Juhro, S. M. & Aulia, A. F.

(2018) studied the importance of transformational leadership,

advantages of applied neuroscience and its role in encouraging transformational leadership.
The results of this preliminary study revealed that transformational leaders encourage and drive
an organization to achieve its goals and remain agile and adaptive in volatile, uncertain,
complex, and ambiguous situations. In this regard, applied neuroscience provides a better
understanding of the brain’s processes that can help improve the required competencies of a
leader to transform an organization. Furthermore, applied neuroscience addresses broader
transformational leadership competences, such as emotional intelligence, breakthrough, agility,
social intelligence, influencing skills, communication skills, problem-solving, decision making,
coaching, counselling, mentoring and other competences such as being visionary, empathetic,
spiritual and vibrant. With the help of applied neuroscience, transformational leaders can
manage their emotions and hence control their behaviors.
Kadgien, C. A & Kuhlmann N. (2018) discuss the emerging themes in the field of
Neuroleadership and the cognitive and neurobiological processes associated with complex
social interactions and how these insights could be applied to the workplace. Furthermore,
researchers try to find out how Neuroleadership helps in identifying effective leaders, improving
leadership skills, and identifying unconscious factors that drive their behavior. This study reveals
that even though neurological assessment could be used in the selection and placement of
leaders, it’s not the only tool and understanding of brain activity doesn’t necessarily lead to good
leadership behavior because leadership is highly context related. The researchers conclude that
neuroleadership is an emerging and promising field but the research in this area isn’t sufficient
to draw robust conclusions.
Waldman, D. A. & Balthazard, P. A. (2015) discuss how neuroscience can be used to
understand the leadership styles and processes within an organization as well as its advantages
over the traditional approaches. Findings of this study reveal that effective and non-effective
leaders can be differentiated neurologically. In comparison to traditional approaches of
assessing leadership capabilities such as surveys that are plagued by rating biases,
neuroscience in the form of brain imaging enables a more ecologically valid assessment and
can provide theoretical insights into the basis of leader cognition, emotions, and behaviors.
Liu, Y. Z., Jing, Y. D., & Gao, M. (2015) studied the neural basis of behavior of Transformational
Leaders. This research discusses two causality models to explain the theoretical development
of neurological leadership; model 1 explains leadership behavior dependent on the imaging
brain activity in the resting state which means there is a lasting and stable brain activity or
structure and model 2 assumes that real time leadership behavior and stimulus trigger
functional brain activity. Researchers also introduce the concept of emotional contagion in which
a leader’s unconscious emotions stimulate identical emotions in people around them which
means leaders should be able to control their emotions in order to keep their people positive
and motivated to achieve the shared vision.
Jiang et al (2015) studied the role interpersonal neural synchronization (INS) plays in leader
emergence, and how INS and leader emergence are related to the frequency or the quality of
communications. A total number of eleven groups each consisting of three members were
recruited to participate in a leaderless group discussion and their brain activities were recorded
through functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) based hyperscanning. Research findings
reveal that the leader–follower pairs showed a higher INS than the follower–follower pairs in the
left temporo-parietal junction which is concerned with social mentalizing. The frequency of
communication was higher for the leader-follower (LF) pairs than for the follower-follower (FF)
pairs, however there was no significant difference noted in the frequency of leader initiated and
follower-initiated communication. It was further noticed that LF pairs had a significantly higher
INS during leader-initiated communication in comparison to follower-initiated communications
and INS for the LF pairs during leader initiated communication was significantly associated to
the competence and communication skills of leaders and not their communication frequency.
This study concludes that high level neural synchronization between the leader and followers
relates to leader emergence and that the quality of communication rather than their frequency is
associated with synchronization. Based on these results, it can be stated that leaders emerge
because of their ability to say the right things at the right time.
Juhro, S. M. & Aulia, A. F. (2018). Transformational Leadership through Applied Neuroscience:
Transmission Mechanism of the Thinking Process. International Journal of Organizational
Leadership 7, 211-229.
Kadgien, C. A & Kuhlmann N. (2018). Neuroleadership: Themes and limitations of an emerging
interdisciplinary field. Healthcare Management Forum, Vol. 31(3), 103-107.
Waldman, D. A. & Balthazard, P. A. (2015). Neuroscience of Leadership, Organizational
Neuroscience. Volume 7, 189 – 211.

Liu, Y. Z., Jing, Y. D., & Gao, M. (2015). Transformational Leadership: From the Perspective of
Neurological Leadership. Open Journal of Leadership, 4, 143-152.
Jiang, J., Chen, C., Dai, B. et al (2015) Leader emergence through interpersonal neural
synchronization. PNAS, Volume 112, 14, 4274-4279.