on or augmented at any age.
“Before the advent of magnetic reso-
nance imaging, it was thought that the
brain matter you were born with, you
lived with,” says Ray Forbes, a program
chair and business psychologist at Frank-
lin University in Ohio. “But what we’ve
been learning for the past 10 or 15 years is
that the brain is almost infinitely plastic.”
Forbes is quick to add that portions of
any individual’s cognitive traits and per-
sonality characteristics are dictated by
genes and early life experiences. But ev-
eryone has the capacity to reshape their
brain for success.Business leadership is a hot area of
scientific inquiry, and many thousands of
studies have claimed or aimed to identify
the personality characteristics and brain
traits that correlate with success in a cor-
porate environment.
A lot of this research is contradictory or
controversial, but a 2015 Harvard Business